Sunday 25 January 2009

Varilight dimmer remote control

Got one of these things a while back - they're neat dimmer switches with a touch control - no moving parts - get 'em from Homebase etc. They're remotely controllable (over IR-InfraRed) - and you can buy a specific remote for from about £5 upwards.

However these Varilight dimmers are smart - you can program them to do a bunch of things - depending on which model you have. It's not clear how to work that out (apart from testing it using its programming mode - see below), but all of them can be programmed to work with any remote control you have - e.g your TV remote. Just choose a spare button that you don't use and you can get the varilight to use it to turn the thing on and off! As mentioned here:

1. Tap switch 6 times - takes it in to 'learning mode' (After the 6 taps the light will go and off once more to indicate it's in learning mode).
2. Point your choose remote at it whilst pressing (for 2 secs or more) that your chosen button at it - the lights will go on and off.
3. Point the remote at the it again whist pressing the button and the lights should go on and off
4. You're done - it should work as your new remote control!

Friday 23 January 2009

Windows Mobile device sync problem finally fixed!

Finally - after trying a bunch of stuff since November last year I have managed to locate a cure for my 'Error' in WMDC. Amazingly enough this(also ripped off here) was the cure - it cures a related problem I also saw in IE when I attempted to download a cab: "this device is restricted from downloading this file type" - I was led here from the excellent xda forums
  • The problem and fix are incredibly created using Mobile Word ??!!** - when saving docs as plain text files - so beware. Here's the proceedure cribbed from the the link above (in case it disappears):
  • 1) soft reset device
    2) Start / Office Mobile / Word
    3) Create a new document (click on New)
    4) type some text (just plain text - no formatting - it was 'plain text document') just a few characters
    5) File / Save As...
    6) I have selected type 'Plain Text'
    7) It asked me whether I want to save it at 'Word document instead' - I clicked No.
    8) I have powered off the device and did soft reset
    9) Start file explorer, find the file (it was in My Device / My Documents), click on it - it opens Word again.
    10) Add some formatting (I have selected part of text and changed font to bold)
    11) Close Word - it asked whether to save it in Word format - this time I said Yes
    12) Power-off the device and press soft reset again

As to why this works is anyone's guess... I did take the trouble to dump my security registry keys (HKLM\Security\Policies\Policies) before I performed the magical fix but I found no difference in those key values before and afterwards.... But there seems to be a mountain of security related controls in Windows Mobile - see MSDN's Security Policy settings, Provisioning Security Settings - I'm sure somewhere in there is the answer....

Monday 5 January 2009

Dirty Sexy Money S02E10 - doesn't exist!

Are looking for the "final" episode of Dirty Sexy Money .... or, even worse, have you already downloaded Dirty.Sexy.Money.S02E10.HDTV.XviD-NoTV.avi or Dirty.Sexy.Money.S02E10.HDTV.XviD-NoTV.avi.rar?

And then it asked you for that pesky password from some spam website:www.askmu.com?

Look no further ... You've probably seen the last episode of this series already (S02E09) - this E10 is just a bullshit lure. Check the ABC website to check what you have seen.... And save yourself the wasted time...

[update 27may09]: It seems that this episode and newer ones are now/soon becoming available as the series reaches its finale (see comments below for more details).