This is a small ‘hands on’ tutorial on how to fake a Itunes US account.
I live in the Netherlands and so i cant hire or buy movies straight on the apple tv. Therefor i need a US itunes account..

There are a few solutions on how to fake an US Itunes account.
In most cases u need a us creditcard and a us adress, even the paypal method needs to be a US paypal account.

Now the easiest way we think is the following:
- buy a US Itunes gift-card on ebay and let the code send by email (we received us within a couple of hours)
- download itunes
- install and open the itunes shop. (when already logged in, you must log out)
- scroll at the bottom and change the store to US store.
- Click in the top right menu at “redeem”
- paste your gift card code and continue
- fill in a real address ( use someone you know or try http://www.whitepages.com)
- Notice that the option to select payment “none” is available. (some case when use a hotmail address, this is not a option, therefor try another email address)
- continue filling the form.
- when finished creating a account, it can be necessary to redeem the code again.
- check your settings on the apple tv
- now you can enjoy rent and buy movies on the apple tv.

Have fun!

Update:  Due to the Hdcp control by the hdmi cable it’s not recommend to use this hdmi cable for your connection, we suggest using a component cable. For me personal it was not possible to watch rental movies due to the Hdcp. For a strange reason, buying and watch series episodes was possible! So to make it all work, just use the component connection!

Today i succeeded in completing a small Visual basic program that can send instructions via bluetooth to a Nokia (or other AT-commands) cell phones. AT commands where used to communicate directly to the Nokia cell phones. I was struggling for a long time to make a proper connection, i have tried some different Nokia protocols, in fact there are three. The standard At commands, the Mbus and the newer Fbus. There are many sites where you can lookup the supported format.

Although to make a connection with the PC i buy a serial data cable, yes the old serial ones, because we want to connect it lateron to a microcontroller.
To connect it to the pc i must use a usb to serial adapter, because i don’t have a serial port anymore. Like the most of us, i hope ;). Like i said before, i can’t get a proper connection through the cable for a long time, i have tried almost everything. So i came up the idea of using bluetooth instead. It was in fact really easy by then. All the ’simple’ AT commands worked properly. So why didn’t the cable work? I think its about the usb- serial adapter, that have its on drivers. The strange thing is a demo application called: Lylix worked good with (only) the Fbus protocol.

On the other hand, using bluetooth is easier then connecting a cable again and again..

So now the solution or rather called, tutorial:
First check of you (Nokia) phone supports AT commands and have bluetooth. We use a nokia 6021
Second get yourself a bluetooth connection, for example buy a bluetooth dongle.

more…

In this small tutorial or better called experiment we take a look at touch sensors.
Touch sensors are used for faucets, industrial switches and so on. You can imagine a nice solution..

So to get started we look at the components
- QT113-D Touch Sensor (parallax)
- 5 V voltage regulator (if you use a 9V battery
- 1 led for testing
- off course some wires and a test-board
- 2 resistors.
- cap 103 or 104

* additional look at the parallax scheme in the data-sheet on the page:
http://www.parallax.com/

Or just connect the parts like the picture to make a switching touch sensor:

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Today i was wondering if it’s possible to developing a low cost GPS tracking device. After playing around with the basic stamp, I found a GPS module that outputs the standard world coordinates in NMEA0183. For more details read the wikipedia page.

The GPS module can send coordinates of your current position by means for an SMS module to another mobile phone which can be attached to the PC. The easiest way then is to store the data in an XML type of file.
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In this article we are programming the basic stamp to trigger a remote switch for your home lights or any other power switching device, like a garage door, fireplace and so on. We are controlling it through the web or the ipod (the ipod also has a web browser)

How does it work?
After programming the basic stamp, it looks for a specific variable; when it receives this variable we are putting a current on the output pin of the basic stamp. The current switches a relay, this closes the electronic circuit of the remote “klikaan klikuit” transceiver. The variable, where it all starts with, is send through the serial / usb port by a single web page.

more…

This is a short preview of a open-source script we wrote. It allows you to acces your content, like music or video to your iphone or ipod touch, streaming. So if your 8GB or 16GB is not enough, there is hope!

