DVD protection & Sony VAIO

One thing I hate is putting boundaries to culture. As some of you might know, DVDs from around the world can only be played in certain zone, as they have restricted use across the globe.
There are 6 areas: North America (region 1), Europe (region 2), Australia (region 4),... and so on.

The restriction is a mere software thing such as you cannot play a DVD unless its region matches the region of your DVD player. I have bought loads of DVDs in my travels and some I bought over the internet as they were cheaper.

With my new notebook, a Sony Vaio FW21E, there was no software to play my DVDs from various regions, nor I found a firmware to replace the original locked one. The computer kept asking me if I wanted to switch region and that I had fewer and fewer region switches left.

By chance, I came across a way to play any DVD on my VAIO, regardless of its region.
I downloaded DVDFab, a software to copy DVDs. It has a preview mode for each video track of the DVD, just pick the longest one which is the movie itself. The shorter ones are the various titles, trailers, promos, extras,...

Double click on the preview windows to go full size. use the right button of your mouse to select different languages or subtitles.

Palačinke

Palačinke is a dessert derived from the Austro-hungarian palatschinken. It is a tipical dish you will easily find in Slovenjia, Croatia, Hungary, Austria and Germany.
They are very similar to crepes for shape and are made with the same ingredients as American pancakes.

Palačinke can be filled with jam, nutella, ice-cream, fresh fruit, sugar,...
They can be served rolled: cover one face with your favourite filling, like jam in this picture:


then roll it until you will get this:

I eat them with my hands, keeping the ends lifted up to prevend jam from slipping out (they are to be served warm, so the filling melts a little).

At the restaurant they are served in a different way, more suitable to be eat with fork and knife, like this:


Recipe for 6 Palačinke

2 eggs
2 tablespoons of sugar
5 tablespoons of flour
1/2 of a glass of milk + 1/2 of a glass of water

Put the whole eggs in a bowl, add the sugar and whip until you get an evenly airy mix.
While you keep whipping, add some flour and some milk+water until you finish.
You will get a smooth mix. Have a taste of it to see if it needs more sugar.

Prepare a flat non-aderent fry-ing pan, put some butter to avoid the mix to stick to it. Drain the excess of butter, then pour half a ladle of the mix in the pan. You just have to cover the whole fry-ing pan with a thin layer of the mix.
Cook it on both sides: if you are able you can turn it jumping the Palačinka in the air. If you don't want to risk to lose a delicious Palačinka playing Nigella, help youself with a dish or a spatula.

Serve warm, with a spread of icing sugar and your favourite filling.

Save energy, use CFL bulbs

I discovered today that also light bulbs are still improving their efficiency. Mind you, the classic light bulb is the most inefficient thing you have in your home, as it is basically the same of a couple of centuries ago. It has an efficiency of about 10%, which means that you throw away 9 watt out of 10 you buy.

Now they are releasing CFL, Compact FLuorescent Lamp, and LEDs (Light emittion diodes), which have a high efficiency of about 4-6 times a traditional light bulb. This is because they use different principles to make light and they even have a longer lasting life span.

You have seen LEDs on every electronic home appliances starting from your televisor and ranging to your computer. Leds are those stuff used to make the small light indicator that tells you when your appliance is in stand by or running. They are one of the reason why there are campaigns to teach you to completely shut off your home appliance when you are not using them. A LED looks like this:
A classic evolution of leds is for advertising. Remember the giant ads you see on the highways that are giving you directions regarding traffics or works you will encounter? Well, those are made of a matrix with a lot of LEDs. The advantage is that if some LEDs get burnt you can still That's the main reason that makes LEDs so interesting and growing in the market. One of the modern employment of LEDs is for car lights. If you burn a LED you don't lose the whole car light, and the cost to replace a LED is much more lower than the one of a traditional light bulb.

Audi's A6 rear light, made of LEDs.

For home applications you can now use CFL light bulbs. They are like the common bulbs in shape, but instead of heating a filament with electricity (thus make it emits light radiations) they heat the gas in the bulb, making atoms hit the coating of the inner bulb, turning it white.
CFL bulbs cost more than regular bulbs, but you save 4-6 times of electricity and they last longer.

Be careful:
- if you use a dimmer, choose CFL bulmb specially designed to be used with dimmers
- don't use them for continous switching applications, they would last less
- if you need them in special positions, check on the box for any indications or limitations of that very model
- don't break the bulb as it contains small amount of mercury. Don't put them in your home garbage. If they get burnt in an incinerator they would produce highly toxic fumes.

