Read Comics And Books On Your S60 V5 Device

Got a Nokia with a touch screen?
Great!

Here's how its done.
(This is going to be quite a ride, so hang on!)

First we need to lay the groundwork, so you need to install Python for S60.
Maemo Garage is the home of PyS60.

In order to do this properly you would have to download the latest version from the version list ( the file with the name ending .tar.gz) onto your computer.
Then you would have to decompress it (twice) with 7-zip.
and dig through it and install these two files:
Which you would install on your phone.

Instead I have put them on my webserver for you, you can download them and install them directly on the phone.
( Remember the version on my server may not be up to date.)

Once you have installed these I recommend you run the updater application on your phone (It may be called 'Application Updater' or 'SW Update') and update python.

Now that we have python installed we can go get our comic book reader.
The reader is called 'TouchComic' and the creators blog is here.
You can get the latest version of TouchComic and txt_converter here.
You should download and install TouchComic on the phone, you only need to download the txt_converter.

Now you should be all set, if you have a comic in .cbz (a bunch of image files in a renamed zip folder) you should be able to open it with TouchComic and read it.

If you have a .txt file (for example Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom) that you would like to read, put it on the device (I have yet to figure out a way to download a txt file directly).
Then fire up the Pythonx.x.x [x being the version numbers] in your applications folder and go options=>Run script=>txt_convertor.py select the .txt file and it will convert it to a .cbz for you.

So now you have a functioning ebook reader and comic book reader.

If you are ready for yet more adventure this is a list of Python for S60 applications you could try.

If you find a cool apps, or have any problems setting up the software, just comment below.

Have fun!
-Rory

My MemoryC.ie order arrived today

I don't mean to gush... but I will:
I am really impressed with MemoryC.ie
Why?

• Their prices are fair (about the same as their competitors: Elara.ie and Komplett.ie)
• They have a great interface for finding your ram. And I really mean that. If you know what your machine needs you will have it priced in 5 minutes or less. Komplett and elara make pricing laptop ram incredibly difficult by not sorting it properly, memoryc just sort it.
• It's usually not difficult to find a discount voucher. (I have a thing about those discount code boxes, whenever I see one I need to put something in it. I've cancelled orders before because I got pissed off about not having a code, with MemoryC a quick google usually solves it.)
• They put stuff in the post, fast. I ordered something (Standard Post) before lunch on Tuesday, and recieved it before lunch on Wednesday. That happened because they got it to the post office before 5. Awesome.

There are also somethings that annoy me about MemoryC:

• They're sponsoring the gaming clan I belong to, but they didn't give us a discount code. (I mean why not? Just give us a 5/10% code to track what purchases are driven by us and encourage us to spend money with them. They're sponsoring PC gamers because we buy so much stuff anyway.)
• Out side of RAM, Memory Sticks and Hard Drives their range and pricing is quite poor.

So there you have it, if you're in Ireland looking to buy RAM, Memory Sticks or Hard Drives MemoryC is the place to go. If your looking for other computer bits, they're probably only going to irritate you.

-Rory

P.S. I got irritated by the Blogger interface while writing this post, and wrote this.

The Tic-Tac Song

Life is fun as a tic-tac,
Things get done as a tic-tac
When you're orange and round,
And you don't hit the ground.
Life is fun as a tic-tac!

This better work this time.

I'm sending this blog update from pixelpipe, it should only appear on A Thought For A Day if the routing tag works!

And French

It is now only 20 minutes until boarding starts. my headache has pretty much abated as has my tiredness. I'm starting to like it here, the sun is low in the sky and is casting big shadows through the floor to ceiling windows, I have a nice cool hand rail to rest my head against and the relaxing cacophony of rowing Indian Children as a backdrop to my thoughts.
Now back to important issues: Canadian Small Change:
Canadian Small Change (as used in Toronto International at least) seems like a good metaphor for everything in Canada.
Canada feels to me as a mid-point between the tastes and attitudes of The US, The UK with a good whack of their own home-grown identy mixed in.
In my wallet of Canadian cash I have a few US quarters, a US nickel, a couple of Canadian Dollar and two Dollar coins, I have notes with pictures of the queen.
The convenience-kiosk provided a similar mix: You see beef jerky and think, this Canada thing is bs, I'm in the 51st state. But then you realise that the package describes it in English And French.

