MY Traffic Eye v1.3

Malaysia (currently Kuala Lumpur & Penang) Traffic Camera application for Windows Mobile (now called Windows Phone) updated to version 1.3. Below what’s new in this version.

This is a Freeware which I developed and contribute to WinMo community. Want to know the history of this application? Kindly refer to my previous blog entry here.

What’s New

• Single (CAB) released support QVGA and VGA. WQVGA and WVGA work fine, only draw back was screen not optimized.
• Upgraded the GUI
• Traffic Camera from LLM (LDP, SPRINT and Penang Bridge)
• Traffic Camera from PLUS (apparently offline)

Download this Freeware from GetJar App Store
http://www.getjar.com/mobile/31613/my-traffic-eye-for-htc-touch/
(note: GetJar might take 24H before latest version published)

To-Do on upcoming version

• More Traffic Camera from LLM (Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia)
• Favorite Camera List

Leave your ideas / comment / feedback / features request kindly leave it in this blog entry. Thanks.

Malaysia (KL) Traffic Camera Windows Mobile Application

09-Nov-09: version 1.2 released, scroll down for details on changes.

Inspired by this iPhone application "MyEyes Traffic" mention in Star Online, I decided to created one for Windows Mobile (now called Windows Phone). This freeware traffic camera for Kuala Lumpur and surrounding are developed using Visual Studio, feel free to try out and give me feedback. I spend about 3 hours to create this apps, basic function ready but still need more works.

Local iPhone traffic app a hit – Star Online
http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/10/22/technology/20091022122337&sec=technology

To do list:

• Traffic Camera for Plus and other location
• Multiple Screen Resolution support (QVGA, VGA, WQVGA...)
  
• User define Favorite Location Listing
• User define Auto Refresh Interval
• etc.

Refer latest blog entry for download
Download “MY Traffic Eye” Windows Mobile CAB installation file from link below;
Windows Mobile Setup (CAB)
Windows Mobile Setup – VGA PPC (CAB)

Additional Notes

• Image downloaded from http://www.itis.com.my
• Each Image downloaded is about 6KB
• Current auto refresh interval = 5 seconds
  

What’s New v1.2 (09-Nov-2009)

• Release VGA version. Might released WVGA version if there are request.
• Added road direction info.
• Change Auto Refresh interval to 5 seconds.
• Added Zoom In function for QVGA version of the program.
• Upgraded the UI.
• Added error handler to make it more stable.

Merdeka !!!

Check out Bing homepage on Merdeka day!!!

Panli.com – online shopping in China

Update: please the comments for this post, a reader had bad experience about using service offer by this site.

Bump into this site which provide shopping service for china. With this you can buy from China site like TaoBao and no need to worried about the seller not sending items outside China.

Initial checking the rate are pretty good. For example to ship to Malaysia using China Postal Service Air Parcel (below 2kg) first 100g you only need to pay RMB14, additional 100g at RMB9. i.e. 500g I need to pay RMB50 + RMB8 for custom declaration fees. Payment can be done using PayPal, Credit Card and TT.

Will try to buy something and check out their services.

http://www.panli.com

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

With Microsoft Office 2010, a new client was introduce for SharePoint. It’s call SharePoint Workspace 2010. Below are overview on SharePoint Workspace.

What is SharePoint Workspace?

SharePoint Workspace is the desktop client application for the SharePoint server. It allows you to cache copies of your SharePoint site content on your desktop and provides automatic synchronization with the SharePoint server.

Why Use SharePoint Workspace?

• SharePoint Workspace delivers fast, anytime, anywhere access to SharePoint content whether you are able to reach the SharePoint server or are working offline.
• SharePoint Workspace provides easy navigation in accessing and working with your SharePoint content. If you know how to use SharePoint, you will know how to use SharePoint Workspace.
• Whether you are connected or disconnected, SharePoint Workspace provides a seamless working experience. When connected to the SharePoint server, changes are synchronized automatically and when not connected, changes are cached locally. The next time you connect to the SharePoint server, your changes are automatically synchronized with the server.

Project Draw

Need to do some drawing / diagram but don’t have Microsoft Visio? Don’t worried you can use this cloud application which brought to you by AutoDesk.

Very handy especially if you are online and don’t have Visio with you. It also support offline mode.

http://draw.labs.autodesk.com/ADDraw/draw.html

海外充 vs Liberty Reserve + Gold2Ex Case Studies

Someone posted a question in my comment and wanted to find out the difference in amount when using the two method I mention in my previous post.