Want to know more? Read the Environmental Defense Fund pages!

The softwares I can't miss when formatting

Some time ago I posted a post regarding the software that can't miss on my computer.
I am updating the list as I am discovering more freewares and changing my needs.

[old post revised]
Formatting is taking longer and longer because of the high amount of data to be backupped. And because of the number of softwares we use, and because of their increasing size due to their high performances. So, I have decided to post a list of the software I can't forget to install on my newly formatted computer with download links. In this way everytime I format I just have to read this post to dowload the most recent version.

What you should remember to backup:
1) email messages
2) documents
3) images
4) databases such as your book inventory or your CD and DVD inventory
5) address book of your email client
6) favourite bookmarks (yiu can use the Firefox's add-on Foxmarks to have them stored on the web and download/upload them when you need)

tips: use your webmail instead of an email client, Google's Gmail is the best! It's free and give you 5+ GB of spaces and manages your emails like you have never seen before. It also come with a built-in chat (Gtalk) you can use from your webmail. So versatile!

The softwares you will need

THE ESSENTIALS:
1) an OS (Operative System) according to your preference (get it before formatting)
2) an antivirus (get it before formatting so that you will install it before connecting to the internet for the first time), my favourite anitivirus is free and it's called Avast
3) a web browser to download the following softwares ;) I use Firefox

THE BASICS:
4) one or more antispywares such as Spybot Search & Destroy and Adaware
5) one cache cleaner, I use CCleaner
6) a PDF reader, I recommend to use Foxit which as the same functions as Acrobat Adobe but is free and lighter
7) A suite of programs to read and write word, excel, power points, access files. You can buy Microsoft Office or you can just download OpenOffice for free.
8) An email client if you don't use your webmail. I use Thunderbird for my secondary emails, just to check them simultaneously (always keep a copy of your emails on the server, so that you don't need to back it up). Thunderbird also offers superfast configuration of your gmail accounts.
9) Cellphone software. It depends on your cellphone brand. Mine is Nokia.
10) A software to listen to the music and to watch videos. My fave is winamp but I need iTunes to listen to some music I bought on their website. Winamp indexes your multimedia files and allow you to browse it, as well as to surf the web (as a built in browser) and look for radio broadcasting channels from all over the world.
11) An IM (Istant Messenger) such as MSN Messenger, ICQ, etc. You can also get some multiple chat clients to have a single software for more than one community like E-Buddy, which comes also with a mobile version I use from my nokia. If you regiser (free) on ebuddy, it will allow you to access yahoo, gtalk, msn, facebook, yahoo and other chats at once. It will import your contact lists, too.

OTHERS I WILL FEEL THE NEED TO INSTALL SOONER OR LATER:
12) Some games. It's incredible how it is hard to find good games these days. They don't have to take all your screen nor 100% your attention, they shouldn't be flashy or noisy. Card games are the best, but there are some strategy games I love. Popcap Games has excellent games. They are not free but you can try them for a while before buying. My mom also plays Brickshooter , DxBall and Bubble Golden Pack 3.
13) Jack SMS: for Italian users, it allows to send a limited amount of free texts.
14) Power DVD, a DVD player which allows double subtitles, very handful when it comes to learn a language throught movies. Not free but has a trial version. I have the full version because it came with my DVD burner.
15) AIDA 32 - it's a nice software which shows you how the space on your HD is allocated. You can easily individuate the bigger files.
16) DVD43  - free software that allows you to view DVD from multiple regions. Great deal!
17) A neutral screensaver such as Fliqlo, which shows the time in a old fashioned yet cool way
18) BsPlayer is a player which allow you to watch DiVx with subtitles (to be downloaded ina separated files)
19) an Italian-English dictionary with pronunciation, such as the Oxford-Paravia
20) Filezilla to easily upload via ftp you files on your webspace
21) Macromedia Dreamweaver & Fireworks. The first one is to edit/build webpages, the latter is used for the photo editing.
22) WordWeb is an English only dictionary which offers for free also synonims, nearest types and figured pronounciation. It's very light and easily to use. Just select the word you want to explore and click a combination of keys of your choice to open it. Now it features also a search on wikipedia. The software it's free, but there is also a Pro version for €19 which offers some more stuff.