Hey readers! I am very excited to write this post. I just downloaded the WordPress app in my Google Nexus ONE from android market and couldn’t wait to try it out. It looks very nice, and I like it already. So, this was my first post from Nexus One using WordPress app. Until next time, Ciao.
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[Download information is provided at the end of the post]
I have always found it a pain t to manage my passwords and account information across my home and work computers. Some time ago, I found out about KeePass– an open source, desktop based password management software- and it seemed very appropriate for my need. The issue of syncing between two computers was easily taken care of with Dropbox.
Now, the problem re-appeared since I got my Google Nexus One a few days ago. How do I traverse the web in my shiny new N1, if I don’t have my passwords with me? Well, the first thing that came into my mind was to go for an online solution, where I would be able to manage my passwords through an web-based application. That would solve my problem, since I would then be able to access it from any PC as well as my N1.
There are a number of websites that offer such service, among which Passpack and Clipperz seemed to be more popular. I signed up with Passpack. Now I needed to get all my account info into my Passpack account. As I expected, Passpack offers a nice and effective ‘Import’ tool with which I got all my info from KeePass database into Passpack. And it seemed very convenient to use from the PC. All worked well so far.
But (and that’s a big ‘but’), navigating Passpack in my Nexus One seemed to be very troublesome. When I clicked on an entry, it opened in a pop-up like window to show the details, and the pop-up was designed to position itself at the center of the browser screen. And this is where it all went wrong. Every time I zoomed in or out, the pop-up kept throwing itself off the screen, and it was impossible to navigate to it. I had no way of editing or even copying information from there.
Secondly, Passpack provides a 1-click ‘Copy-to-clipboard’ functionality which is very necessary to copy/paste usernames or passwords to various sites. Well, this just didn’t work in my N1. The ‘Copy’ utility copied some weird link instead of my username/password. I realized it was already time to say goodbye to Passpack.
So, back to Googling. There were a lot of password manager apps for Android/Nexus One. But what I needed was a sync option between multiple computers and easy access from my phone. And I found that my old friend KeePass has a client app for Android called ‘KeePassDroid‘. It had all the things I needed. It supported Groups feature to keep my passwords organized. It had easy ‘copy’ functionality for username/password. It seemed to do just fine, if I could just find a way to sync. Dropbox to the rescue again!
Now, here begins another part of the story. I have been using the latest version (KeePass 2.09) in all my PCs. This version uses .kdbx database files, which is not supported by the KeePassDroid app. Hmm, guess I’ll have to downgrade to KeePass 1.17. So I downloaded keePass 1.17, and converted my existing KeePass databases from .kdbx format to .kdb format (which is the native format for KeePass 1.17).
What about all the info I had uploaded to Passpack? Well, I figured since they had an ‘Import’ option, they probably have an ‘Export’ too. And they did! So now I had all my data back in the KeePass database.
I downloaded the KeePassDroid app in my phone, and I had only one more issue to take care of. How to sync the KeePass database (which resides on the PCs hard drive since KeePass is a desktop application). As I said before, Dropbox made it easy. I already had Dropbox installed on my PCs, so I just moved the KeePass database file to ‘My Dropbox’ folder. And then I downloaded the Dropbox for android app in my Nexus, and it synced up with my dropbox folder. And there I had my KeePass database right in phone!
For those who might try following my steps, here’s a little more detail about the last part.
[Tip: before you install KeePass or Dropbox apps, get a decent file manager app in your phone. You will need this. I suggest Astro or OI File Manager.]
I already had KeePass and Dropbox installed in my PC and had a KeePass database file inside my Dropbox folder. My next step was to install the KeePassDroid app in my phone. When I installed and ran the app for the first time, it prompted me to ‘Open’ or ‘Create’ a database file, and showed me a path where the file will be stored. I did nothing, and just hit the Home button to leave the app.
Next, I installed the Dropbox app in my Nexus. It asked me for my Dropbox account, which I already had (first timers will need to set up an account in www.dropbox.com). Dropbox synced up and showed me all my files. When I clicked on the KeePass database file (it’s the one with the .kdb extension), it opened up the KeePass droid app and prompted for the password.