• Method 1 .海外充 www.cnalipay.com + PayPal www.paypal.com  vs
• Method 2. Liberty Reserve + Gold2Ex 黄金网币兑换中心

in my previous article title: Transfer or add money to AliPay (支付宝) outside China. Below a quick comparison shown potential saving using second method.

Disclamer: Below are based on my best effort and knowledge, I shall hold no responsibilities for any error and mistake.

Case Studies: Trnasfer RMB5,000 to 支付宝 www.alipay.com from Malaysia.

Method 1 – Simple but expensive

1. Buy 10 x RMB500 reload card (海外充一卡通500元)
2. You need to pay USD913.50 via PayPal
3. Based on my last PayPal transaction dated 26-Jun-09, exchange rate for 1 Malaysian Ringgit = 0.2756662 U.S. Dollars
4. USD913.50 = RM3,313.84

Method 2 – More steps but cheaper (you need to be verified alipay member 认证用户)

1. Check out the exchange rate for LR –> alipay in Gold2Ex . You need to add in USD2.99 LR fees and 0.5% (Max RMB25) alipay fees. Alipay currently having promotion, after that the rate will be 1% (Max RMB40). Check out this link for details.
2. For RMB5,000 + RMB25 I need LR 734 + LR2.99. Based on 1:6.85 exchange rate.
3. Using Entelnova Global service, as at 4th July the Exchange Rate are 1 LR.USD = RM3.65
4. Estimated total payment in Ringgit Malaysia will be RM2,690.05

How to convert MKV DTS Audio to AC3

Following simple guide show you how to convert MKV file encoded in DTS audio into AC3 audio in single step and within minutes. The time taken is very fast because you only re-encode the Audio.

1. Click Open Video button, select the MKV Video file which required conversion
2. In Video action, select Copy (with this No encoding needed)
3. In Audio action, select AC3 (lavc)
4. In output Format, select MKV
5. Click Save Video button and give it a new name.

Download AviDemux at this link http://www.avidemux.org/

Free PDF Viewer with extra features

Bump in to this PDF viewer which provide pretty good features. It’s call PDF-XCHANGE VIEWER. Below are the features provided.

• Add Comments and Annotations to any PDF file (subject to security settings) - unlike the Adobe Viewer which requires the PDF creation tool to be 'certified' by Adobe !
• Add & apply Custom Stamps from any Image or PDF File and even your Windows Clip board !
• Mark-up pages with text and objects
• Type directly on any PDF page, not just Adobe enabled forms documents - in Typewriter mode.
• Export PDF pages or entire files to any one of the supported Image formats including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG and many more ...
• Extract text from a PDF page/File
• Make your navigation of large or complex PDF files both simple and enjoyable with the extended functionality of our 'Loupe' and the 'Pan' Window tools
• Fill and Save Adobe Forms to disk, email or 'post' !
• Many more…

Lastly, you can download it as Portable Apps. i.e. no installed needed and can put inside your USB Drive.

http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer

Transfer or add money to AliPay (支付宝) outside China

Below my 2 cents on adding or transfer money to www.alipay.com 支付宝 for those live out side China (aka overseas 海外 ). I am from Malaysia so this guide was mainly targeted Malaysian, but it should work for other country.
Internet in China are difference, example: Google are not the top search engine, they used www.baidu.com, www.sohu.com and etc. eBay / Yahoo are not popular, they used www.taobao.com. For online payment instead of PayPal they used 支付宝 www.alipay.com. For Instant Messaging they used QQ not YM, MSN nor GTalk.
Except seller who sell via eBay, most China shopping web site don’t accept PayPal. The main reason was the high withdraw rate impose by PayPal for transfer money to China bank.
If you want to buy items from China, TaoBao http://www.taobao.com 淘宝网 are great resources (off cause you must know how to read Chinese) :-)
After some research and finding, below are how you can add money to 支付宝.

1. 海外充 www.cnalipay.com + PayPal www.paypal.com
2. Liberty Reserve + Gold2Ex 黄金网币兑换中心
3. You have relative or friends in China who can open a China Bank Account for you. But the TT rate was expensive.

I had try both method 1 and 2 and found using the second method give better exchange rate. In this blog I will not explain the 1st method in details because not recommended unless you are lazy and want to save some steps. Basically you paid 海外充 using PayPal and they give you a set of code to reload your 支付宝 www.alipay.com.
Below are simple steps and my experience using Liberty Reserve + Gold2Ex to reload 支付宝.

