Sergei on Tech

(back from the dead)

Spent about an hour trying to get an answer to a simple question. How do you add unicode characters to strings in xCode?

I thought Apple had an answer here. They were wrong though. I finally found what I was looking for on stackoverflow.
The trick is to use a unicode character in a string you need to write it as such:

“String\u2002with\u2003three\u2009different spaces”

So a unicode ensp U+2002 would be written as \u2002 in the code. Capitalization does matter, uppercase U means  there’s 8 hexadecimals following the U and u means there’s only 4 following the u.

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Another response to a forum post with pictures.

http://forums.zune.net/339110/ShowPost.aspx

Open the overdrive console & click transfer

Click next

Click Advanced Options

Click Browse

Expand the overdrive folder and right click on the item you want to delete and select delete

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Valid for Zune 3.0

The Marketplace album Usher-Burn doesn’t download the art on purchase, here’s a way to fix it.

1) Browse to album with missing album art and click “find album info”

2) Search for album, I used the second album with 3 tracks, click next

3) Use the drop downs on the right under “available song titles for this album” to select the old song titles (so you’re effectively just taking the album art)

4) click next and finish and you should have the album art

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No matter what kind of development you’re doing at some point you’re going to compare your code to the original to see where the differences are. This is my favorite tool to do it in windows: http://winmerge.org/

Some  screenshots

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I was working on some C code today and ran into something I wasn’t familiar with:

typedef struct {
uint8_t h:4;
uint8_t n:4;
} Buf;

What do those colons mean?

Bit Fields allow the packing of data in a structure. This is especially useful when memory or data storage is at a premium. Typical examples:

* Packing several objects into a machine word. e.g. 1 bit flags can be compacted — Symbol tables in compilers.
* Reading external file formats — non-standard file formats could be read in. E.g. 9 bit integers.

C lets us do this in a structure definition by putting :bit length after the variable. i.e.

According to http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/C/node13.html#SECTION001320000000000000000

Sweet!

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Problems started when Windows XP refused to detect my Zune. I then tried re-installing the software and getting an error like this:

So I scoured the internet for resources, here’s some articles I found:

• http://forums.zune.net/68026/ShowPost.aspx
• http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/zune-firmware/12736-error-0×80070643-2.html
• http://forums.zune.net/194840/ShowPost.aspx#194840

After reading all of the suggestions, I decided to stick with the following process. Here are the steps LandoJamz of the Zune.net forums. I’m bolding the ones I need to do

1. Update all you can from the Microsoft Update page.

2. Search forum for “DisableRollBack” registry hack and follow that. Restart PC after completing this.

3. Uninstall WMP 11 if you have it. Then go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/download/download.aspx to download a fresh copy of WMP11

4. Install WMP 11.

5. Hit Start->Search->All Files and Folders->type “Zune” under “all or part of the file name” ->Search

6. Delete any references to Zune. Then clear the “recycle bin”.

[Edit 7/2/2008] 6.5. Run Unzoone - http://remove-it.org/tools/unzoone

7. Download the Zune install package directly from Microsoft, not from Zune. It’s about 166MB file.

8. Right click on “My Computer” from the desktop, and choose “Properties”

9. In the System Properties, choose “Hardware Tab”, Click “Device Manager”

10. Uninstall any “Unknown Devices” found under “System Devices”

11. Still under “System Properties”, click “System Restore” tab.

12. Place a check mark on “Turn off system restore on all drives”. Hit “Apply” then “OK” button.

13. Turn ON Windows Firewall (and disable any third party firewalls like Norton)

14. Disconnect any network cables or disable wireless network. The point is not to be connected to the Internet.

15. Run the Microsoft Zune install package.

16. You will still get the error message, but just ignore. Since you disabled the roll back feature, you will at least have the Zune shortcut.

17. Run the Zune Software.

18. Connect your Zune Device. Follow any “Update firmware” issues.

19. If this works, then you can reverse any settings (remove rollback hack, turn off windows firewall, enable system restore) and restart PC.

20. Uninstall any “Unknown Device” - see steps 8-10.

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I’m pretty frustrated with Vista so I’m backing up my files and settings and going back to XP. I’m putting together a list of links that explain how to backup specific applications.

Outlook 2007

Microsoft has a tool to back up and restore the PST folder (I wouldn’t use it): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100758021033.aspx

Edit: When I run it under XP and Outlook 2007 it tells me my file is corrupted. Good thing I just copied the PST files to an external.

Outlook PST files on Vista:C:\users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

Outlook PST files on XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

The file called Outlook.pst was the important one for me, but I copied the rest as well.

Firefox

MozBackup is the tool of choice - http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/download.php Lifehacker article

1.4.7 doesn’t back up all the extensions, so if you’re having trouble backing up extensions try FEBE

One caveat with using FEBE, when restoring your data you will need to create an extra profile. FEBE can’t overwrite the profile you are currently using. Information on managing profiles here.

Zune 2

I’m interested in backing up the podcasts that I am subscribed to so I don’t have to re-enter all of them when I get my new computer working. Unfortunately, no such functionality exists in the Zune software. Sort of painful process:

1. Open Firefox
2. Open Zune 2
3. Go to podcasts
4. On each podcast click the “official website”
5. In Firefox do bookmark all open tabs, this way you’ll at least remember what podcasts you have to resubscribe to.
6. Make sure to backup your Firefox after you do this.

Slipstream Windows XP

Slipstreaming refers to the process of adding updates to an existing windows install disk.

Automatically Slipstream Windows XP

Burn the disc without Cygwin

When using the slipstream script I had some trouble with the downloads going in the wrong directory. I got everything to work with wget when the xpsp2.cmd was in the directory hotfixes were getting downloaded.

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I’ve been musing about starting a blog again. We’ll where this goes.

To Dos so far:

Pimp my blog - have to add some quality plug ins

Articles (ideas so far)

• IPTV survey
• VoIP survey

I think I’ll be able to add to the oodles of information that’s been written on the topic already

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