However, when you click on the file for the first time, it may not work and you may see some sort of an alert. In that case, long-press on the file and you will get a menu. Select ‘Open this file’, and you will get some more options. Select ‘View file as Text’. The file will open as a text file with some weird text characters, just don’t bother about it and hit the Home button to close this screen. Dropbox will download a copy of this file in your phone. Usually it is downloaded in the phones memory card and path looks like this: /sdcard/dropbox/. Now you can open up KeePassDroid and replace the default path with “/sdcard/dropbox/[your_database_file_name]” and hit ‘Open’. Scary thing is, you will have to type the full path of the file including file name and extension.
Well, I hope this helps my readers.
Below are all the necessary download info once more.
A. Apps for your phone: Open Android Market in your phone and search for:
‘keepass’ to get the KeePassDroid app
‘dropbox’ to get the Dropbox app (download the one developed by Dropbox Inc.)
‘astro’ to get Astro File Manager by Metago
‘oi file’ to get OI File Manager by OpenIntents
B. Software for the PC:
Just a couple of days ago I bought the Acer Asipre One netbook. It’s handy, cute and cool. But before I could rejoice I found out a couple of irritating issues. One of them is that this machine comes pre-installed with a trial version of McAfee Security Center which requires online activation (which means you will be forced to buy the product eventually). I am not particularly a fan of McAfee, and I already have a licensed Kaspersky product. So I thought what the heck. I’ll just remove it and install the Kaspersky. But it turned out that it wasn’t as simple as that.
I removed McAfee through the Add/Remove software wizard, restarted the machine and went on to install Kaspersky. But, to my surprise, during the installation, the wizard alerted me that McAfee Security Center was still present in the system and it aborted the installation. What the …? I instantly understood that there were still some entries present in the registry. OK, that’s not so much of a big deal. I’ll just open the registry, find all keys with ‘McAfee’ and remove them. Well, let me tell you, this did not work either.
So, I went back to Google and after a brief research, I found out that I needed a tool to remove McAfee from my system. I got that from McAfee’s support page. The rest was pretty simple. I ran the tool, it removed every trace of McAfee from my system, and after a restart I was able to install Kaspersky. So happy!
To get the tool from my Box.net online storage click here.
Here are some beautiful logos that are really inspirational. These are not created by me. I found these from an article in Smashing Magazine website. Most of them were from these two articles:
Beautiful And Creative Logo Designs For Your Inspiration
Drawing Inspiration From Creative Logos
Bananas Films
Families
Shocked
Modern
Page Fold
Twins
Poseidon Jobs
Fine Liquor
Fold It
For the last couple of weeks, I was thinking about upgrading my OS Tiger (10.4.11) to Leopard on my MacBook Pro. The biggest reason was, I was feeling a growing need to be able to work on Windows natively, without any limitations.
I had previously used Boot Camp and installed Windows XP, when I first got my MacBook Pro. But later I found Parallels for Mac which lets me use Windows XP as a virtual machine from within Mac OS, and I stopped using Boot Camp.
Very recently, I again felt the need to have a separate Windows XP installation. So I thought of returning to Boot Camp, and that’s when, to my horror, I discovered some frustrating facts.
First, I found that the Boot Camp Beta that I had was not working anymore. It said that it had ‘Expired’. Then I found out that Apple had removed the free Boot Camp Beta from their support download, and had included it in their new version of OS X- Leopard as a feature. Now, the only way to get Boot Camp was to upgrade to Leopard. Talk about customer support service!! The good news though, is that Boot Camp is now out of Beta, and an upgraded Boot Camp version 2.0 is included with Leopard.
Anyway, after some serious struggle, I managed to get myself a Mac OS X Leopard DVD. Yay!! And I immediately set off to upgrade my OS.
First I copied all my important documents to an external HDD for backup. Then I inserted the DVD. I double clicked on ‘Install OS’, and it requested me to ‘Restart’. So I did.
Then I had to wait while the system restarted and the setup process started. It asked me choose an installation type. There were 3 options:
a. Upgrade
b. Archive and Install
c. Erase and Install
Now, from my experience I would say that it is best to go for “Erase and Install”. Why? Well, first I chose to simply “Upgrade”. The installation went smoothly, my OS was upgraded to Leopard without any issues, I got all my documents, files, applications and settings as they were. Charming!