1. Open an account at Liberty Reserve. Kindly use this link and you will be given US$0.05. Creating LR account is simple and no Credit Card verification needed. LR give lowest rate as compare to AlertPay, E-Gold, PerfectMoney, PayPal and etc.
2. Add money to your Liberty Reserve. They are various methods you can add money - Credit Card, Bank Transfer and etc. For Malaysian I recommend Entelnova Global service because they provide good rate and looks trustworthy, payment can be done using Maybank / CIMB or RHB. For other options to transfer money to Liberty Reserve check out this link.
3. Lastly to transfer your Liberty Reserve money to 支付宝 I recommend Gold2Ex 黄金网币兑换中心. Good rate and fast service and trusted.

Lastly do take note that transfer / receive money to LR and alipay all involved fees. IMHO the above recommended are the lowest compare to others. Example LR charged 1% (max 2.99USD per transaction) and alipay charged 1.5%. It’s still cheaper compare to using cnalipay, PayPal and Bank TT.
Above just my experience and recommendation, I hold no responsibilities for any bad experience, unsatisfaction to your for using the above services.

MMS Finally Working on my HTC Touch

Being using custom ROM ONYX Jr 4.5 on my HTC Touch (aka P3450, elf) for weeks, having problem with the Arcsoft MMS application. The message download always stuck at 99% SIGH…

Decided to try difference version of Arcsoft MMS, finally version 5.0.31.7 work. Had try following version which does not work on my phone;

v5.0.71.33
v5.0.3.1.63
v4.2.1.8

Applications Not Working in Windows 7

Being test drive Windows 7 for my office desktop, finally decided to stick with my XP. Below are list of application not working;

1. Visual Basic 6 – This is the main reason I stick to XP. Yes it work in XP Mode but not the way I like it. Until I don’t have to work with VB6 looks like I will still stick to XP.

2. FinePrint – Using version 5.85, too bad not working. Don’t know version 6 work thought.

My Windows 7 Issues

Today solved 3 issues for my Windows 7 Installation.

1. Not able to ActiveSync with HTC-Touch – Solved by manually download and the Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 from Microsoft web site. link

2. PCI Simple Communications Controller on HP dc7700 – Solved by download the Intel Host Embedded Controller Interface (HECI) Driver from HP support site and update the driver manually. link

3. PCI Serial Port on HP dc7700 - Solved by download the Intel Local Management Service (LMS) and Serial-over-LAN (SOL) Support from HP support site and update the driver manually. link

Twikini

Being using twitter recently and did not post any blogs, sorry. If you want to follow me below is my twitter account http://twitter.com/kvseng

Trinket Software is giving out free twitter client for Windows Mobile 5 and 6, details on how you can get yourself a free copy, check out this link. http://www.trinketsoftware.com/Twikini. Prior to using Twikini I am using Tiny Tweeter, which does the job well but apparently having problem when I exit the application.

Below is what I link about Twikini;

• I can use the cursor key to ReTweet or Reply.
• Provide Public Timeline
• Support Theme

One issue I had was it's a bit slow to refresh.

Conficker

What to know what is Conficker? This two part video presented by F-Secure is very useful and information. IMHO worth you time - it if you are interested to know more about Conficker. ;-)

Free PDF Printer Driver

Another free PDF Printer.. Apparently this one (Free) comes with lots of features. Some of the feature I find appealing are the security features. With this you can set the security for each file created.

Features from the official web site.

• Print to PDF from almost any Windows program.
• Runs on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/XP x64/2003/2003 x64/Vista/Vista x64/2008/Windows 7 (beta build 7000).
• Supports 64-bit operating systems.
• Direct output to the same file each time or prompt for destination.
• Control if the printer should ask if you want to see the resulting PDF document.
• Control output and prompts programmatically.
• Setup can run unattended.
• Graphical user interface.
• Password protect PDF documents.
• 128/40 bit encryption.
• Quality settings (screen, printer, ebook, prepress).
• Set document properties.
• Watermark text, size, rotation, and transparency.
• Superimpose/background documents.
• Appending/prepending documents.
• User interface control.
• Command line interface to all settings.
• COM/ActiveX interface for programmatic control.
• Support for Citrix MetaFrame
• Support for Windows Terminal Server
• Multiple output types supported: BMP, JPEG, PCX, PDF, PNG, and TIFF.

