Nafcom being interviewed at Classic-Videogames LIVE! #39 with Apprentice

I have recently been interviewed again, this time primarily about my C64 diskmag project Scene World.




The interview is in German and includes a live presentation of issue number #20 starts at 1:00 h in this video:







I hope you enjoy as much as I did enjoying being interviewed :)




Technorati Tags: Scene World, Nafcom

Solution: My iOS device only shows a blank update page in the App Store

You have an iOS device from Apple (may it be an iPhone, iPod Touch, or an iPad) and suddenly in your App Store you only see a blank update tab page and even if you connect it to your PC or Mac to your iOS device and update it through iTunes to have the most recent app versions, you still see a '1' like as if 1 update was srill missing?




Well, even the Apple forums don't have a solution and I was out of ideas, so I decided to contact Apple Support (the first time that I did by the way) and a Mr Slip told me the solution that worked!:




Settings --> General --> Reset --> Reset Network Settings and that worked! 




After the iPhone restarted and I waited till the appstore completely finished loading (Since I did reset the network settings I only had 3G and no WIFI of my router anymore). it took a bit but then there it was the previously hidden update! 


Thanks Apple Support! Thanks to the fact that it was happening to me since the iOS update to 6.1.2 that I updated to yesterday, I was able to request an exception online so received the support call for free! :)


Here is how to contact them:


https://expresslane.apple.com/LocaleChange.action



Technorati Tags: App Store, iPhone5

When software companies break things and ignore bug reports

Do you know this feelin? When software companies break things and ignore bug reports so it remains for weeks and months?


Well, it happened to me. Twice lately.


First was when suddenly Opera would print garbage on my Canon LBP5050n. I thought maybe when I moved to Win7 x64 to Win8 x64 it would be fixed - but I was wrong! 


It remains broken for me since over half a year now.


I know some suggest simply export and re-import all your mails and do a fresh installation of Opera instead of copy & paste.
BUT: export works , however re-import doesn't work as the data amount of my emails is too much and the import function simply doesn't see it as a valid file.




Another one is ICQ, their ICQ8 client is simply horrible and facebook support is broken for many users. Becuase the access granted window is either displayed wrng (windows 8) or the icq client doesn't save the granted state.


later bug appeared since 2nd beta of icq 8 and was reported by me but ignored


In general ICQ, who is since a while owned by Mail.RU has a reputation problem because they ignore obvious valid reactions and opinions and release a pretty bug drained ICQ8 client  that is no more ICQ-like anyway.


Well, I use Skype now for my Facebook contacts! :) 




Technorati Tags: ICQ, Opera

Interview with Nafcom on retro computing podcast 68000er

Always wanted to know what I do next to this Blog and my Twitter?

This can be heard now as there was an interview with me on the retro computing podcast 68000er

I tell about my hobby of doing stff for the C64 community that is in fact still alive.
I am also speaking about the C64 NTSC/PAL diskmag "Scene World" that I am releasing with friends since 11 years now.

The podcast is in German  but I got the permission to release an English version of it, which I consider for the future! :)

Technorati Tags: Nafcom, interview

Skype for Linux 4.0 released + Install on Mandriva 2011 X64

The Linux Team of Skype recently released Skype 4.0 for Linux which sets a landmark as this means they are catching up with the Windows version  - one of the primary complaints of the Linux users has been that they are way too far behind the Windows and even the Mac counterparts.

Quoting Marco Commino:

With this release, we have finally filled the gap with our other desktop clients and we are now making many of the latest Skype features, as well as a lot of UI improvements, available to our penguin lovers. 

 You will find four major changes in this release: 

-We have a new Conversations View where users can easily track all of their chats in a unified window. Those users who prefer the old view can disable this in the Chat options;

-We have a brand new Call View;

-Call quality has never been better thanks to several investments we made in improving audio quality; and

-We've worked on improving video call quality and have also extended support for more cameras.

 Of course, we have loads of other small improvements and fixes. As you can imagine, the list is so long it would take too much time to write it all, but some are worthy of mention: 

 -improved chat synchronization

 -new presence and emoticon icons

 -the ability to store and view phone numbers in a Skype contact's profile

 -much lower chance Skype for Linux will crash or freeze

 -chat history loading is now much faster

Now the Linux version has the same default GUI which the Windows users learned to hate so much already,

luckily they learned from the past and you can switch back to the old interface just like you can on the Windows release.


I have however to admit that I have managed to let it crash 3 times.

Now the question is, how do you install it on Mandriva 2011 x64? 32 bit is no problem, you simply copy the files of the static or dynamic release (whatever works for you) files to the folders as written in the enclosed readme file.

But this won't work in x64. So here is how I did it:

-First I had 2.2. installed using the way I described in a blog post earlier
-Then I found that there is a 4.0 RPM for Mandriva (more info here)
If you find that the links don't work you can find it at mandriva Users.ro

Voilla and happy Skyping! :)



Technorati Tags: Skype, Mandriva

Opera Next with Synchronous Mail Loading!

Opera obviously changed his mind recently about loading the Mail database.

As mentioned in an earlier blog post of mine, they chnged from syncronious Mail database loading to asyncronious Mail database loading which causes that one has to wait 5 Minutes or longer (on a very large database!) sometimes until everything is ready.

As mentioned by burnout426 in this forum thread this changed now:

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2012/06/28/more-fixes-for-opera-12> has a Load Mail Databases Asynchronously option that you can uncheck to restore the synchronous behavior Opera had in 10.10 and before.

While that works for me, the UI is not showing for me for ~5 seconds when Opera starts up while in 10.10 with the same situation, the UI shows instantly. So, it doesn't emulate 10.10 behavior perfectly (for me at least). But, I'll take the 5 second UI block over the slow database loading any day.

I have tried it by myself and it works pretty flawlessly for me. Since it's a Opera Next feature it cannot be said whether this is a temporary or permanent feature.



Technorati Tags: Opera, mail

Serpost (Peruvian Postal Sevice) now providing international item track & trace online!

I just noticed, Serpost (Peruvian Postal Service) now provides international item track & trace online


I noticed it when checking TrackIt that suddenly, one could select "Peru" as country. So I was interested to know how it was implemented. Checking it online on Serpost's page one can see this result e.g.:

Checking the footer we figure out it's an implementation of the system developed by the Postal Technology Centre, a sub-devision of the UPU, the Universal Postal Union.

2006 is quite an age, but hey, the Bulgarian Postal Service uses the same and it works.

Over here we are we still have no way to track international incoming registered letters and still have to rely on more or less friendly call agents on the telephone! (and it isn't even a toll free number)!

Hooray to Peru, thanks for providing something that works.

Before you had only 2 options: write then an English email and wait for the reply (mostly a one-liner) or go the official way and do an international inquiry like you would for a lost or delayed or damaged item (minimum time of wait: 3 weeks).


 Technorati Tags: Serpost, Post