Mark / IL

Rapid Fingerpointing Machinery

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Border Guard Shoots Self During Sarkozy’s Departure Ceremony

June 24th, 2008 · 2 Comments

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Only in Israel can this happen — a Border Police (MAGAV) soldier fired a shot from his weapon, killing himself during the farewell ceremony held for Sarkozy.

WTF?

JPost article here.

→ 2 CommentsTags: Uncategorized

Destinator 7 240×240 Screen Fix

May 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment

After writing the previous post I realized that I made some modifications to my Destinator copy that several people might be interested it.

Since the 6915 has a square screen instead of the usual 240×320 rectangular one found on many PDAs, a slight modification to the UI files must be done.

The file can be found here.

Simply copy it to your Destinator directory (under Skin/All) and you’re set.

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Eyron Hebrew Breaks GPS on WM5.0 (iPaq HW6915)

May 10th, 2008 · No Comments

After almost 4 hours of endless tweaking, debugging and prodding of various hidden control panels in my iPaq 6915, I’ve come to a surprising conclusion: the Eyron-made Hebrew language support for Windows Mobile 5 seems to simply break the GPS software within it.

The symptoms I was encountering were extremely frustrating:

1. Start Destinator

2. Navigate to “Settings” then “GPS Settings”.

3. Watch the status title change from “GPS Device Connected” to “No GPS device found” in a viciously annoying cycle.

After a while, I’ve decided to simply perform a hard reset on my iPaq and reinstall everything piece by piece. Now, when you install Eyron Hebrew Support, it changes your UI language to full-blown Hebrew — menu items, input, etc. I usually set it to “English with Hebrew Support” so that I can read/write Hebrew content but still have a normal English UI.

Out of sheer curiousness, I started up Destinator — lo and behold “Valid GPS Signal”.

So, for some strange reason, if you set your interface language to “English with Hebrew Support”, no GPS for you. Otherwise, everything works as smoothly as possible.

Go figure.

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Storage Prices (HTPC Project)

April 24th, 2008 · No Comments

After some research via Zap, I’ve arrived at this spreadsheet. It appears that getting 2 500GB drives will be the optimal choice with regard to price per TB. Even though the NIS/GB ratio is rather high, the final price is the lowest one.

Comments?

→ No CommentsTags: Hardware · Technology

HTPC Project, Part I

April 23rd, 2008 · 1 Comment

I’ve decided to build an HTPC for my parents (and myself). The idea is to have around 2TB of storage readily available over the network and have the box hooked up to the LCD TV in the living room. The following components are required:

  • Case — I’ve purchased a Coolermaster CM-282 from SLG Computer Systems
  • PSU — I’m considering an Enermax Liberty 400.
  • Motherboard — I’ve decided to upgrade my own motherboard and use the old one for the HTPC. The new mobo will be a Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R.
  • GPU — I’ll probably get a Sparkle 512MB passively-cooled 8600GT from SkyPC.
  • TV Card — A Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 seems the best choice (multiple price choices here).
  • Hard drives — probably four 500GB Seagate drives (price comparison here).

→ 1 CommentTags: Hardware · Technology

New Vector Illustrations

April 13th, 2008 · No Comments

Check out some of the latest vectors I’ve uploaded to my Dreamstime account.

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More Photography

March 10th, 2008 · No Comments

More Photography

Here it is — an old alarm clock I found laying around the house. (Yes, I know the white parts got a little overexposed, I’m still learning).

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Spontaneous Nikon Advert

February 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

Spontaneous Nikon Advert

During a photography session, I took the picture featured in this post — only to realize later that it came out as a subtle ad for Nikon cameras. The image in it’s natural habitat can be found here.

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Knesset Member Blames Earthquakes on Homosexuals

February 20th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Israeli Knesset Member Shlomo Benizri, during a discussion regarding the recent earthquakes felt around the Middle East said (Hebrew version; English here) that “the Knesset needs to consider prevention of [homosexual intercourse]; [...] while we seek a physical solution to protect our buildings, one of the reasons [for the earth quakes] is the Knesset’s acceptance and legitimization of homosexual intercourse”.

The Homo-Lesbian community, instead of whining like a bunch of pansies, managed to save face and wondered whether the issue is “close to the Knesset Member’s heart”.

I can’t even begin to comprehend how our government manages to call itself “enlightened” and “progressive”.
We’re still a third-world republic and no amount of high-tech start-up companies and arms exports is going to change that.

Damn, the Idiocy tag needs to be applied automatically along with the Politics one.

→ 2 CommentsTags: Idiocy · Politics

Balls of Steel

February 19th, 2008 · No Comments

Balls of Steel

I’ve recently started getting into photography. The attached image is just one of a small set I’ve posted on the media page here.

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