Ben Thomas – Bits and PCs

Windows 7 includes a new feature which allows you to hover over your taskbar icons, then middle click the thumbnail to close the program (similar functionality to closing Firefox tabs etc with a middle click). It annoyed me slightly having to click the thumbnail, rather than just being able to middle click the taskbar icon directly. The default action for middle clicking the taskbar icon directly is to open a new instance of the program… bit bizarre I think, but whatever.

So, I searched for a piece of software to add that functionality. Finally found a decent, lightweight one after Googling around for a while called 7 Taskbar Tweaker.

7 Taskbar Tweaker

I had to install it again recently, and it took me a while to find it again. So this post is for my own reference more than anything! Hope it comes in useful for others anyway though.

Also, if you’re looking for something to do this on Windows XP or Vista, Taskbar Shuffle should do the trick.

I recently gave in to temptation and bought a PS3. Got a package with InFamous, Killzone 2 and Resistance 2. Loving it so far, definitely still keeping the Xbox 360 as well though.

Anyway, onto the real reason I was posting this. I’ve been looking for ages now for something that would play MKV files without any hassle… even muxing was becoming a pain in the arse as certain things still wouldn’t stream (depending on filesize and various other weird factors).

These are the things I’d tried to stream from (through the PS3 or Xbox):

Windows Media Player 11 – Extremely fast and nice to use when it worked, however, it didn’t support mkv or some older versions of DivX/XviD.

TVersity – Played everything I could throw at it, but it was totally unusable for MKV or any HD content. If I tried to pause, fast forward or rewind I just got a black screen for over 5 minutes until it started playing again.

Finally, I’d heard great things about PS3 Media Server but I wasn’t getting my hopes up too much as I thought it would be so similar to TVersity… how wrong I was! I don’t want to speak too soon, but so far after a few days of usage it’s been flawless. Plays everything I’ve thrown at it, relatively fast at transcoding when it needs to (not instant but it’s definitely short enough to be usable).

Another cool feature is the ability to go into the #–TRANSCODE–# folder and select which subtitles you want to use if a file has subtitles.

Best of all, it’s totally free. Plus because it’s written in Java, it works on Windows, Linux or Mac (I’ve only tested the Windows version though).

Here’s a screenshot of the main status page. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of images of the other screens around the internet, but if anyone wants to see any more just leave a comment.

PS3 Media Server

So if you’re looking for something to stream any media from your PC (videos, music, pictures) to your PS3, then give PS3 Media Server a try! You won’t regret it. I know I didn’t anyway

It never ceases to amaze me the ideas people come up with when they’re in need of money for someone or something.

Recently saw this site buyacredit. It’s an idea conjured up by three guys that wanted to make a movie, basically you pay to have your name put on the end credits, in turn this obviously funds the making of the film.

Here’s the info from the “about” section on their site:

BUYACREDIT.COM is a ground-breaking new project aiming to raise the sum of One Million Pounds in order to fund the upcoming feature film “Dardentor”.

We have turned to the public to help us fund the movie. To put it simply, we’re selling its end credits online, here at BUYACREDIT.COM. For just one pound/two dollars YOU can become a movie producer and see YOUR name roll down on the end credits of the upcoming commercial motion picture “Dardentor”.

NEW ADDITION: Now for just 50 pounds/$100 you can buy advertising space on the all new Advert Patchwork and on the end credits.

The project has been going from strength to strength and has already captured the imaginations of thousands across the World. Industry professionals, celebrities, journalists and directors have sung nothing but praise for the project and are extremely confident for its future.

BUYACREDIT.COM is taking a brave new leap into the world of cinema, and it wants every single one of you to be a part of it!

BUYACREDIT now and be a part of cinema history!

Pretty clever idea. I don’t think I’d ever bother buying one, but I’m sure thousands of people will. No doubt it’ll be as successful as the million dollar homepage was. I just find it crazy how one idea can make so much money in so little time (assuming they pull  it off).

Good luck to them. I just need to think of something now

Dark Eye, originally uploaded by Tiestarian.

Just testing out the blog functionality from Flickr. Only recently started using Flickr to host my photos but it’s really nice so far. Much easier than creating a gallery manually anyway, and hopefully they’ll get more views on there.

This is a picture of my Mum’s dog. Taken with a Canon EOS 40D using the 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens. Not the greatest shot in the world obviously but there’s something about it that I really like

This is another assignment I had to do for uni. We had to use a lamp similar to the one you see at the start of Pixar movies and animate it in any way we wanted.

I decided to do a Mario style theme! It’s my first ever animation so it’s still very rough around the edges.

Pixario

Here’s the link. You’ll need the xvid coded installed to play it:
Pixario – 3D Animation (Direct Download)

Alternatively, you can view a HD version on YouTube. It’s slightly jerky on YouTube though unfortunately:
Pixario – 3D Animation (YouTube)

It was created in Maya 2008. The individual frames were rendered at 768×576 resolution and then compiled with audio and title sequences using Adobe Premiere.

Hope you enjoy it!

Found another cool application the other day, it’s similar to Last.fm in the fact you can stream music and find similar artists you might enjoy etc. You can also stream full albums, add music to a queue and create playlists. The quality isn’t perfect but it’s listenable, much better than most free “web” services. This is actually a desktop application though.

Here’s a few excerpts from their FAQ, they do a better job of explaining it than I can.

What is Spotify?
Spotify offers you legal and free access to a huge library of music. All you need to do is create an account and download our streaming music player.
What is your goal?
Our dream is to let everyone listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want.
Do I need to pay to use Spotify?
No, the advertising-funded version of Spotify is free of charge, however, for now it requires that you receive an invite to register. Alternatively, you can pay for an ad-free subscription to Spotify.

I’ve been listening for quite a while now and I’ve only heard one short advert so far, so it’s totally acceptable in that respect unless you really hate ads. I’ve got a feeling ads will get more frequent as their user base grows but for now it’s great.

It’s only officially available for Windows and Mac at the moment but apparently it works under Wine on Linux.

Here’s a screenshot from their site:

Spotify

Just found a site where you can stream TV. It’s live and totally free.. well apart from the TV license fee of course *cough*.

I really wish this had been available last year when I had crap reception most of the time!

TVCatchup – Free, Live TV Streams

This is another assignment we got at uni recently for a 3D modelling module.

These were created in a free piece of software called POV-Ray.

What an awesome game!

I finally managed to complete it on insane difficulty last night after many hours of getting killed by damn blood mounts all the time!

I found it a hell of a lot harder than the first one on insane but I guess they had to make it more difficult or people would start complaining.

Just need to get the coop achievement now… I’m not an achievement whore, honest…

Anyway, bring on Gears of War 3!

Just thought I’d post a few images of an assignment I had to do for uni. The task was to model a stegosaurus in Maya 2008 (a 3D modelling application for anyone who doesn’t know).

It’s my first proper model so it’s far from brilliant. I’m fairly happy with how parts of it turned out though.