At least that’s what I thought until I opened Boot Camp to install Windows XP. (Tip: you will find Boot Camp in Applications > Utilities folder, or by searching for it in Spotlight). Boot Camp needs to create a partition where XP would be installed. I decided to have a 32GB partition. So I clicked on “Use 32GB” and hit “Partition”.
Boot Camp started to do something, but after a very long wait it returned me a shocking error message:
“Can not Partition, some files could not be moved” and suggested that I should backup and format my hard disk through Disk Utility. I was struck by horror and thought that something must be wrong with my hard drive. Nevertheless, I tried a few more times with the exact same result.
So, I opened the Disk Utility application and tried to find if there was any problem with the hard disk. I found no problem. Then I started searching and found out what actually was happening.
When Boot Camp creates a partition, it starts by moving files from the end of the hard disk to the beginning of the hard disk, and tries to create a single block of empty space of the size I specified (in this case, 32 GB). Now, because I simply chose to ‘Upgraded’ my OS, all the files from the previous installation (applications, settings, audio-video files and documents) have been kept as they were, scattered all over the hard disk. Boot Camp is having trouble moving some of the large files and throwing me that horrible error message.
After some more research, I found some solutions to this problem:
1. I could use some tool to ‘Defragment’ my hard disk. That would shift all the files to the beginning, and leave enough empty space at the end for Boot Camp to create the partition. One such tool is ‘iDefrag‘, which costs around $30 (after reading some reviews and blogs, I have a feeling it’s not worth it).
2. I could use some backup tool like ‘SuperDuper‘ to backup an image of my hard disk to an external drive or DVD, and perform ‘Erase and Install’. And later restore all my data from that backup image. This is really useful if you are looking to get all your apps and setting back as they were. (Tip: SuperDuper is not free, but it is possible to create a backup disk with the demo version)
I went for the 2nd option, only I did not use any back up tool. Because I had already taken backup of my important documents and I did not care if I lost all the applications and settings.
So, I again installed Leopard, this time with ‘Erase and Install’. After the installation, I ran Boot Camp and this time there was no problem with partitioning, and I continued with Windows XP installation.
But this time I ran into some other troubles with the installation. Those I’ll talk about in another post.
For now, let me enjoy my time with Leopard so I can talk about some of it’s cool features.
During the SoftExpo 2008, I had to design some more marketing material for Pyxisnet. These included some banners, posters etc. Most of these were designed for digital print on pvc film.
These were designed in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. As always, I worked on the images first in Photoshop and prepared them for the final design. But before that I had prepared free hand sketches of what the final design would look like.
Once the images were ready, I placed them in Illustrator, and did all the graphics there. I really like to create most of my designs in Illustrator.
banner 1
banner 2
poster 1
poster 2
poster 3
brochure demo
I have a MacBook Pro, and when I got my new Nokia E71 recently, I was worried about how the E71 and MAC OS X (Tiger) would talk to each other. Well, my worries were soon gone. Because after some smart googling I found all I needed to get my E71 talking to OS X perfectly. Basically there were three things I wanted to do:
1. Browse the Internet from my laptop using the E71 as a modem
2. Sync my Address book with my mobile phone’s contact list
3. File transfer between my laptop and mobile phone
And I am able to do all of the above using Bluetooth connection on my E71. I am using OS X Tiger, not Leopard, and my OS is updated to version 10.4.11. It is important to have all the latest updates from apple’s site.
Connecting to the Internet:
It’s easy to connect to the Internet using the E71 as a bluetooth modem. But for MAC OS Tiger users, it requires a little preparation and setting up. First, I downloaded the modem script which is required to use the E71 as a bluetooth modem. The modem scripts that are included in OS X Tiger do not work for the Nokia E71. The script can be found here. This zip archive has three modem scripts for three CID keys.
Let me explain the thing about CID keys. Each GPRS/EDGE/3G network provider has a unique Access Point ID that is required to connect to their network through a modem. It is a number which looks something like this: *99***1#. The CID key is the number at the end, in this case “1”. So the modem script with the appropriate CID key needs to be installed.
After downloading the zip file, I unzipped it and copied the files to the Modem Scripts folder inside the Library directory. The folder path is usually like this: Macintosh HD > Library > Modem Scripts.
One important information, this modem script is not required for MAC OS Leopard. Leopard users can connect the E71 much more easily.
