Bittorrent for non-techies; part 2

Sam has tried Ted and here is his post.


Part 1:
Lizze bitches about...: Bittorrent for non-techies

Art, I presume

The reason I would say this is art is that these photos is taken inside the Tate Modern Gallery.

These are empty white plastic boxes, nothing more. Perhaps you can guess from the tone in this post is that I have no respect for modern art.

Modern Art is pretentious and it is all about marketing. Once an artist name is known and admired, then the artist can produce any shit and it will sell.

Why do people buy modern art?

Answer: Investment, investment, investment and money laundering. That is the main drivers behind the art market.

I have to admit that this exhibition did have a visual impact but I still claim that it has absolutely no meaning what so ever.

Also, the building of Tate Modern is fantastic and it used to be a power station.

I got scared by this …

I leaned forward to take a pic, the squirrel thought I was going to feed it and came closer and open its mouth, I got scared and screamed which scared the squirrel and it ran away.

But this man feed them instead with whole peanuts & they loved it.

A greedy pigeon (= rats with wings) manage to gulp down a whole peanut. Digestive problems perhaps?

Hello!

I have had family visiting over the weekend = no internet life. Thanks Sun for your very sweet message :)

You know all those things in your flat that you would like to do something about but never really get around to do. Well, when family is about to come and visit those things become much more urgent. We got a quite of few of those things done (including some the painting, Sam – thx for asking) and this took most of the evenings last week to do them.

The weekend was busy. They arrived last Thursday evening and after all the chit chat, we went to bed around 2am. I am not an early raiser and I would not say I wake up happy & merry, rather the opposite. My family is early birds *sigh* and my boyfriend should have a medal for going up early and giving them breakfast and so on.

Since they are family, they have the right to comment on that I am not a morning person, and trust me - that does not help my mood in the morning.

Anyway – on Friday we went to Central London for some shopping. In the evening we went to this wonderful Argentinean restaurant and had the very best fillet steak EVER. Yum yum yum. We stopped talking during the dinner – the meat was that nice.

Saturday, we went down South Bank and walk all the way to the Imperial War Museum. Among other items, they have a very powerful exhibition of the holocaust. For the evening dinner, we meet my boyfriend’s parents and it all went well.

Sunday, we walked in Victoria Park and then along Regent Canal to the Themes. It was very nice walk. Family liked this the best – they liked the idea of going somewhere where normally no tourist usually goes.

They left this morning and I made them take a minicab to Liverpool Street Station. There was no way they would get on the tube with luggage at 8.30 during peak hours. Noway!

Now I can’t wait until I finish work, go home and sort out the flat and then just to do nada. Well, will spend some quality time with my boyfriend ;)

May them both rule this F1 season!

Car: F248
Driver: Michael Schumacher

My MP in red (fr BB House)

Lovely .........

Thames Whale has died

It is so sad the whale has died. If only the whale had not swum in so far up the Thames then maybe it would have had a better chance.

The people from British Divers Marine Life Rescue, London Portal Authorities, RSPCA, Metropolitan Police Divers, London Fire Brigade and many more that tried to rescue did an amazing job and did everything they could. Imagine volunteering to go into the Thames on a January day and stay in the water for such a long period.

A big thank you to all the people that have helped this whale and thank you for keeping BBC and Sky updated with what was happening.

Britain has this very good quality that it pulls together when something big, good or bad, is happening. I think we have seen that today.

This whale has enlightened & highlighted the topic of marine life for many people, thousands of people were along the river and millions watched it on TV. As one whale has been through a rescue attempt, other whales have been hunted and killed. Animals in need brings out the best in people.

There is always a grumpy lot that is moaning that “What does it costs? The money should have been spent on humans instead” My answer to that is enough money is being spent on humans and people can always speak for themselves of any a concern of how the money is being spent.

An animal does not have that privilege and that is the reason why I only give money to animal charities.

If you want to donate to British Divers Marine Life Rescue, their details are here and here.

Let’s not let this whale die in vain.

The whale swimming in The Thames

Flickr.com is cool :)

Great pic

Lies, lies

And then there is this

Photoshop, eh?

