Free MAC Address Changer

There are rare occasions when even an average user needs to change their MAC address, otherwise known the physical network card address (on Windows you can check it by typing ipconfig -all in command console). One of the most common reasons is MAC filtering by internet providers. In my case, I needed to be able to use my company laptop for strictly job-related purposes from home. The problem was that my internet provider only allows one computer to be connected to the internet; more than one computer sharing the connection means that monthly fee goes double. I am not kidding here – welcome to Poland.

Were I to use more computers in the home network, I would probably just sit down and tinker a bit, the result being a post on routers with MAC cloning (this may happen one day), but as someone who normally abides the rules, I didn’t want to go down this road. After all I only use my company laptop on rare occasions, so I just needed to change the MAC address of its network card.

While searching for a tool that would allow me to do that, I realised that there is a is a crapload of programs out there that I would have to pay to use. It seemed to me that changing MAC address is such a simple thing that a free program should be able to do it. I was right – there are free programs that will change your MAC address, they are just buried in Google underneath steaming piles of crappy software the creators of which are greedy.

The most comfortable solution I have found was Technetium MAC Address Changer v5 (the name is pretty much self-explanatory). It’s user friendly, simple to use, does not include fancy-schmancy overblown visual interface, gets the job done and rus on almost every Windows system out there (not sure about Windows 7 though). A great simple tool for a particular purpose is what it is.

Oh, and to anyone that would like to go on about how displaying ones MAC address on the internet can be potentially harmful – did you read the title?

How to save and convert YouTube to PSP

I know that there are programs like YouTube downloader and PSPTube to download and watch flv movies on your PSP. They both have some shortcomings, which is why I prefer to watch movies in mp4 format using PSP XMB menu – it is much more comfortable, esthetic and smooth than PSPTube (with all due respect towards its creators, of course).

My story starts with this great music video:

At first I thought that I would download it using KeepVid, an excellent page for saving Youtube videos, would be enough – after all, it provides user with a link to movie in mp4 format (higher quality version of the video) in 16:9 proportion and encoded with H.264, so theoretically it was a perfect choice for saving it for PSP.

Unfortunately, even though the movie looks nicely and is recognized by my PSP, it would hang randomly every now and then during playback, especially when fast forwarding. After careful examination with Gspot (ohoho, I see what you did there with the name), it turned out that the problem is due to resolution of the video. Look at the information below:

I actually missed it the first time – the resolution is 480×270, instead of 480×272. Almost, but in this case “almost” makes a huge difference.

Having no option but to convert video, I started looking for a program that would do the job for me. I wanted something that would be idiot-proof and easy to use, as I don’t have much knowledge about video encoding process (I used to dabble in image and video processing when I was a student, but that didn’t include meddling with half-broken codecs). I don’t have to explicitly mention that the program had to be free as well, do I? PSPVideo9 fit the description, so I downloaded and installed it.

On the whole I find the program annoying – error reporting is quasi-non existent, user interface is cluttered with spam (sorry, commercials). Blargh. But I have decided to give it a try, since I already had it installed. Since as I mentioned before I am a newbie when it comes to video encoding and I do not intend to waste my life on trying to learn the intrinsic details of the process, I have chosen Normal set of options ( less things to fiddle with).

After minimal trial and error, I have settled for these settings:

The result is the video that does not take too much space, has decent quality (more or less the same as seen on Youtube in higher quality) and plays flawlessly. Video parameters are as follows:

Yes, the video stream is a bit too generous when it comes to kbps, but still the result is satisfying. Reencoding with 500kbps doesn’t yield that much difference in file size, so for the sake of this HowTo I have decided to keep it simple and remain in Normal settings domain.

Now, the process of conversion doesn’t take long and with the settings now saved as default, it is pretty much automatic – download Youtube video with KeepVid, process with PSPVideo9, put on PSP, enjoy watching.

Now it’s feedback time – what do you think about this post? Useful? Simplistic? Plain wrong? Let me know via comments.

How to install Bookr – video tutorial

Long time ago I wrote this comparison of PDF reading software for PSP. In short: Bookr is the best. Almost two years have passed since then and the post remains up to date – situation in this particular homebrew niche has not changed.