Note: this is not the final code but to keep you updated i decided to post my progress.

Things that are not included.
- rating
- number of files
* and some design bugs needed to be fix.

How its done?

• First you need a (local server) like wamp.

• Second we add some php files and the conent to the right folders.

Folder structure:
WWW (default)
contains: php and css files.

WWW/my_dirs/albums/
contains: your albums named like: Artist - AlbumName

WWW/my_dirs/movies/
contains: your movies (.mov or .mp4)

Of course you can setup more folder and program other sites, for example like favorites.

The php files makes a listing of the folders and output them in a basic html page, witch the iphone or ipod can view.
When opening the actual files, the iphone or ipod opens the internal quicktime player, so your files can be viewed streaming.

see the screencaptures for more details:

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Before we start throwing you guys into the deep we first talk a little about what microcontrollers are and where you can use them.

A microcontroller is an computerchip including a ‘little’ microprocessor. Microcontrollers are frequently used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as automobile engine control systems, remote controls, office machines, appliances, power tools, and toys. By reducing the size, cost, and power consumption compared to a design using a separate microprocessor, memory, and input/output devices, microcontrollers make it economical to electronically control many more processes.

What is the BASIC Stamp microcontroller?

The BASIC Stamp module is a microcontroller developed by Parallax, Inc. which is easily programmed using a form of the BASIC programming language called PBASIC. It is called a “Stamp” simply because it is close to the size of an average postage stamp. The basic stamp is one of the most used Microcontrollers for hobbyist and professionals.

Blinking the led!
i start interesting in microcontrollers when i read an article to use sensors interacting the computer with Adobe director. So a start thinking of what you can make.. Thats alot of fun projects!

After a long trip over the internet i found a book called: physical computing. This book contains al the basics (and advanced) to get started whit the microcontrollers. I would deffinately recommend buying this book! In one of the first chapters you get starting making your own led blinking. Thats what we gonna show you first, because we need this basics to get understanding our future projects!

To keep in mind this is not a replacement for the book physical computing! It only describs the set up for starting bigger projects. We also dont describe the dangers and basics about electronics. For example if you want to know how a ristor operates you have to buy the book!

Get started!
first like you expected, we started with the shopping list:

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The next webapplication we discuss allows you to control itunes and winamp running on windows. without jailbraiking!
In the previous post we explain how you can set up a connection and how you simply launch an app.
But whats the use of that? So in this chapter we learn how to control iTunes and Winamp.

To keep the cost as low as possible we use free plugins. So everybody can follow along, although off course we like to hear other or even better solutions.

Before we start we look at Shopping list:
- Adobe director
- Director shell xtra (free)
- Itunes control trough command line (free)
- Winamp control trough command line (free)

in this quick example we use some different (easy) solutions like the “control trough the command line”. This is actually an extra step that isn’t paticular nesseccary, for example you can write directly an windows message (see next chapter) with the buddy Xtra. The buddy Xtra is a little bit more advanced and not free. So we keep on going the easy way..

There are some different approuches to interact with an program. We dont discuss all the options but two off those are basically sending keys or sendingwindows messages. Because we are now focus on Windows (see remote buddy for the mac) we want to use (the more stable) function sendmessage().

more…

Today we are gonna take a look at how we can control your Windows or Mac with the Ipod touch.

Because I just bought the ipod I don’t want to start jailbreaking it. So we first take a look at the possibilities of a web application.

The ipod touch supports most of the funcions of the safari browser. Unfortunately this means it doesn’t support flash.

Apple has a small developer website for ipod and iphone web applications. We need to get access to these files, so you need to register for free and get a Apple ID. ( if you don’t already have one).

see: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/devcenter/

But what now?

First we explain the theory of what we would like to accomplish.

Of course there will be better and stable solutions but today we are gonna choose the quick and dirty way!