The before-photo body looks good to me. Yes, the after-photo is looking better but is this really necessary? These touch-ups do have a great influence of how women feel about the weight etc.

This woman is fairly famous in the UK, she plays Amber in Footballers’ wives (best UK soap ever).

Bittorrent for non-techies

Here is a link to the software ted.

It will help the user to keep track on when your favourite TV show becomes a bittorrent. From the screenshots it looks user friendly.

I have passed the link round in my office and if I hear any feedback (good or bad) I will blog about it.

Disclaimer: I have not personally used it since my boyfriend has already set up bittorrent @ home.

BTW: this is my 100th post (not a very big deal but anyway)

Great blog

The man is nuts & evil but a great read

Anonymous Lawyer

Went South …

… of the River today. Just barely – we were meeting some friends at the South Bank. Or to be more precise, we meet next door neighbours' landlord. Our next door neighbour joined us also for the lunch.

It was a bit of a grey day in London but no rain. We took the tube to St.Pauls and walked over the Millenium bridge.

Bit of humour before the bridge :)


The view to the North (St Pauls in the background)


The View to the South (Tate Modern in the backgound)


The view to the East (Tower Bridge in the backgorund)



The view to the West (with no known landmarks that I can see anyway)


Walking down to the Southbank.


We went to this resturant. Alright but not all that.


We walked home via London Bridge and passed this reconstruction fo the Golden Hinde.

Download Google videos in PSP format part2

Got it to work! *yay*

This how to do it:

1. Have your PSP in USB mode. Plug in your USB cable in your computer and PSP.

2. Click on MP_Root folder (or if you don't have this folder, create it on the top level)

3. Right hand click and choose to add another folder. Name this folder 100ANV01

Go to video.google.com - choose a video that you like. On the right hand side, you will see a download button and next to it, choose PSP format. Save the file to the disc.

4. Move the file to the folder 100ANV01

5. Rename the file t0 MAQxxxx.MP4 each file must have a unique name. For example: MAQ00002.MP4

Then exit the usb mode, go to video and you should be able to play that video on the PSP.

Part 1:
Lizze bitches about...: Download Google videos in PSP format

PSP super-duper cases

Boyfriend found this great US website corecases.com that does nice hard cases for the PSP (and for iPods & Nintendo DSs). When the case is fully open, the PSP stands by itself. Until now, I have had the PSP leaning towards my stapler @ work.

It is also good value, US$15 per case. The case is of metal, I think aluminium, and have a magnet lock that will keep the case closed when not being used.

Corey from Corecase sent a handwritten note thanking for the order and also included a spare customized case with the Union Jack to us to give away. But I liked the Union Jack case so I am keeping that one and will give away one of the black ones instead.

I am just a happy customer and therefore am blogging about it. There is NO WAY such good service would be received in the UK.

The time line was:
1. Saturday 7 Jan: Ordered the cases and received an email confirmation
2. Saturday 7 Jan: Money deducted from Credit Card
3. Monday 9 Jan: An email with shipping confirmation with tracking number
4. Friday 13 Jan: Received the cases

Smooth and no problems – that is way it should be.

And now the pics:

Freestanding :)




Heeeeeey - it is me.
PSP has wifi so internet browsing can be done. The browser is not brilliant but ok. Any unencrypted wifi network can of course be accessed and who will know who you are ... but don't go visiting your own email account.



Derren Brown and his show The Heist. I am a Derren Brown fan and think his performace is great. I have been to two of his West End shows. Even his website is cool and different.

Word of the Day for Friday January 13, 2006

sesquipedalian \ses-kwuh-puh-DAYL-yuhn\, adjective:

1. Given to or characterized by the use of long words.
2. Long and ponderous; having many syllables.

noun: A long word.


Of course they (the Brits?) had to create an unpronounceable word for a long word. Makes total sense.

Above info from Dictionary.com

China, the up-and-coming superpower

From the Economist:
“China reported that its overall trade surplus stood at $102 billion in 2005, up from $32 billion in 2004. China's surplus with America was $114.7 billion, news that caused further political consternation in the United States.”