The Sacred Cow

I'm now waiting at the gate for my flight to LAX. It should start boarding in 40 minutes, and take off in 70. The airport staff are using the doors here as a shortcut into the arrivals system. They seem to be feeding people who somehow accidentally escaped the customs and passports control back in.
I bought a bag of beef jerky in an attempt to lighten my load of Canadian pocket-change left over from buying a meal and a drink.
I think I've been coping surprisingly well for a half-drunk, sleep-deprived tourist who has never seen this weird little currency before.
I'm sitting in a little enclove with an Indian-looking Mother and her Sons, I can't help but feel a little guilty as I rip chunks of the sacred cow apart in front of them.
But never mind, if we start worrying about other people's belief's in this time of modern multi-cultural society, we soon won't allow ourselves do anything. Which would be bad... but at least my jaw would stop hurting.

Molson

I'm sitting in the Molson-Pub Bar & Grill in Toronto International Airport, I'm sucking an ice-water through a lemony straw. I've probably got another half an hour or so of good faith with the staff before they encourage me to order or leave.
The good faith I have is based on the Double Morgan and Coke I had when I came in.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but instead of making me pleasantly drunk it gave me a wet-slap of a headache which nearly knocked me unconscious.
It suddenly occurred to my body-clock that I had been awake for 18 straight hours (ironic because it is 6 o'clock pm here in Toronto) and it responded my making me so incapable of focus that I had a tricky time making eye contact with the staff to ask for water.
My wonderful master-plan for my trip through Toronto has completely fallen through.
The aformentioned plan went something like this: go to Toronto. leave the airport, and get a train into a nice downtown area. Eat a meal and wonder around. Return to the Airport and Fly to LAX.
Naturally enough my plane to Canada was hideously delayed and I spent time that was meant to be spent investigating Toronto, sitting on a floor in Dublin.
When I arrived at YYZ I discovered that US Immigration had created a marvellous, inescapable red-tape maze, which chewed me up and spat me into the US departures end of YYZ.
Time to move on.

Michelle In DIT

Michelle In DIT
Originally uploaded by ankhwatcher

Took this picture of Michelle in DIT today.
(Also found out that I can post pictures and posts straight to my blog from flickr)
-Rory

Update

One of my poems and two of my articles were read out in Joels Awful Snack 89b!
Thanks for the mention Joel!
-Rory

First Kiss

We danced slowly, I am naturally uncomfortable with dancing so I was very relieved to find her a willing and capable lead. I followed her as we gently moved from side to side.
I did my best to pick up any other mannerisms, like looks and gestures: if she looked down and to her left I looked down and two my right. I immediately drew the comparison to 'looks' from Zoolander.
After a while I stopped clowning around... I was distracted by the smile which had bloomed on my partners face.
I noticed that she was much, much closer than she had been when we started dancing. I wanted to know that she was on board with us kissing (part of why I enjoy being drunk is that I stop worrying about this stuff) so while doing my best to keep the slow beat of the song I looked in her eyes and notified her that we had been moving closer together.
She insisted that I had been the one moving closer to her but I still held it was mutual. I told her that 'regardless of the cause we will meet in...' and I trailed off, I had no idea how long we were dancing, when did we start? How far apart were we then? What distance had we covered so far? In the end I decided there were simply too many variables so I chose an arbitrary number that would give her time to laugh at this outlandish statement and resume dancing in time to steadily lean in and kiss before the song ended.
'thirty or forty seconds' I said immediately regretting it, it suddenly sounded like an eternity. But before I knew it we were locked in a tight embrace on a dance floor kissing in a somewhat melodramatic way.
It was a truly excellent first kiss.

