ZenMojo.com

Apparently when your iTunes library is not in the default location, it will create another xml called “iTunes Library.xml” and will no longer use the default “iTunes Music Library.xml”.  This is fine unless you use another program to access the itunes data.  Those programs want to use “iTunes Music Library.xml” which has not been updated since you moved your library!  Crazy right?!?!

Easy fix: (Note: Always Backup your iTunes library first.  But you do this regularly anyway, right?)

1. Make sure iTunes is closed, and go to the iTunes folder.  Rename “iTunes Library.itl” to “iTunes Music Library.itl”
2. Hold down the Shift key (Option key on a Mac) and open iTunes.
3. Select “Choose existing library” and select the newly renamed “iTunes Library.itl”

Now all the programs that need to access iTunes data will get the most updated library.

1. 1. Export all contacts to your SD card.  You will have to export each category by individulally (phone, sim, google, and exchange, as well as any other accounts you have)
   2. When the export has completed, go into your accounts and make sure none of them are set to sync contacts for now.
   3. Open “People”  , navigate to view all and hit the menu button.
   4. Select “View”
   5. Select the accounts which contain contacts that you wish to change to “Exchange” or “Google” and Hit Done.
   6. Hit the Menu button again and select Delete.
   7. In the Delete screen, hit the menu button again and chose to Select All, and hit the delete option.
   8. Now all your contacts you want to convert are gone, we’ll re-import them under the correct account.
   9. In “People” hit the menu button again and select “Import/Export”, and “Import from SD Card”
   10. IMPORTANT: now you will be prompted as to which account to create the contacts under.  Select the account (Exchange or Google).
   11. Select one of the files you exported earlier and hit ok.  Repeat for all the files you exported (and deleted the contacts) from earlier.
   12. Check to make sure all your contacts were imported correctly, by going through steps 3-5 again and selecting the accounts you wish to see the contacts of.
   13. Now go back into your accounts and select to sync contacts again.
   14. Sync and you are done!

I had a bit of trouble getting my Thunderbolt to sync all those contacts after this process.  So I went into applications >manage applications and found the “Contacts Storage” and hit “Clear Data” (Warning, this will wipe your call log as well).  Then it was able to sync just fine.

Allows your multimedia keyboard keys work with iTunes:

goo.gl/CX8qR

Without tweetymail or tiwttermail or posterous or any other 3rd party solution.  This solution should have been easier to find.  So thought I’d write it up here.

I run a website for a non-profit, and we use Google Calendar for our events on our website.   We also have a Facebook page and a Twitter account (of course).  I linked our Facebook page to Twitter acct (http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/).  So now all I have to do is to post to Facebook and it automatically gets Tweeted as well.

So I wanted our google calendar to send reminders of events to Facebook and thus Twitter as well.

1) Find your secret m.facebook.com email address

• http://www.facebook.com/mobile/ for personal profiles
• For “Pages”: edit your page and go to the “Mobile” link on the left to get the email address

2) Set up a Gmail Filter to forward reminders to your secret Facebook email address.  This will send an verification code to your FB page.  You will need to get that code off (to verify the forwarding address) and then delete the post.  I don’t know of a better way.

3) Create a filter for Calendar Reminders:

• From: calendar-notification@google.com
• Has the words: [Reminder]
• Doesn’t have: notweet (I added this to have the option to not post some events/reminders)

Now all you need to do is to setup email reminders on your Google Calendar events!

“MKV AVI to MP4” is a free and open-sourced way to convert your movies to MP4 so you can add them to iTunes and sync with your mobile device.   It works very quickly as it seems to change the container without re-encoding the video.

From their website:  “Convert mkv/avi files in h264 to mp4 files without re-encode video stream. Subtitle will be embed as soft subtitle.Convert speed is fast as video is not re-encoded.Works on iPad, mp4box,  mkvextract,  beSweet, eac3to, mediainfo are used.”

Here is the website to download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mkvavi2mp4/

You will also need to download the Nero ACC Codec and extract it in the same directory that houses mkvavi2mp4.



Now you will be able to add the resulting mp4 to iTunes and sync.

iConcertCal is a great iTunes Plugin that will show you upcoming concerts and album releases.

http://www.iconcertcal.com

I use Picasa for my Photo cataloging and basic editing.  I also use Microsoft ICE to make panoramic pictures.

I was tired of having to locate pictures on disk and open them in ICE.  So I went searching and found this great button to launch ICE from within Picasa.  The button is a bit old and the instructions on where to place it are no longer correct, but the button still works in Picasa 3!

Here is the page: http://olalindberg.com/blog/2008/10/11/picasa-microsoft-ice-button/

Here is the link to automatically install the button in Picasa (Automatic Install)

Now if you to want to download the Manual installation file (you can get it HERE)
You want to save it into this directory:<your user folder>\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2\buttons
And you must have Microsoft ICE installed to this directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Research\Image Composite Editor

Now just select your pics and hit the  “Stich…” button in Picasa!

Local Link: picasa2microsoftice_v1

Many teachers came to me recently about their Jeopardy PowerPoint presentations not working correctly.  The colors on the amount text was not changing to show that a question was answered unless you exited out of the slideshow.

After much searching it seems that this is a problem between the Jeopardy template and PowerPoint 2007.

The best solution I found was to download and install the PowerPoint 2003 Viewer, and open the Jeopardy files through the viewer.  It seems to work just fine.

It was a bit harder to find the download.  I found it here:
http://download.cnet.com/PowerPoint-Viewer-2003/3000-18483_4-10742147.html

I have just compiled the steps that worked for me here all in one page (with screen shots).

The first thing you are going to need is the Cisco RNG200 bin file.  That can be downloaded here or here.

That file needs to be saved in your C:\Program Files\Sling Media\SlingPlayer\SBAV folder.

Goto Setup Assistant on your Slingbox.  And Select Configure Video Sources.

Select your Connection and Choose Cable Box.

Select Comcast as the manufacture and Other for the model.

Make sure the Lineup is correct, and hit next.  And now you will have to select your code to be able to control your DC50X DTA.  In the Select Code box, select Custom and type in C2000.  Then hit the Power button to test.  Remember that the DC50X does not turn off, this will not turn off the box.  But it will upload the RNG200 bin file.  If you get an error message, make sure you have saved the RNG200 bin file in the correct place.

Now just finish up the Setup Assistant, and you will be good.

I keep all my sensitive documents encrypted in Truecrypt volumes (don’t you?).  But I ran into a problem when I wanted to share a Truecrypt volume across my home network.  I had to setup the share every time I mounted the volume.

Then it hit me; my flaw was that I was trying to set up a share within the Truecrypt volume.  I needed to set up a share and then mount the TC volume inside that share.  But you can’t mount a Truecrypt volume to a directory.  Humm….

Enter Hardlink Shell Extension.  HSE will let you create Volume Mount Points in Windows.  That will let you “map complete local volumes onto arbitrary disk locations”.  So you can create a VMP (as a folder) and point it at the drive letter of your TC volume.  That way whenever you mount the TC volume to that drive letter, it will already be shared.

After installing the HSE, Mount your TC volume, right-click, and select “Pick Link Source”

Now go to the drive you are going to set up your shared folder and right click.  Then select “Drop As…” and “Volume Mountpoint”.

Now just share the resulting folder.

When you mount the TC volume (or any TC volume for that matter) to the drive letter you selected as your “Link Source” it will be shared.

–Zen