From Reuters:
“Last month, the U.S. government said the current account deficit totaled $195.82 billion in the third quarter of 2005, up from $166.98 billion in the third quarter of 2004.”

China will be the new superpower and the rest of the world has learn to live it. On the simplified basis that money equals power, the US has to get used to dealing with China which is a less of a pushover then the EU.

China is very similar to the US in the way that they have a huge domestic market. Once China’s domestic market gets more developed, China is going to be an even stronger counterpart to deal with. I think that there is a possible scenario that China will have a strong positive export due to cheap labour within the country and a growing domestic market. China’s biggest resource is the 1.3 billion people and the way Chinese government can use these people.
The EU countries rely much more on the export to other the EU countries and the rest of the world and are therefore less independent. None of the European countries could have gotten away with running a deficit as the US has been able to do.

Good man raises a good point

It is Tuesday morning and I am heading towards the tube station, picking up the Metro before going through the gates, walking down the escalators and am in luck – a train is coming to the platform. The train isn’t jam-packed which means that I can read the paper.

I couldn’t care less about the stories on the front page, photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger with a fat lips and the other story had the headline “Pubs in £200m coffee bar war”.

I turn the page and read the article about Gen. Sir Michael Rose and his opinion that Tony Blair should be impeached over the Iraq war. He said “The politicians should be held to account, and in my own view is that Blair should be impeached. That would prevent politicians treating quite so careless the subject of taking a country into war”

I break a cardinal rule of tube travel; I say out load “Good man”.

The General raises good and valid points.

Firstly, I, Mr Blair or you who read this - we do not a clue what a war is like. We are watching the war comfortable at home. I don’t see any of us signing up to join this fight. This is to be compared to if our own country was being attacked, then I think a lot of us would sign up. Tony Blair was too trigger happy and should have consider the consequences much more seriously.

Secondly, UK went to war over WMDs and not that Saddam Hussein is a dictator. The intel reports were rushed and attached with the very clever spin of Mr Alistair Campbell. By the way, BBC was 100% correct in that these documents had been sexed up but this was very clumsy expressed by Andrew Gilligan. The Hutton report was such a whitewash that it actually helped the BBC with its credibility. The whole Dr David Kelly issue and death is such a disgrace but that is another blog post.

The UN weapon inspectors should have been given more time to do their job. But no, the UK and the US had to smear Hans Blix reputation and primarily wanted to keep to their time table.

The result = no WMDs have been found.

Gen. Sir Michael Rose has a valid point, in a democracy there are (peacefully) procedures of holding the leader of a country accountable for the decision he has taken. The decision that Tony Blair took was a seriously wrong on questionable information. He is the leader of the UK and is responsible for the whole public service organisation.

In hindsight, I can’t help to think the Tony Blair had made a promise to George Bush that the UK would join them no matter what.

I think that George Bush was more honest then Tony Blair when it came to declaring the objective of the invasion. George Bush wanted to end the leadership of Saddam Hussein. I question the link between Saddam Hussein and Al-qaeda but that is for the American people to deal with. In fact, I believe the US is now fighting the enemy linked to the attack of 11^th September.

I luv cats

I was reading Cam’s blog. Of course I will follow his call to vote. But I could not find Kringer yet – probably because of time differences.

Anyway, ratemykitten.com is very addictive and I found this great pic which made me laugh.

Download Google videos in PSP format

Google has updated their video site and one can now download the videos in psp format (mpeg4) as well. Great stuff.

I tried and it didn’t work :(
The file didn’t even show on the PSP

I think a .thm file is missing and should have been created. I use PSP Video 9 for converting bit torrents. It creates both mpeg4 and thm file.

For the Google video, I renamed the file to the format to M4V00xx.MEG4 and then I could see the file BUT it says “Unsupported Data”

Ah well, it is difficult to sort this out at work, kind of here to work. I will have a go to solve this at home. If you have any tips – plz let me know.

