Posts From December, 2012

Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu

Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu (私が恋愛できない理由 - The reason I can't find my love) is a Japanese TV series (ドラマ) that tells the story of 3 girls (+a woman) in search for love.

The three girls went to live together to feel less lonely and have more fun, but they have a totally different personality, what will happen?

The target it's a little girlish, but I find the series very interesting and funny.

It's composed by 10 episodes 50 minutes long, a torrent with english subtiles can be found easily on the net.

Google Apps is gone, let's replace it with Outlook.com

A few days ago Google announced the end of the free tier for Google Apps, a way to have a Gmail account with a custom domain. That's a pity! Paying $50/year for each mail/user it's ridiculous and it's out of the question, set up a mail server on the server it's something I don't want to do it anymore (I was doing it in the beginning, but it was giving me too many troubles), let's see a good alternative.

For example, we can set a custom-domain email on Outlook.com on my new domain Forexperiments.com

  1. Go on http://domains.live.com
  2. Insert the domain name and set Windows Live Hotmail
    hotmail.PNG
  3. Create an Admin user
  4. Accept the terms of use
  5. Set the DNS as instructed (Unfortunately, if you use a cheap registrar like mine, you can't set TXT field and make messenger and the domain verification work...)
  6. Wait some minutes for the DNS records to propagate (If you use a cheap registrar like mine, wait some hours...)
  7. Done! Configure users and give them an Outlook.com account, instead of a Gmail one! Moreover, the new interface is very nice and easy to use, even for newbies

How to manage duplicates in iTunes 11?

As you might know, Apple updated iTunes, making it simpler, and removing a lot of useful features, like the "find duplicates" menu.

There is a rumor that says that they will add it back soon, but I think they removed for another reason: the duplicates are found and removed automatically.(Unfortunately just from the library, but not from the hard disk). Here are my findings.

Using dupeGuru I found about 160 duplicates, but, none of them can be found in iTunes, even if they are in the hard drive.

Look: I have two identical copies of the same song on my hdd (same artist, same bitrate, same duration, different album), but when I search it in iTunes I can't find it.

It looks like iTunes found duplicated songs and removed them from the library (without removing them from the hard drive, though).

Maybe that's why tools that scan the iTunes library file won't find duplicates, while tools that ignore the library file and scan the folder will find a lot of them. I arrived to the conclusion that iTunes will "hide" songs if it thinks that it's an exact duplicate.

More proof. I got two identical songs from iTunes Store in 2010 (The same song in two different albums) One of them is on the HDD but can't be found in iTunes

Or, again:

But, when there are too many differences, like 1 second in duration, or an "à" that become an "a", the entry is kept:

That's why Apple "removed" the "find duplicates" menu: it's done silently and automatically - no need to search for them. (Though, the file gets "lost" in the HDD, wasting space...)

Not all USB chargers are the same

I always thought that, after all, a $2 Chinese USB  charger is almost the same of a $30 Apple USB charger.

Then, I read this article where various chargers are compared... and I was shocked to see the quality of the current given to my handset. 

That's why when I charge my BlackBerry Dev Alpha with a $2 Chinese USB charger the touchscreen goes nuts!
Since it's a prototype, it doesn't have CE or FCC certifications and it's not shielded by electromagnetic interferences, and the very bad quality of the charging input has a noise that makes impossible to use the capacitive touchscreen.