Recently, I have found a YouTube channel with many interesting PSP video tutorials, higly recommended, even though some of them are more on the illegal side of things. Nevertheless, since I got a few questions concerning Bookr and how to install, here goes the video for all those that have any trouble with the process:

It also shows how to use it, something that I would never thought anyone would need instruction on, but then again, I thought installing Bookr is dead simple.

PSP-Disp

I don’t remember when was the last time I was as excited by a homebrew utility (emulators don’t count) as it in case of PSP-Disp. At the first glance, it is merely a deceptively simple application that allows user to use their PSP as external monitor for a PC. The author describes it as follows:

…it basically gives you an additional monitor with a 960×544 resolution (four times the area of the PSP display). There are four components working together, on Windows a display driver, an usb driver and the interface application which captures the screen, compresses it and sends it over USB to the PSP. On the PSP side there is an application that decompresses the frames and displays them. All settings are adjustable from the Windows side, the PSP really only acts as a passive display…

Pretty cool, but why all the fuss? Because when we scratch the surface, there is so much more to it – I think that the power of this homebrew lies A) in the fact that it just works, which s not always the case for every home-made application out there, and B) in its wide range of configuration options. Not only can PSP be connected via USB or through WLAN, but also display can be tweaked to fit user’s preferences and thanks to control mapping options, PSP can act as a joypad too. Now that’s really neat!

Speaking of tweaking display modes – you can configure PSP-Disp to have the PSP screen follow the mouse, thus acting like a zoom on the cursor (useful in some graphic programs), or you can have it show a defined fragment of your PC monitor, so it becomes a zoomed scope of your rifle.

You can use it as a separate screen, so that your Winamp controls are always visible (lame, depicted above) or to have communicator window open in order not to interrupt your Half Life 2 session (l33t, depicted below).

You can use it to mirror your PC screen, so you can play a PC game on your PSP, using controls mapping, which essentially makes your PSP a joystick with a cool monitor (see the video). Also, it opens door to so many pranks on YouTube (Windows Vista on PSP! Linux on PSP! Linux on Virtual Machine on Windows on PSP!…) that I don’t even know which one to start with.

I am very pleased with this application and find it useful, pretty (PSP as sleek additional monitor looks really great) and a breeze to use. I congratulate its author and am keeping my eye on the project updates. I will also donate through PayPal, once I setup my account there. Feel free to give the application a try and download i from PSPUpdates or from program homepage.

You can observe PSP-Disp in action on this YouTube video, with the coolest part near the end, namely Resident Evil 4 being played via PSP (link for the impatient):

Ending this note, I would also like to remind everyone that there exists anoption to have it the other way round, meaning PSP screen displayed on your PC. You can see it in action here and if you would like to set it up yourself, check this great video tutorial. What makes it even cooler is that you don’t need TV-Out, meaning PSP-1000 (Phat) can be used as well.

SketchUp Warehouse in Blender

SketchUp and Blender are two great free tools that can be used for creating 3D objects. This is quite a simplistic description, because there are many differences, which I will briefly outline in this note. One is extremely easy to use and has a ton of free models available, the other one can produce stunning visuals – the questions arises how to make them work in tandem. Good news is – you can. Now read on.

SketchUp aims for quick and easy visualisation of architectural features, such as buildings and interiors. Its very user-friendly way of creating 3D content is one of the main reasons for its popularity. Its other strong point is its gallery of ready to use 3D objects. Hosted online by Google, it is called 3D Warehouse and contains almost anything one could think of, with the possibility to watch the model in 3D before downloading it.

Simple house in modelled in SketchUp

SketchUp is free for home user in basic version, but it remains proprietary software with some limitations that this imposes, namely the free version cannot export models in any other format than their own proprietary one, only good for exporting something for Google Earth. For access to more robust functions, users have to purchase the non-free Pro version. Also, it’s only available for MacOSX and Windows.

Blender, on the other hand, was designed for rendering digital images and creating animations, with game engine being added later on. It has enormous amount of functions and many applications, which also makes it more difficult to learn and use. The results produced with Blender, however, can be nothing short of stunning and skilled user can obtain far more visually appealing visualisations than what can be done in SketchUp. Contrary to Google’s application, Blender is 100% free software with no strings attached, distributed on GPL licence and has been ported to a huge number of systems.