Can't access my blog from work

I get the following message:


Access Denied
http://www.lizzebitches.blogspot.com/
The URL you have requested has been blocked by MIMEsweeper for Web because it contravenes the company Web Policy.
If you feel this page shouldn't be subject to this policy, or is essential for work, then please contact IT support.
URL Classification .................. PornDetected
Web Policy ............................. Scenarios

I shouldn't have written "horny" and "shag" in my previous post.

Big Brother 2 is watching over me.

Teamwork

CBB part 1

On tonight’s episode of Celebrity Big Brother, Dennis Rodman is getting serious horny and snogs (& a bit) with Jodie. A shag will happen before these three weeks are over!

My MP George Galloway said that he was surprised of the (low) level of discussion (too much sex talk and innuendoes). He was also surprised that nobody had asked him about being a Member of Parliament, about Tony Blair etc.

My conclusion is that he thought that he would be more in the centre of attention. Silly, silly, silly man – this is Big Brother! Hasn’t he seen the previous seasons what BB is all about?

This is a fun website about Gorgeous George and what he should be doing.

NOT TRUE but a little bit funny

Right - this is not true but it is a little funny.

I found this on Cam's blog

Oh Boy – I am so pleased with myself

When I went to Tokyo, I bought 2 PSPs. One for me (of course) and one for my colleague. It was for her son’s birthday. But she wanted a PSP too but her son refused to share it. Luckily another colleague was going home to Japan over Xmas so she put in an order for a White PSP value pack and today she got it.

I have a spare charger at work so we charged the PSP and then we did the initial settings. My colleague has not yet sorted the bit torrent downloads etc.

My PSP is fully loaded with three TV programs (Ghost whisper and two episode of Blind Justice). Included in her value pack was a USB-USB mini cable and a thought just hit me.

Maybe I could transfer my TV shows on to her PSP via my work computer?

I copied the data over to my work computer, hooked her PSP up and created the folders “MP_ROOT” and “100MNV01” copied the files from my work computer on to her PSP.

AND IT WORKED !!!

Sooo pleased with myself and she was even more happier.

Never mind that I broke a few IT polices – that was just the extra bonus.

PSP rules :)

The US has changed

Last time I went to the USA was summer of 1999. Now is it time again. Me and boyfriend are going to San Francisco end of Feb. We have just book the tickets and I received an automated email confirmation. In the email it says the following:

“As per US Immigration legislation and effective
immediately, during the check-in process, all
passengers travelling to the USA must provide a
full destination address for their first
night’s stay in the USA:

1.         Hotel, or residence Number and Street

2.         City

3.         State

4.         Zip Code (Postal Code)

Failure to provide this will result in passengers
being refused entry to the USA and therefore not
being accepted for travel at check-in.”

Bloody hell – giving this information at the check-in desk?

I don’t mind giving this information to the US authorities but I do mind giving this info to a private company.

Do I have a choice?

Yes – don’t go if you are not prepared to give this info to United. But we have decided to go (and I have already paid for my non-refundable ticket) so I will give the info to the airliner.

Last year, boyfriend went to the USA and he told me about the fingerprint scan and the eye scan. The USA has changed since the last time I went there.

I know why and I live in a city with a terrorist threat but that doesn’t mean that I am immune to these kinds of changes.

Do the US authorities have any kind of follow up? The cynical part of me is that anyone can book a room at Hilton for a night and then do a disappearing act. Whereas we are the normal tourists, I feel that we are paying a price with our integrity.

In one sad way, the terrorist is succeeding in their fight – the Western world is changing its way of living (not to the better). The terrorist influence is more just a bomb that goes for a moment – it’s the entire aftermath that has an influence for years to come.

Just to clear, I am not saying that all the changes are unnecessary but I do think that we are mostly unaware HOW our society changes after an attack.

Nothing that I didn’t already knew

Robert Schobles’s wife Maryamie wrote a post about why one should date a geek.

Robert Schoble works for Microsoft and his claim to fame is that he writes a blog that can be negative towards MS.

As for mine boyfriend, he is better on social things then me (or more interest in it then me) and I am not so sure that he would give up the latest tech thing for Angelina Jolie. It has to be something real unique tech thing if it is gonna sway his attention from AJ.