Download your copy here;

GMail Labs: Insert Image

New features in GMail Labs which I think is good. It’s available now.

PDFVue – Edit PDF for free

Interesting site and services, upload your PDF file to their web site and and edit it for free. Did a quick check and the features provided are pretty neat. It allow you to perform followings to your PDF files.

With this free tools you can;

• Add Text
• Add some simple drawing like Line, Circle and Box
• Add Image
• Add URL Link
• Add Note
• Add Form field like Text, Checkbox, Radio button, Combo Box,  List Box and submit button.

I important features which I think missing are the text correcting features. Hope they add this features when they go live. Give it a try at link below;
http://www.pdfvue.com/

Free SQL code formatting tools

If you are T-SQL developer, go grab this tools. It’s a SQL code formatting plug-in for SQL Server Management Studio. Previously I am using Java based code formatting tools but this one integrated with Management Studio is far better.

The tools is called ApexSQL Refactor, published by ApexSQL. Give it a try it is free.

Code formatting give you better readabilities to the code. Below sample of Before and After.

Download from the official site at this link.

Auto BCC in Outlook 2007

Recently I decided to combine my Internet Email with my office Microsoft Exchange Email. This work beautifully except now I lost the features of auto bcc all email I sent out to my GMail account. This is available in Thunderbird not not available in Outlook 2007. I wish Microsoft can have this in the Rules. Anyhow below is how I setup my Multi Account some VBA to perform the Auto BCC.

In Outlook 2007. Click Tools –> Settings the use the wizard to add a new Account. For better management I create a new pst (Outlook Data File) to store email for this particular account. Just click Change Folder button to assign all email from the second account to this pst file. IMO cleaner and neater.

After you had setup the second email account and tested working correctly it’s time to add in the VBA Code to auto BCC. You may refer to this link on how to do it. Based on the sample code I did some changes to only bcc my email for specific account. Below is the modified version.

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
  Dim objRecip As Recipient
  Dim strMsg As String
  Dim res As Integer
  Dim strBcc As String
  On Error Resume Next

  If Item.SendUsingAccount = "<Outlook EMail Account Setting Name>" Then
     strBcc = "someone@example.com"

     Set objRecip = Item.Recipients.Add(strBcc)
     objRecip.Type = olBCC
     If Not objRecip.Resolve Then
        strMsg = "Could not resolve the Bcc recipient. " & _
           "Do you want still to send the message?"
        res = MsgBox(strMsg, vbYesNo + vbDefaultButton1, _
           "Could Not Resolve Bcc Recipient")
        If res = vbNo Then
           Cancel = True
        End If
     End If
     Set objRecip = Nothing
  End If
End Sub

To get rid of the Security message you need to sign the code using personal certificate. Refer to this link.

Lastly you may asked why I need to bcc my email. Well I used gmail to backup my company email so in order to maintain a full correspondence record all email reply on my PC (aka Outlook 2007) need to stored a copy in gmail.

ActiveSync Support Code: 1

Having ActiveSync problem for my WinMo and XP for many months, finally got it solved. Below are the solution which I Google.

Click Start > Run and type the following: Regsvr32.exe %Windir%\System32\ole32.dll

Windows 7 Beta 1

It’s available now for MSDN Subscriber. Yeah….. BTW I am already running Build 6995 :-)

Google PinYin 拼音 (Beta)

This Chinese entry system is much more better compare to the one came with your windows. Give it a try.

谷歌拼音输入法（测试版）新功能：

• 引擎升级：更强大的智能组句引擎，全新海量词库，选词准确率进一步提高，短句长句，随想随打。
• 个性输入：主动为用户下载最符合用户输入习惯的语言模型，从行文风格、聊天习惯等层面，进一步贴近用户的输入需求。
• 内嵌编辑：在保持传统输入体验的同时，支持所见即所得的内嵌编辑模式。
• 仪表显示：增加输入仪表盘功能，实时显示输入准确率，输入速度等参数，创建更愉快的输入体验。
• 节日徽标：在重要节假日、纪念日显示Google风格的节假日徽标，增加输入趣味性。

Download Google 谷歌拼音输入法（测试版）

Fixed Width Font

If you owned a copy of Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 you are entitle to download a very nice Clear Type fixed size font call Consolas. If you not don’t worried a company called Raize Software provide a free font which I clear and neat.

Download Raize Font
Download Consolas Font Pack for Visual Studio