Same house imported to Blender

So there we have it: two great but very different programs, each with its own advantages. Wouldn’t it be great if we could make them work together? It turns out that this is both possible and relatively straightforward.

First information I have found on the subject dates back to 2006, so it’s definitely not news. The general idea is simple – Google saves its file as a zip containing file in Collada format. All that user needs to do is to rename SketchUp file, unpack the archive and import Collada file into Blender using appropriate script. Voila, your recipe is ready.

When I was investigating the topic while creating animated music video with 3D elements, I used Alexv’s tutorial (which is well written and contains a link to Spanish version too), but not so long ago I have stumbled upon the other tutorial on Katsbits and I believe that this is the ultimate one. If you are a regular PC user, you shouldn’t have any problems with my one-sentence instruction above, but if you do, check this tutorial and almost every doubt and possible difficulty are explained in detail.

I wanted to illustrate this post with my own screenshots, showing the process of importing Fiat 126p from 3D Warehouse through SketchUp to Blender, with the final result being cel-shaded car for use in 2D animation I am hoping to complete one day, but I have realised that unfortunately I have lost my screenshots and files during system reinstall in 2008 and since I’m short on time recently, I allowed myself to use screens from Katsbits.

Av(i)aritia

Avaritia is the Latin word for greed and, in Sesame Street style, it is a sponsor of today’s note.

There are two very interesting free online applications I started using in their infancy (that is when they were still beta). I really liked the results I got and I planned to write about both of them. Unfortunately, both of them became non-free when their creators realised they could be making money out of it.

The first application was VectorMagic. In short, a great online tool for vectorizing images, yielding excellent results in most cases, especially with complex shapes and multiple colours. Used it, loved it – until it suddenly became non-free.

This is particularly nasty case – free for a long time, published at first at Stanford website, no mentions of any possibility of the application ever going to the market. Then one day, bam, out of the blue it changes website, becomes regular pay-for-use service and starts charging (not just a nickel) its users. Had I seen this coming, I would have scanned some of my art in advance, really. Going from “hey, we’re educational institution and we have this cool free tool for you to use” to “it’s a state-of-the-art professional software, so cough up buddy” was like a slap in the face. Steven Clark wrote a very thorough and detailed justification why he thinks it was a bad decision, so I don’t have anything to add here. I wouldn’t have put it better in word myself. Tsk, tsk. Shame on you, folks.

The second application was Aviary – a promising internet suite of different graphical (and in future perhaps more than that) tools realised in Flex technology. While in the beginnning it was free for beta-users, now it became a commercial service. At least they didn’t promise to be free forever.

Out of these two, I think Aviary has better chances of success, because the folks behind it seem to rely more on community and a wealth of functions than single pay-per-use feature. Restricting access to anything but Phoenix editor and placing watermarks for someone who decides not to pay, however, doesn’t sound like fun, especially since there are many free online alternatives to what really boils down to a little more funky image editor. Maybe the community part will make up for it, I am not sure.

Don’t get me wrong – I am all for authors getting paid for their hard work, but I also am fan of freebies, cheap alternatives and solutions that go beyond “pay or be gone” schema. Additionally, in both cases I felt that the amount of money one would have to pay for functionality at hand is a little too much for a home user – especially when it attacks me out of nowhere (I’m looking at you, VectorMagic).

So there you have it. Two cool applications, but unfortunately not free. Two disappointments for students, users from poorer countries, people that don’t have credit cards, and those still infected with “Linux mentality”. Two approaches – one slightly better than the other, but still not fully satisfying. I thought they were both interesting enough to warrant a mention on Barts News nevertheless, but when it comes to me, I think I’ll stick to trustworthy combination of Gimp, Inkscape and Blender.

Freestyling in Blender

Long time ago when I still was a student, I had time and lacked principles (it’s the other way round now, yay for being adult…). Back then I have been playing with pirated 3D Studio MAX and Illustrate! plugin. This combination allowed for creating sophisticated cartoon renderings, way more advanced than just regular cel shading options available in 3DS:

I assume that if you are reading this blog, you must at least have heard about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – this anime was also done using the combination of 3DS MAX and Illustrate!