-ANkh

Bastard Review Song

On Tuesday my good friend Neil told me about an idea of his to make Zero Punctuation style reviews of the plays we would see as members of DIT Drama.
I was quite taken with this idea and in this shower this morning (A great deal of my ideas arrive in the shower... typically the only place I cant use a notebook or a tape recorder) I had an idea for song.
In order to keep the song structured and in my head I continued to sing it to myself for the next half-hour. So if anyone asks... that is my excuse.

Anyway this should be sung in a loud and verbose manner, possibly accompanied by a piano.
It's times like this I wish I had given a crap when I was taking piano lessons*.

Bastard Review
Before
It's just another crazy bastard review!
Find out what those crazy bastards, think of you!
In yet another crazy, BAS-TARD REV-IEW!

After
That was a crazy, bastard review.
Just another crazy bastard review.
Oh please mother, don't make me watch another...
BAS-TARD RE-VIEW!

I hope we get to use it.
-ANkh


*It's an odd fact that I was never interested in art or drawing anything until well after people stopped trying to teach it to me, the same with music.

Evil Crane

Arwen's rather demented belief that The Crane looked 'evil' prompted me to attempt to make an evil Ralph Steadman style crane.
Thus we have: Evil Crane.
As usual drawing a female of the species caused my normal breast-drawing-panic and I had to go scurrying through my photo archive for a girl in t-shirt. I eventually used a picture of my ex-girlfriend.
Ah... I don't miss her much... but I do miss her breasts...

-ANkh
P.S. Check out plurk. I'm really starting to like it.

Crane

I blame Randall Munroe for this, him and that Farside Guy.
And I just downloaded the new Ben Folds track Ben put on his myspace page! Thanks Ben!
Get 'Way To Normal' here.

-ANkh

Barstow

I was walking towards my front door when the drink began to take hold.
My hands seemed big and loosely connected to the rest of my body, using them was difficult.
I tried to take out my keys, I would need the big one to undo the bolt. My fingers did not agree with my objectives; they fumbled and nearly dropped my keyring. Eventually I grabbed out my door key, ready to plunge into the door. Sadly upon further inspection the key was for the snub at the top of the door, making it useless until the bolt had been withdrawn.
After further fighting and scrabbling I found the key I needed and with it and the stub key stumbled into the house. I locked the door behind me with surprising ease and stumbled off towards the bathroom.

It had all started several hours before in an MG hot-hatch traveling from Glasthule to Dalkey.
I was with my comrade-at-arms, a scoundrel conman; and his friend, a queasy young fellow whose great passions were driving, making money and listening to some of the worst music ever recorded by human beings. He was lambasting our eardrums with a boot-full of expensive sound equipment and talking excitedly about his next business deal as he blasted through the quiet streets of empty towns, desperately trying to hit the speed limit between stops by accelerating dangerously.
"So I'll pick you guys up and we'll all go in together tonight, okay?" he screamed at us over a terrible dance remix of a mediocre one-hit-wonder.
'Going in' would mean going back to Dun Laoghaire, which was hosting 'The Festival of World Cultures' an annual event which had been slowly gaining momentum for the past few years until it turned into the riotous event of thronging crowds and banging drums that it is today. My first trip there had gleaned only two nuggets of information: 1. The little restaurant by the seafront should server mozzarella burgers all the time, and 2. I hate everyone.
My comrade, whose two greatest fears are walking and paying for anything (especially public transportation) wholeheartedly agreed with this proposal, but he insisted that he would need a few hours to nap before he could face the public. (In scoundreling the early bird gets the worm, and he had also spent most of the preceding night chasing that same worm.)
I saw this as an opportunity to both escape my accursed studies and observe and interact with the local fauna, and agreed.

At Ten O'Clock my peaceful neighborhood was rudely disturbed by the blasting horn of a blue MG, shivering with the recoil from it's speaker system, which were treating the surrounding houses to the 'Euphoria Cut' of The End.
I was in the bathroom polishing my shoes at the time and was quite startled by the ruckus. The thought that my neighborhood was experiencing its first gang shooting crossed my mind as I marched towards my front door. I gingerly opened the door to see my neighbor standing at her gate, glaring down the road towards the source of the disturbance. As I went to walk past her, I said my normal cheerful hello; she twitched and spun around.
'Hey Rory, you startled me'
'Sorry, whatcha doin'?'
'Just keepin' an eye on these' she said and waved a hand towards the car.
'Oh' I said and coolly walked past to squeeze my frame into the rear seat of the car.
I looked back as we tore away to see the look of vague discomfort on her face.

