How to install an APK from your Android phone's sdcard

You dont need any special installer apps!

Simply open your browser and type:

file:///sdcard/your.apk

Where 'your.apk' is the filename of your apk, (in this example your.apk in the sdcard root '/' directory).

Voila!

Fix: Error on Mac OSX: No connected camera !?!

Every now and then you fire up PhotoBooth, or FaceTime or another OSX app but it show no camera as being connected!!! Its seriously annoying to have to restart. Luckily there is a fix that doesn't require a restart at all :)

Try this:

First close all camera apps.

1a) Open 'Terminal' application
1b) Type sudo killall VDCAssistant and hit enter
1c) Enter the sudo (your admin) password
1d) Open your camera app

if that doesn't solve it, then you will need to shutdown and then boot-up again (as the restart wont help in that case) but that has only ever happened to me the once.

Hope that helped.

Peace.

Transcoding an MPEG4 H.264 movie on OSX to DIVX/XVID AVI

Ive had some fun(!) in converting an MPEG4 H.264 on my Mac (OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.3) to an older format, namely DIVX and also XVID avi - why you may ask? Well because my perfectly good player is a couple years older than I would like it to be, and happily plays XVID/DIVX but not new enough to play H.264.

I tried iFFMPEG, nope, player didnt recognise. I tried with Handbrake - broke in the player! 

ffmpegX was a success! (and after finally getting it working, see previous post) it was by far the quickest and easist to use - drag, drop, and go!

:)

Installing ffmpegX on OSX

A quick note to all, as the install for ffmpegX leaves a little to be desired in terms of User Experience (UX) !

Do it like this and it'll be easy peasy, lemon squeezy:

1. Download the dmg file and mount it
2. Optionally - copy to Applications (which is better practice, arguably)
3. Run
4. When presented with install binaries screen as per below image (you can always get back here from the ffmpegX application menu ;-) ) do as it says, in terms of get the intel codec (url provided in the screen as text, so select/highlight and paste into browser. (On first install when the binaries aren't assigned the items will appear in RED indicating you need to complete the install)
5.  Same with the mencoder and mplayer, although two urls are displayed they are for the same ZIP file so only download the once.
6. Extract/ unpack the mencoder/mplayer ZIP file from the above step
7. Respectively assign the downloaded files to each "Locate" button - NOTE the mencoder and mplayer binaries are in the folder you unpacked the zip to
8. I personally dont like entering my login/sudo password directly into the app (far from best practice), but did so to complete setup.
9. Go to the ffmpegX Application menu, select 'Install Binaries' and check that no RED text is displayed, if it is, you need to re-download and assign the particular dependency.

Cheers and happy transcoding!

Getting the Samsung ML-2525W wireless printer working on your Mac OSX [setting & configuration]

This is a great printer, good value for money. Unfortunately the instructions for Mac users suck. So here are my instructions to get it working with your Max OSX as per my Amazon review, which a couple of people found useful:

If installing on a Mac/OSX do not use the Samsung drivers they dont work (for most others too). Spent hours with the Samsung drivers, no luck. If you have installed the Samsung supplied or downloaded drivers, then uninstall them. 

For a seamless sub 5 min wireless installation, do it like this:

1. Setup up printer hardware according to quick-start guide (supplied) 
2. Insert supplied CD-ROM, dont launch the installer. Open a finder window go to /MAC_Installer/MAC_Printer/WirelessSetting directory/folder 
3. Launch 'Wireless Setting' application and follow instructions. [UPDATE: if you dont want to do this from the supplied DVD, you can download the Wrireless Setup utility direct from Samsung at : http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/ML-2525W/XAA ] 
4. When you get to the window which lists available wireless networks you need to wait up to a few minutes for them to appear, your wireless network may not appear instantly) Once your network appears, continue with instructions and your printer will be setup on the wireless network.
5. Now, WITHOUT the Samsung printer driver installed, open your system prefs, where you would normally add printers. (On OSX 10.6 click the + plus icon) 
6. You Mac will find the printer via the Bonjour service (wirelessly), and simply click add. Your system may download some software from Apple. 
7. DONE - Happy Wireless Printing - no need for faffing around for hours with the Samsung Drivers (which don't work)

Cheers