At some point in my life I have decided to stop pirating software, movies and music. I still occasionally download a cool song or a movie, but I moved forward to using only legal software and paying for cultural goods I consume. From that point on, software such as 3D Studio MAX has become unavailable to me due to its cost. I am not a professional, I do not intend to make a profit from using it and the price tag is way above my financial level.

But I still have this little dream of creating a short animated movie, mixing 3D and 2D, and this is where Blender steps in. Blender is a 3D creation program that has more than enough options for a home user – I have written about it at least a couple of times and indeed I do have a soft spot for it. Some people (cough, Wojciech Orliński, cough) might laugh at free software, claiming it is inferior to commercial programs, and to some extent they are right (although not always so) – but for millions of students and folks from developing countries all around the world, this is a good and legal alternative.

Unfortunately, Blender has always been quite far behind 3D Studio MAX in the cel shading department. Yes, it was possible, there were some tutorials showing how to use it and whatnot, but it was all limited and difficult to use. The results wouldn’t be anything that could really threaten Illustrate! plugin.

While googling furiously for something with more potential, I have found Freestyle project. At the time it was barely usable. Perhaps someone with more skills and time on their hands than me might have managed to make it work – I didn’t. But the sample renderings from the project gallery were quite cool indeed:

Renaissance sketching style

Technical drawing
(compare with similar Illustrate! image above)

Japanese painting style

I have been patiently waiting for Freestyle to be incorporated in Blender ever since, checking back every now and then, when just recently – tada! – it has finally happened. As you can read in this post, Freestyle is being integrated with Blender. You can download the latest Freestyle-flavoured version from GraphicAll (just look for Freestyle branch). The process of setting the whole thing up is made easier thanks to a proper tutorial (download the PDF here). I haven’t given it a try myself yet, but the results look really promising, making Freestyle more reasonable alternative to Illustrate! for home users:

So go watch more videos in the aforementioned post and keep an eye on the project on the official development blog. I am really excited for Freestyle – I guess I might be doing my animation one day after all…

The Tao of Visualisation

Investigating the topic of visualisation of social networks that I have written about recently, I have come across VisualComplexity.Com, a great source of information on visualisation of various networks. Here’s what they say about it:

VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project’s main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web.

On their main page there are links to different visualisation projects, complete with short description and accompanying images. I have to say that some of them are really beautiful, true bridge between the worlds of art and science, with the exquisite presentation layer serving as the means of conveying actual information. Observe some samples below (and head to the project list on Visual Complexity for more):

Useful and very pretty (if only all women could be too), some of these projects almost make me regret having left my academic career related to visualisation. Also, as a result of visiting numerous sites related to the aforementioned projects, I have stumbled upon this beautiful videoclip prepared by user flight404 (check his blog for more cool things) :

Is there anyone who dares to claim that art and science can’t go hand in hand?

Graph visualisation of social networks

Visualisation has always been one of my points of interest, perhaps due to the fact that I have always been keen on both art and programming. I wrote on this very blog about my master thesis on visualisation of medical imagery. This concept is also directly related to my other hobby, computer games, as visualising imaginary world is the key to making the game interesting.

It is therefore not surprising at all that when I first saw the following video of interactive graph visualisation system, I was hooked:

SkyRails

That beautiful piece of software is called SkyRails and as its creator says, it “was originally aimed for social network visualisation. Then I realised it can also draw any (reasonably sized) graph interactively.” I have to say that I just love the graphical presentation layer, probably due to my nerdy upbringing – all that sci-fi movies in which some really cool interfaces floating in the air obviously had the effect on the way I perceive software aesthetics now.

(Let us open a parenthesis at this point – have you ever wondered who is designing all those futuristic interfaces we get to see in the movies? His name is Mark Coleran and the movie reel of his works can be either downloaded from his webpage or seen here on Youtube. Spectacular!)