Now I was ready to hook up the E71 with my MacBook Pro using a bluetooth connection. From my MacBook Pro, I had to set up a new bluetooth device. I opened System Preferences > Bluetooth > Devices > Set Up New Device. I followed the instructions. At one point it asked me to “Select the services you want to use with your mobile phone.” The screenshot shows my selection:
After clicking “Continue”, I came to another window which asked me some information about my GPRS/EDGE service provider. Here, the two most important things are the ‘GPRS CID String’ and ‘Modem Script’. The ‘GPRS CID String’ is the Access Point ID I talked about earlier and it has to be obtained from the service provider. Since my network provider is Grameen Phone, I entered the “gpinternet” (entering *99***1# would work also). And I selected ‘Nokia HSDPA CID1’ from the Modem Script drop down list, since the CID key for Grameen Phone is 1.
I proceeded through the next screens and my phone was paired with my laptop.
Now I just needed to set up a new Internet connection. In Network Preferences, I created a New Location named Nokia-Bluetooth from the Location drop down and selected Bluetooth in the Show drop down. This is what my screen looked like:
I clicked on PPP Options button and unchecked the ‘Send PPP echo packets’ because this results in connection failure for some providers. The rest of the selections can be seen in the screenshot:
I clicked OK. I left the TCP/IP and Proxies tab as is and went to the Bluetooth Modem tab. By default it should look like this:
I left the selections as in the screenshot and clicked ‘Apply Now’ and I was done.
That’s it. I clicked ‘Dial Now’ from the PPP tab and Clicked ‘Connect’ on the screen that appeared.
…and I was connected to the Internet!! Wow!!
Synchronization with iSync:
iSync works really well with E71. All I had to do was to download the iSync plugin for E71 from this link. I have kept a copy of this file here. This is a .dmg file which is Apple’s default format for any installer package. I just installed this, and iSync had no trouble finding my E71 through bluetooth.
From my experience, I see no connectivity issue between Nokia E71 and MAC OS Tiger so far. And I can easily transfer files between my phone and laptop using bluetooth connection.
Nokia E71 rocks!!
Finally I got a smart phone that has a full QWERTY keyboard AND it does not look or feel like a brick. Yes, I am talking about the new Nokia E71. The very first thing I liked about this phone was that it was actually smaller and much prettier than it looked in the photos. And that’s when I knew this was the phone I was looking for. The funny thing is, I was all set to buy a touch screen PDA phone when I came across the E71. But I am glad I got this one, and frankly this is much better than any touch screen phones out there.
This has got all the features I need. Most importantly, I need to be able to check and reply to emails on the road and stay online while I am out of office. Nokia E71 does an excellent job here. I am able to check all my accounts including Gmail. And Nimbuzz is just cool enough for me.
The first two things I installed in the phone are Opera mini and Nimbuzz. Though, the pre-installed web browser that comes with the Symboan OS is pretty cool too.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ll post more after I discover more cool things about the E71.
In April 2008, I developed some ideas for the corporate website for Pyxisnet. Although they did have a website hosted, they were thinking about having their site overhauled and were looking for fresh new concepts. I had a couple of meetings with them to try and understand what they were looking for. And I gave them some options for the home page. You can see the images below.
web 1
web 2
web 3
As a common concept in all the layouts, I tried to present the most vital information at glance, and in a very orderly manner. That’s why the compositions seem to be divided in rectangular areas. This also made the designs technically very suitable to turn into HTML mark-ups.
When I started, I had intended to build the HTML mark-up in the more traditional way of slicing the image in Adobe Photoshop and export into HTML. But later I thought about doing it with CSS, which was a bit inconvenient for me because I knew very little CSS at that time.
Nevertheless, I decided to just go for CSS and told myself, ‘hey! This is my chance to learn the damn thing.’ And so I started learning CSS, and in just a couple of days, I turned my designs into HTML markups using CSS.
Learning CSS is easy. The difficult part is to get it to give you exactly what you want, especially when you want your website to look the same in all browsers.
Below you’ll find some links which may help you get started if you are interested in learning CSS:
The W3schools online tutorial
A step-by-step CSS tutorial for the beginners
This leaflet was developed for PyxisNet limited in February 2008, during the SoftExpo 2008.
The design is primarily text based. Most of the design elements derive from the contents of the leaflet. The design was entirely done in Adobe Illustrator CS2.
leaflet
Pixelspace 