Boyfriend got AJ and I got Keanu Reeves. The Matrix’s film were like a wet dream for me *haha* plus they were good too.

Hairdresser, not really mine thing

I went to the hairdresser today and I don’t like it. It has nothing to do with the place and people – both are good and don’t overcharge for their services.

But I don’t like going to the hairdresser, never have and I suspect I never will. Of course, I want to keep hair in a good shape and I have not intention of letting me go.

I don’t do anything complicated, just highlights and a cut.

Today, my hairdresser was mucking around so it took longer then normal. She didn’t concentrate and left more roots then necessary. It is something about the situation that makes me feel vulnerable and I want to chill, not keeping an eye that she is doing her job. And I certainly don’t want to raise it either, and I didn’t (taking the coward way out).

Ah well, it is about two moths or so until I have to go back.

Stunned

I actually don’t know what to write. Our MP (Member of Parliament) George Galloway just stepped in Celebrity Big Brother.

WTF?

The only reason he is doing is to gain something but I don’t know what.I have to process this and, trust me, I will return this subject.

I know one thing – it makes damn good TV.

How strange

... to see Rubens Barrichello in BAR Honda outfit.

The Ferrari outfit is so much more familiar.

It just goes to show how all these images sneaks into mine consciousness without me really paying attention to it.

There will be interesting fight between Jenson and Rubens this year.

But Michael will rule this year and I so hope that he continue 2007 and beyond.

Blog-spammers

Just Fuck off!!

I did the following to the spam post received to today:

1. clicked on your profile and onto your blog
2. flagged it
3. deleted your post

I won't flag anything on blogger (except spammers & kiddyporn) cos this is a free medium and people can write whatever they want. If I don't like your blog or pics then I wont come back.

Film reviewing … again

Dead Man’s shoes is a very good film even though I didn’t get everything. I am not ashamed to say that cos the film is based in Northern England I can’t understand everything they say, the accents is a thick one. But the plot with its twist and turns is great. It also has 18 cert which indicates a good level of violence – shallow I know but true.

I have also recently seen the zombie film “Land of the dead” which must be a sequel to “Dawn of the dead” or even “Shaun of the dead”- a very good film too Anyway, the film is worth watching if you like these kinds of films.

I downloaded a episode of Cope a week or so before Xmas. It had the tag line Ho Ho Ho Cops and, co-incidental or not, all three segments were about hookers. Now – am I reading too much into this or was it an ironic tag line from America? The prejudices on this side of the pond are that the Americans don’t get irony and/or sarcasm – but I am not so sure. Just maybe they do …

Me today

I felt just like this at work today but I perked up after lunch.

Back to work

I have a long to do list – but nothing to do with work. Luckily, both my line manager and his boss are not in today. Today is a slow starting First Day back. It has been a lot of catch up of how peoples Xmas & New Year have been.

My To Do list

• Write a blog post – nice to get paid for writing a blog post, if only it was a long & well paid career in it. I can’t believe that blogger is not blocked by our IT system and I might as well use it before it gets blocked. We don’t have access to gmail/hotmail, gambling or porn (porn is not a big deal for me) done
  
• Call the electric company, Atlantic Electric and Gas. Cheap-ish prices but bad customer service. It is better to call from work. done
  
• Book a hair appointment done
  
• Sort out my PSP charger and label it done
  
• Check bank account + credit cards for any nasty surprises done no nasty surprises
  
• Send an ecard done
  
• Call my best friend for a catch up done, sort of ... she was out partying *go *girl*
  
• Call my stepdad done
  
• Arrange my 2006 calendars done
  
• Got a letter to arrange a re-delivery done
  
  

I normally don’t do too much personal stuff at work (compared to my co-workers that is) but today is a good day to it.

Good party @ neighbour downstairs

It must have been cos they kept going well past 6am. I don’t mind really (…) except WHY do they have to play shitty music?

The male singing was actually funny or maybe I should use the correct term: howling like dogs

The best thing was since they cranked up their sound system, so could we. It was cool to listen to our fav songs with some proper base :)

Now it is eerily quiet from their apartment …