Holiday Snaps

Finally got around to loading some holiday snaps onto the web.
Here are some nice shots of cars: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ankhwatcher/OldCars
Here is what I did while wandering around a small town at 5am: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ankhwatcher/DeepNight
Here is the office where I was working/hanging out: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ankhwatcher/SAGA

-ANkh

Damn The Infernal Night

It is approximately 2.50am. I will be rising from bed at 7am. I have not slept. I finished 'Hell's Angels - A Strange and Terrible Saga' by Hunter S. Thompson. My fan is too noisy, it makes an irritating clicking noise as it runs. My pillows are somehow, all wrong. Women are problematic. Decisions are second guessed. Blah. Here I am, caught again. Awake in The Infernal Night. The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul.

Hello, I'm drunk

I said to the attractive girl waiting at the bus stop. She laughed and found humour in that and my many drunken comments and questions as I related a night of drunken debauchery at Ireland's capitol of weird: Fibber Magees on Parnell street.
I arrived in Fibbers practically breathless from my habit of walking everywhere with my back stiff in a walk of near-run speeds. I burst in behind two attractive young ladies who were not dressed in a fibbers-like manor, speaking of which: I was not dressed in a way that would be familiar to the inhabitants of the establishment either.
I was wearing a well fit top, which was black with vertical white stripes, I was also wearing a pair of 'easy fit' jeans and leather shoes.
The standard Fibberwear of the Fibbermen (as the regulars are known) is
3 to 5 facial piercings.
2 visible tattoos and 1 large, obscured tattoo that can be exposed later, this will serve as a conversation piece during a lull.
A large black jacket, preferably the kind worn by Neo in the lobby scene of the matrix; failing that a large, loose, fading jean-jacket will suffice.
A band t-shirt, preferably beaten to shreds and displaying the name of an obscure band with terrible vocals.
A pair of big black army boots, if big black army boots are unavailable black boots of the near-platform style with pretend-steel capping bolted on for effect with suffice.
Hair should be died red. Extra points go for creativity in this field.

So clearly my clothing choices, which would have made me perfectly acceptable in snotty clubs across the city; made me stand out here.

Going to Fibber Magees in dublin tonight. If you want to come and don't know how to get there call me.

The Story So Far

What I did on my summer holidays:

Well lets see... I spent most of June building and setting up my new PC and generally being a total shut-in. Then I did some work in July, which resulted in money that disappeared so fast I suspect I may have burnt it.
Then I went to California, where I played tech. support for my dads office for two/three weeks, put on a few kilo's and bought some nice clothes.
And I arrived back two days ago.
Since I got back I've been going to the gym every day! (2/2 ain't bad) But that is probably only going to last until my first hangover: natch.
California was a big vacuum of no friends and no drinking so I'm in a big hurry to go out... which is also a good way to avoid studying for my host [a veritable buffet] of repeats (exams): natch (Is there a limit to how many times you are allowed say 'natch'? Where would I look that up, 'Natch-etiquette'?).
Of course this is slightly way-laid by my complete lack of funds. By my rough calculation I am around 90-150 euro in debt (Subtracting credit card from bank balance to reach this figure), with no obvious way to climb out of this hole except working my 1-day a week job for a few weeks and staying in my house like some sort of leper-hermit; which is how I got into this state in the first place. bah.

-ANkh

Hope - new version

Here is a rhyming version of 'Hope is the thing with barbs', enjoy.

Hope is the thing with barbs
That flashes near the beach,
Which Shines of Silver– Glitters of Gold
Never quite in reach,

And luring when all is calm;
And never giving peace
That could relax the weathered soul
Thats problems willn’t cease.

But when the trap is sprung;
And I take the bait,
Then my fate is set,
And barbs don’t abate.

-Ankhwatcher