The Fox Blog

It turns out there is not version of Windows Media Player currently available for Windows Vista Business N.
According to the microsoft windows media newsgroup, Windows Vista Business ‘N’ edition is not bundled with Windows Media Player (because of the European Union regulation). In addition, you cannot download Windows Media Player because it’S just not available yet and will be out in ‘a couple of month’.

What am I supposed to do until the next ‘couple of month’, not listen to music or something?
Technically, WMV files cannot be read on Windows Vista Business N and it doesn’t seem we can get a WMV codec to get them working on other media players.

I’ll keep you updated on what happens.

I installed Windows Vista Business N this week. The OS was provided by the institution I’m attending, so I though it would be a good idea to try it.
The installation and configuration were quite straight forward at first, but now I’m facing numerous problems:
- Some driver is not recognized and I’m unable to fix it
- Cannot connect to a Windows XP wireless network
- Cannot find or get Windows Media Player

Along the 26 alphabet characters [a-z], the Norwegian language includes three other characters: æ, ø, å.
When coding an HTML page, including those characters as mentioned might generate an error in some browsers and display an unwanted character.Your page will also not validate in W3C standards.

In order to validate your page and have the characters displayed correctly, you will need to use the following escape entities:

When coding in JavaScript, I always find the need to compute some basic mathematical values. The Math class (object) turns out to be useful here by providing numerous functions, such as sine, cosine or random number generator.
The list of JavaScript Math object functions below:

Math.abs(a) // absolute value of a
Math.acos(a) // arccosine of a
Math.asin(a) // arcsine of a
Math.atan(a) // arc tangent of a
Math.atan2(a, b) // arc tangent of (a / b)
Math.ceil(a) // ceiling of a
Math.cos(a) // cosine of a
Math.exp(a) // exponent of a
Math.floor(a) // floor of a
Math.log(a) // log of a base e
Math.max(a, b) // maximum of a and b
Math.min(a, b) // minimum of a and b
Math.pow(a, b) // a to the power b
Math.random() // random number from 0 to 1
Math.round(a) // rounded value of a
Math.sin(a) // sine of a
Math.sqrt(a) // square root of a
Math.tan(a) // tangent of a


After a long time of blogging abstention, I bring you this short movie called “It’s About Time” (Sar El Waet) about the Lebanese war. An original perspective of what Lebanon has become today and what some people just don’t want us not to talk about.
This movie was directed by Pierre Dawaliby, a Lebanese movie director, I never heard of before. Still, this short movie, by the subject it deals with, will certainly increase his popularity among Lebanese people.
This short documentary is in Arabic but its subtitled in English, so you won’t have trouble understanding what it’s all about.

Here’s something ’special’ I found out today on the net: the live broadcast of cooking a hamburger. Yes, what kind of non strange stuff haven’t we experienced on the internet! The next generation of television is here, I think I’ll call it selfTV, everyone can watch whatever program they want and even make their own show. Is that great or what?
Check the Cam In Style Broadcast: Making food in Halden

I think at some point it’ll stop broadcasting. So find below some screenshots.

Here is a cool animation I accidentally landed on today. It’s only a 1 min 35 sec but still, it’s a damn good job. Produced by 5 students from “Gobelins l’école de l’image” as an introductory movie for the Annecy 2006 international animation festival, Pyrats required 7 month of work. Although the movie is in 2D cartoon-style, it required the use of some 3D techniques through the use of Alias Maya.

It reminds me of Monkey Island, yes that old Sierra game I used to play some time ago. The graphics looks pretty much like in the game, it won’t surprise if the producers were inspired by it. Some screenshots below:

Watch the movie

It’s been a while since I blogged… Maybe I’ll get back to it soon.
For the moment, if you’re a GoDaddy customer, make sure you use this coupon when you register or renew a domain name. You get the domain for $6.95 instead of $8.95. I just used it, enjoy!
Coupon Code: cjc695dom
Expires: 12/31/06

Ever since it was launched in 1996, Google has been going global. The expansion includes everything from Afghanistan to Zambia including large countries as well as lost islands of the pacific.
What is the difference between the different Google falvors you ask?
I tried several searches on Google UK and Google Saudi Arabia, the results are very similar. You could actually get the results of Saudi Arabia by personalizing search options on Google UK. The way I see it, a Google flavor is just a specific configuration of the real Google (the .com Google).

Let’s take a closer look to the arab world where Google is relatively new. Current Google Arabia flavors include:
Bahrein: www.google.com.bh
Egypt: www.google.com.eg
Jordan: www.google.jo
Oman: www.google.com.om
Saudi Arabia: www.google.com.sa
United Arab Emirates: www.google.ae

No sign of Google Lebanon yet but for what it’s worth, I don’t really think it might do any difference if it was launched or not. It’s just another paperwrap for another Google can.

I just released Cafepress Shop v1.03 for Xoops. The older version doesn’t work correctly any more due to changes on the Cafepress.com web site. So here is Cafepress Shop v1.03 with the regular features plus an update checker and fail safe mode option. Can also be used by Cafepress Premium Shop owners.

Change Log
==========
- Fixed several bugs resulting from changes on the Cafepress.com web site
- Added a Fail Safe Mode option, which enables or disables the item page
- Added a check update feature. When a new version is release, you’ll receive a message in the administration menu

Development Site
Download Module from Files Dump