CouchPotato

Do you use SickBeard with SABnzbd???  If so you need to check out CouchPotato, this little app will keep an eye out for any Movies you have been waiting for, snatch them and send them to SAB, awesome.  Loads of little features for quality settings, etc.  Check it out

Windows Download

Newsgroup Downloading

An alternative to using Torrents to download stuff is Newsgroup downloading

BBC iPlayer on PS3 outside of UK

I have tried a few different proxy servers and VPN's to access both UK and US based TV on demand services but wanted to use the PS3 to access the BBC iPlayer.  If you want to access the BBC iPlayer and other TV on demand services then read on.

Cyprus Cyta Internet using own router

I have spent many hours trying to configure my own router to work with Cyta Internet in Cyprus and today I was successful.  It turns out it is really easy and means you no longer have to put up with the rubbish Thompson TG585 supplied from Cyta (and I think you get a discount for using your own equipment if you return the Thompson one).

Renewing Car Tax in Cyprus

Unlike most things in Cyprus renewing you car tax is relatively straight forward when you know how.  Car tax expires at the end of December or June regardless of when you first taxed your vehicle.  First go to:-

https://www.jccsmart.com/index.aspx?ci=en-GB

Click on car tax, you may need to create an account.

Then enter you vehicle registration and the last 3 numbers of your vehicle registration number, this can be found on you vehicle registration document (all in Greek, on mine it was C.9 and was the last three numbers of my service number but might be your passport number).  Then enter your payment details and print out the tax disc.

Easy

IPod Touch Recovered after accidental hard reset

Today I stupidly did a hard reset on my IPod Touch, after just completing a half marathon.  I desperately wanted the run data in Nike + IPod to sync but my itunes wanted to restore my ipod (clearing all data).  Using the blackra1n jail breaking software I managed to re-jailbreak it and it restarted as if I had never accidentally done a hard reset, result!!

Sony Vaio VGN-AW21XY Laptop Dies and Comes back to live

Yesterday my Sony  suddenly took a nose dive in to the laptop grave, I have only had about 10 months so was less than impressed.  The stupid thing just died, power failed and every time I tried to power it back up it would just power off again a few seconds later.  If I left it for an hour it would last a couple of minutes before powering off so I assumed it was something to do with the battery or charger.  Tried running it with no battery, same result, tried running it just on battery, same result.

XBMC Remote

Had to post about XBMC Remote from collect3, if you have XBMC running on any device and own an ipod touch or iPhone this is a must have app. The app basically uses the http server functionality built in to XBMC to control XBMC. A remote control I hear you say, no, much more than a remote control. With this app you can see your whole media library, control XBMC in many ways and do it all from anywhere in the house (or world). The fun part of this means you can freak everyone out by stopping and starting playback from the kitchen but the serious part means when your young kids disturb you to come and put a different film on and you are upstairs, whip out the trusty ipod and start a new film, happy kids, happy you!!!

Wireless Wake On LAN (WWOL)

Having just started using XBMC remote on my ipod touch I wanted to use the wake on LAN feature. I have a Sony Vaio VGN-AW21XY that uses an Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN wireless chipset, it spends a lot of time plugged in to my TV. It was relatively straight forward to set up WWOL, I went to the properties for the network device in device manager and under Power Management enabled "Allow this device to wake the computer". I then put the MAC address in to the setting on XBMC remote, disabled require password on wakeup in windows and then rebooted.


Now starting XBMC remote on the ipod wakes the laptop up and as long as XBMC is running I have full control.

Windows Vista Folder Size

I am sure alot of people are already aware of foldersize, an awesome little program to add a foldersize column to windows explorer:-

http://sourceforge.net/projects/foldersize

Biggest problem with foldersize is that it doesn't work with Vista/Windows 7, I have recently got to the stage on my C drive where I have little remaining space but can't find where all the space is being used. Short of going through every folder to find my missing hard drive space I needed to find a solution, I wanted to find something similar to the Disk Usage Analyzer in Ubuntu. There are tons of programs out there but I decided I wanted to use the Disk Usage Analyzer in Ubuntu.

Welcome to my blog

I have decided to start a blog for two reasons, the first to keep track of stuff I get up to. A lot of this will be computer/gadget related stuff, I am always figuring out how to do things and then 2 months later forgetting what I did. And secondly to share hours of searching on the net with other people. Please feel free to leave comments