Phew. Finished!

Apart from a few books at work and whichever ones have escaped into the far depths of the house my book database is done. Both offline and online.

2086 books

Legion of Super Heroes. Back in action

Tomorrow is a very special day for me. It's the day I head off to Forbidden Planet to pick up the first issue of Legion of Super Heroes with Jim Shooter doing the writing chores.

Newsarama have some preview images up and it looks stunning. The current run has been pretty "meh" but those preview pages give me a lot of hope. It doesn't look like Jim has forgotten what makes the LSH great.

A new project

Yesterday I started something I've wanted to do for quite a while but never got around to due to lack of tools. Making a database of my book collection.

I started off with Libra. A free database for Windows that allows you to scan barcodes using your webcam. It then trundles off to Amazon to pull out the information on your item. Initially I tried using it with my XBox 360 webcam with no luck. Happily my Logitech Quickcam 4000 works just fine although I did just order a cuecat from Ebay to make things even more straightforward.

After I'd been working on this for a few hours I was told about a wonderful web project called Librarything. This lets you create an online database of your book collection and share it with the world. It also features some very nice social networking features. Better yet it allows me to take a csv export from Libra and import my books neat so I now have a local database and a nice searchable online copy.

I haven't finished yet but my current catalogue can be viewed here. You can also see a random selection of books (Complete with Amazon links) over to the right.

And of course once I finish my current collection keeping it up to date with any new books becomes trivial.

Christmas is a time for hacking

This Christmas morning I turned my spare PSP battery into a hardcore Pandora hacking machine. I don't actually need a hardcore Pandora hacking machine but it certainly can't hurt to have a way to unbrick the thing if I need to.

On Thursday I'm going out to buy a PSP Slim. I'll keep that updated with the real Sony firmware so I have something I can use with my PS3. My old PSP Phat shall continue to be used for homebrew (Ahem).

It's not straightforward doing this sort of thing. The people writing the tutorials and readme files seem to have no skill in document writing in the slightest. They always assume the person reading them knows exactly what they're talking about which is exactly the wrong thing to assume of someone who needs to read the documentation. It's also a common flaw in most open source software. I got it done in the end though. Sony must have been gutted when that secret came out. It pretty much negates every single security measure they've put into the PSP firmware :)

Frank is my bitch

What are you looking at pal?

DSC00044.JPG, originally uploaded by HGFB.

Meet my new friend Frank Dalek. 18 inches of bubbling green hate in bonded polycarbide armour.

It looks like my soul is a gibbon. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Stern look

IMG_2570
Originally uploaded by HGFB.

Don't point that thing at me matey

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Another test

Ooo. Free image hosting for your blogs

He certainly likes his treats :)

Doctor Who DVDs

While I wait for the BBC to release the official DVDs I thought I'd make my off-air recordings a bit prettier.





The covers were done by this really talented chap
http://gmaskew.com/art/gileskent/Gileskent.html

and I downloaded the dvd labels from usenet. I don't know who did those unfortunately :(

Of course I'd just like to stress that I have all the new series dvds preordered (Including the boxset) and I'm a total merchandise junkie. The BBC will certainly be getting their moneys worth out of me :)


A big shout out to my homeboys from Finland

RSS this!



That's a Finnish Winter btw :)


Canada here I come

It'll soon be time for my holidays and again I'm off to Toronto with a brief few day stopover in Niagara Falls afterwards.

I'm definately looking forward to going to this place again

Hoffdrops

It's my new fave picture

New tech

I was getting a bit sick of my 20gig IPod 3G. It was much bigger than I actually needed and I always forget to stick it on charge. So yesterday I decide to go on the hunt for a 1gig flash player that takes a single replaceable battery

I narrowed it down to 3 models. An IRiver IFP899, A Creative Muvo Micro N200 and a Samsung YP-T6Z

In the end I plumped for the Samsung. I was concerned about the lack of decent UMS support on the IRiver and the Creative while having an FM tuner just didn't do it for me. The Samsung I've found is a really nice player.

Aliens of London

I'm not sure what to make of Doctor Who last night. I enjoyed it as I've enjoyed all the episodes so far but I can't help but wonder if RTD has made the correct decision in the level of humour he's pitching in his stories. Aren't kids generally considered to be a little bit more sophisticated these days? I also have to admit having a WTF? moment when the space pig appeared but since it led to a very nice "angry Doctor" moment I'll forgive it.

Up against Celebrity wrestling next week I predict a significant ratings fall as people tune in to watch T&A instead of UNIT busting ass :)

It did feel very Jon Pertwee era to me though. Which is never a bad thing.

I love him to bits

The little cam whore :)

I'm somewhat bored at the moment. I've been fiddling around with various packages to convert MPEG2 footage from my dvd recorder into XVid for use on my Zodiac2. Unfortunately ever single package I've tried so far has been utter and complete shite.

Still. At least there's tonight's new Doctor Who to look forward to.