My website has moved (again). I finally bought myself a domain and hosting. The new site is located at www.silentbonsai.com.

I managed to finally get ipodlinux running on my 2gig Nano. It took me a while but I finally stumbled across a really well written tutorial for the Nano. Surprisingly, I didn’t find it on the ipodlinux forums, I found it on Digg. It was fairly straight forward; you just need a Mac with xCode installed. 99% of the steps are done through the terminal.

Hold the rewind button when rebooting your iPod and podzilla starts right up. It couldn’t be more simplistic. Right off the bat there’s not much you can do that you couldn’t do before. There are a few cool games like Space Invaders, Pong, Asteroids, etc., but nothing much else. I also then realized that my Nano doesn’t have recording capabilities. (bummer)

I then remembered that I read on Engadget (I think I read it there first) that the port of Doom called iDoom was now Nano compatible. So I went to their site and downloaded the files. To install all you do is copy the files to your iPod. You then boot up ipodlinux and go to the file browser, and select the iDoom file. The game starts right up. I was actually surprised how smoothly it played. Well worth downloading if not just for the novelty of it. I tried to get iBoy (the gameboy emulator) running but it is not Nano-ready like iDoom yet.

Next on my list of things to get working was video. I downloaded a small clip of Family Guy that was formatted for the iPod Photo and it ran perfectly on my Nano. It was a little bigger so it was cut off on the edges but it played smoothly, and with sound too. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to encode my own movies. Quicktime Pro doesn’t have the correct color settings for the iPod’s screen, so you can’t use that. I couldn’t manage to get mplayer or mencoder to work on my Mac so I couldn’t use that. Finally I managed to get mencoder working on my PC through Cygwin. I didn’t need 2bppconv because my Nano is not grayscale.

Once you get Cygwin and mplayer/mencoder installed, you simply open up Cygwin and type these commands (for the iPod Nano):

cd mplayer

./mencoder.exe -ovc raw -ofps 15 -oac pcm -vf scale=176:-2,expand=176:132,format=bgr16 input.file -o output.avi

input.file can be a .avi, .mpg, or .mpeg file. I converted a little 10min instructional video first because that’s what was on my desktop. I then converted something a little more fun, an episode of South Park. The full episode without commercials turns out to be just shy of 1gig after you convert it, simply because of the uncompressed video and audio. It plays fine though. Just go to the file browser and select the .avi. BTW: because I used that specific tutorial to get ipodlinux installed on my Nano, it s now a Mac formatted iPod, which cannot be seen by my PC. So I had to transfer the video files over the network to my Mac and then to my Nano to get them on there.

Anyways, in the end it was all worth it. Doom and South Park on my iPod Nano, what more could you ask for? Well, the only other thing I could ask for is maybe an XviD decoder, so you could compress your movies. Then that 1GB episode of South Park could be shrunk to like 150MB if not less. Plus then I could fit a full length movie on my 2GB Nano.

That’s all the ranting for now.
Later.
- kJoe

Okay, I finally broke down and did it, I bought myself an iPod Nano. I phoned up Future Shop and they said they had one 2gig black Nano left in stock so I asked them to hold it for me. 130km later I was there, and there it was in the display case, a little black Nano box with my name on it. $300 later (plus a copy of Episode III while I was at it) an I had my very own iPod Nano.

I still have the plastic on the front because I know it will get all scratched up if I take it off. I’m waiting to buy an Incase case for it. Either that or the fancy Apple Lanyard headphones for the Nano.

Anyways, at least I’m starting to post regularly.
Later.
- kJoe

I finally got to see the new iPod Nano for the first time today on display at a Future Shop. I had never seen one in person before and I have to say, they are impressive.

They are so darn tiny! The battery on it was dead so I couldn’t see the display but man are they cool looking. I’ve seen the iPod Photo, the Shuffle, and the Mini (not the new Video though) but they just don’t compare to this. I had seen lots of pictures of it and even some video reviews, but you still have to see it in person to appreciate how awsome it is. I know they have been out for a while now and most everyone has seen them but I was literally shocked when I saw this little iPod sitting there in it’s dock. So thin with a nice little mini click wheel. Now that I’ve seen it I want one even more. Maybe once I get my smart I’ll buy one just for in the car. But at $299 CAD for the 4gig model, they are quite pricey. I think I would still rather buy a 30gig iPod Video for $379 CAD.

Anyways, just a random post.
Later.
- kJoe

Now that things are starting to pick up speed in my life, I’ve been thinking about buying a brand new car and getting rid of (well, passing it on to my little bro) my Chevette. Originally I was looking at something like the Toyota Echo Hatchback or the Chevrolet Aveo Hatchback. But latley I’ve been attracted to a new vehicle, the smart.

The smart is a very small, 2-seater car with a 750cc, 45hp diesel engine. Although that may sound like a go-cart, its actually not that bad. A 0-100 time of about 25 seconds isn’t that good, but in comparison to my Chevette I have now, it’s an improvement. I timed my Chevette the other day just with the stopwatch in my watch and even with going down a slight incline, it still takes over 27 seconds to hit 100km/h. Besides, the 4.2L/100km (around 70MPG) gas mileage more than makes up for the lack of power.

It comes in 3 trim levels; Pure (basic), Pulse (sport) or Passion (luxury). I’m looking at the Pulse model which comes with everything the Pure model does plus Paddle Shifters on the steering wheel, tachometer, alloy wheels, sunroof, and a better choice of interior/exterior colors. But just because I’m still on a budget, and because the choice of colors isn’t all that great, I plan on just getting black on black. For options on top of the Pulse model, I would just get the upgraded sound package, and maybe get the dealership to throw the cupholder in for free. ; )

The first stop on the probably long road to getting my new smart is that I have to build myself a credit rating. I’m only 18 and have never owned a credit card or technically even my own car (my parents own my Chevette. ie. their names are on the insurance papers). Then I have to save for a down payment which my dad tells me if I go through our bank could be up to 25% of the total loan, which would be around $5000+. I’m going to try and get financed through the Mercedes dealership which would hopefully allow me to have a much lower down payment but I might have to wait and go through the bank.

Anyways, hopefully before christmas but probably not until after, I will own my own smart car.

Later.
-kJoe

Today’s my 18th birthday!
Happy birthday to me… Happy birthday to me…