Back on topic, Skyrails can visualise pretty much every social network, if only you’re patient enough to convert it to program’s own description (simple, but task could be somewhat tedious if you know many people and are trying to do this by hand). Therefore I tested it with pre-made file containing Naruto’s graph of relations:

Definitely impressive, I have to say. Also, don’t forget it can serve more serious purposes than checking what are the links between Naruto heroes – for example check this post on visualising protein interaction. Program’s author claims that Skyrails can also act as a server visualising live feed data, but I have not found any specific information as to how to do that. Nevertheless, this piece of software is great for any graph visualisation.

Being lazy, I didn’t type all my Facebook contacts into Skyrails, but began with googling to check if there isn’t someone who has done this already. While I have been unable to find any recipe on how to automagically have Skyrails chew on my Facebook data, I have found another very interesting program fit for that purpose.

Nexus is the online application for Facebook social network visualisation and it does the job very well (you can also access it through Facebook apps link). Not only does it take into account how you entourage is connected, but also commonalities between them, meaning for example groups or causes that user’s friends might share. The resulting graph can be presented in two forms (no flashy 3D display this time, sorry), radical graph and spring graph, as well as two themes. Compare how the information is visualised in the screenshots below:

Radical graph

Spring graph

The latter form is more convenient for clear distinction between different social circles user is involved with. On the spring graph above one could distinguish game industry professionals (highlighted with names) that I happen to know, my family members and their friends, two partially overlapping groups of fellow students from two specializations I have studied, very numerous and tightly connected group of AIESEC students, as well as two other groups connected by a person of Adam Lyons, small group of people I have been living with in France and some free electrons, meaning folks not connected to any other of my friends.

Spring graph allows user to observe how the groups overlap as well as the affinity between group members, as well as other little curiosities. For example, in the graph above one can find my buddy, nicknamed Ace of Spades, who is connected to three circles I happen to be involved with – a definite proof of his social skills. Nexus is both very informative and very interesting, plus it makes for really cool patterns (how about putting it on t-shirt?).

Investigating this topic I have also come across Walrus, an open source 3D graph visualisation tool, but since it is definitely less user friendly, I just mention it here as a curiosity. Perhaps someone with either Open Source fetish or more complex problem to solve will find it more approachable than I did. Nevertheless, it’s free and can be used for visualising social networks as well, hence it warrants the mention. Also, Walrus’ rendition of CVS tree has some fractal beauty to it:

If you happen to know any other interesting software that could be used for visualising social networks, let me know through comments!

Liquid scaling in Gimp

This is not exactly fresh news per se, but an interesting information nonetheless. What triggered my long overdue post was the information about certain feature coming to Photoshop CS4, the feature in question being content-aware scaling or, more precisely, seam carving.

First of all, have a look at the movie below explaining what this term even means:

Okay, with that out of the way let us continue.

Now, the normal course of action in the software world is that commercial programs (especially famous juggernauts, such as aforementioned Photoshop) introduce new cool features that free software clumsily tries to catch up with. When it finally does, the commercial software puts the pedal to the metal, accelarates and introduces new, more advanced features. Free software then tries to follow, rinse and repeat. That’s what happens, right?

Wrong. This is not always the case.

Check this post on Seam Carving being introduced in Photoshop CS4 (you can find more details in this article), then have a look at this article on PolishLinux.org – don’t worry, the article is in English. It is quite cool that free Gimp has the same feature available, even though it is not built-in, but requires a plugin. Also, it’s free (contrary to Photoshop), but what makes it really uber-cool is that Gimp has had this feature for almost a year now – just compare the dates. A-ha!

Liquid Rescale plugin in action (taken from Focused on Light weblog)

I am not a drooling Free Software or Open Source fanboy, I do realise that it has its fair share disadvantages (and one huge advantage – meaning he price or rather the lack of thereof) and limitations, but as someone coming from a country where for a long time commercial software would cost half of ones salary, I do have a soft spot for free software in general.

I also know that the comparison of two implementations of seam carving algorithm would be necessary to really judge how well they can compete against each other, but I can’t help but feel a little spark of mischevous joy seeing Open Source software sometimes leading one step before the commercial software, hence this post.

You can download Liquid Rescale plugin here and see some interesting examples here and in Flickr gallery. Good job, guys!