The idea is to browse (on your iPhone) to a (local) website interface (the web application), through this web interface we will set and save a variables to a XML file. This XML file is stored on a server or a local server. On this server there will be a small application made with Adobe director (because it supports Mac and PC), which will frequently read the XML file. Optionally you can of course make your own application with C++ or something…

When this little application notices a change (to the XML file) it will ‘do something’. You can really make a function for whatever you want. To keep it simple we are launching some Adobe applications remotely. (See the image above). After processing the request we need to clear the XML file, to allow input of new commands.

Look at this image for a general idea:
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Johnny Chung Lee has come with a new and simple solution for a (multi) point screen. The idea is to track the IR point with an wiimote.

Look at Johnny Lee’s website for details..

Obiously, we from Labcoding.com love playing with the Wiimote, so we’re going to try Johnny’s experiment!

At first we need to download the software.

- Wiimote whiteboard
- Multitouch app ( if you build two IR pens, for one IR pen use, Wiimote Whiteboard)
- Direct-X sdk (it’s 426mb and only needed if you want to use the MultiTouch App)

Shopping list:

• 1 Wiimote
• 2 IR led (1.5V tolerant Led)
• 2 Small ‘press’ switch
• 2 (AA) battery

* for testing you can try a normal IR remote, but usually this blinks the IR signal, so it doesnt work that great!

Getting started:

First we need to make an IR led pen.

The scheme looks like this:

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To use the adobe Brio services you need to have a (free) adobe Id.

First go to the Adobe Brio link here.
Fill in the adobe id or create one.

Create a new url for your conference, like: http://connect.acrobat.com/YOURNAME

when the application is loading, you need to accept the plugin for screen sharing.

So far an easy set up.

For testing i invite a participant. In this case i will be inviting myself
The next thing i to share the screen.. It all starts up..
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The second project in line we anounced is the AlbumFlow.
It works almost the same like the MovieFlow beta 1.0, also the connection off the wiimote is done by ‘bluesoleil’ (or some kind).

For more details of how this works, please take a look at the MovieFlow topic.

Download here AlbumFlow Beta 1.0

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3D homeplanner is a study assigment i lately developed. The main goal was to create a 3d ‘home’ model, were you can add other 3d models, like an chair or table. At this point we are currently working on a few bug fixes and a good preloader.
If you open the program, it freezes a little bit, because it need to load all the models at once to get it working. This is not verry efficient. The biggest bug in line should be the save ‘button’. It takes over 5 minutes to complete. We are neerly fixing this. Also it’s Mac compatible (hybrid).

• Although, it’s worth looking at! There are a lot of neat functions and experiments in this project. Please be kind, post some feedback and report the bugs.

Download the zip file (27Mb)

* to keep the download as low as possible we removed the help video’s.

In this project we are gonna take a look at this movieFlow project. This is the first of the first beta in line. So don’t expect a totally bug free program!

The goal is to make a part of the total ‘media player’ concept like shown in the topic “concept media ui design and adobe director“. This little program should also be developed in adobe director, for the main reasons, fast and easy flash integration.

more…

We are currently working on a easy to use media user interface that support more then only the basic media files. To easily develop our concepts we use adobe director. Mostly for the reason that flash can easily be integrated. On the other hand we dont think you want a program running on a desktop (windows kind machine) to be your ‘home media player’. its not that stable, a dedicated device would be more stable and much faster. But that would be of the record to get started. So this will be basicly a experimenting program and UI design study for the big public. We are currently working on, music and video selecting trough the coverflow design. To keep this for the ‘big public’ we are using the wiimote (wii remote) as controlling device. For testing the keybord is also working. Lateron we discuss the code and development of this new concept.

Here you can see the first design concepts. All comments would be welcome!

How to easily hide your text messages into .jpg files:

First make a new path like:
c:hiding/

Put into the folder an normal photo like picture.jpg
next to this file you make a plain message.txt or .doc, whatever you like.

then the tricky part
convert the text file into an .rar format. For example with use of winrar.
next you want to open the command promd. Type the next line:

cd c:\hiding

copy /b picture.jpg + message.rar newpicture.jpg

just keep in mind that you have the good filenames.
Thats all!

Now you can open the file like an normal picture, but when you open it with winrar you can see the message!