PS2: The background music of One Piece: Round The Land

Even if it's a ten-year-old PS2 game it's still a special game about the famous Japanese anime series One Piece. It also contains interesting background music - so let's get the sound!

I have the European edition of the game (One Piece: Round The Land (2004)). If you look at the root of the disc, you'll see the following folders:

The root folder of the PS2 disc

In the folder 'BGM' you'll find the subfolders '00', '01' and '02' which all contain the whole background music from the video game. But they are in the file format *.int. Int stands for PS2 RAW Interleaved Format.  

You can listen to the music with using the BZR Player. That's a music player for a lot of video game music formats as you can see in this list. But while running a playlist of songs it often happens that the program is ending up with "Not responding". But at least the songs are played correctly.

Attempts with using the tools MFAudio and PSound to convert the int-files into proper wav files failed - they sound similar, but not as good and correct as with BZR Player.

So any tool which is able to record the system sound (such as Free Audio Recorder) while playing the soundtrack with the BZR Player would be the only solution I can currently offer.

But if you know it better you can of course tell me in the comments.

Create subtitles with srt-files

Subtitles are quite useful when you're watching a movie in a foreign language. Of course you can create your own *.srt-files to include them into your video. Let's see how that works.

At first, you simply need an editor. You can use the in Windows-included Notepad or something better like Notepad++.
In the latter it's much easier, because the important things are colored (if you chose XML as the language) and you can also see the line numbers.

To create one subtitle line you need three rows: The first is always the counter, so start with '1'. The second contains the time from the begin of the sub until it disappears.

You have to use the following syntax: hh:mm:ss,000 ==> hh:mm:sss,000

In the last line you have to write the text. With HTML codes you change font color, size and so on. As you can see in this example:

1
00:01:03.030 ==> 00:01:06.078
<font size="32px" color="white">This is a test subtitle!</font>
In the following you can see how helpful Notepad++ is:

Example for srt file opened in Notepad++

To make some adjustments it could be very useful to test the file within the VLC media player. Just open the suited video, right-click in the video, select 'subtitle' and then 'Open File'.

How to open a subtitle file in VLC media player

Then just chose the file you've previously created and watch if everything matches fine. Else, you can always make some adaptions - maybe you have to change a line for a tenth of a second up or down.

If everything matches fine you can create mkv-files. In these files you can include subtitles into the video file. All you need is the application 'mkvmerge':

How to add sub titles into mkv files

Mkvmerge can create new mkv-files with additional audio dubs and subs. To begin you just need to press the 'add' button to select your video file and your srt file. 

In the segment with 'track, chapters and tags' you can see then the video file, the audio file from the video and your imported srt file. If you click at the srt-file (usually named as 'SubRip/SRT ... ) you can give the subtitle line a 'track name' and also chose a language in the 'general track options'.

Finally you just need to select the destination and press 'Start muxing'.

Of course there are also other and easier ways to create subtitles but that's another story...

Picasa and drive B

To be able to search through drive B in Picasa 3.9 doesn't seem like a frequently occuring issue, but if it's a problem, there's still a solution without changing the letter of the drive.

In Picasa 3.9 you are not able to scan a drive within the letter B. Some say it has been possible in previous versions - I can't tell... Anyway..

Select Drive Letter and Paths (German screenshot)

The solution is the following:
1) Open computer management
2) Select disk management
3) Right-click at the drive B and chose Change Drive Letter and Paths
4) Click 'Add' to select a temporary folder which will be redirected to drive B
5) Confirm the selection with 'OK'

So now you just have to open Picasa, select Tools, then Folder Manager. Now you can open drive B in Picasa and select the subfolders you want.

The redirection of drive B in Picasa

Note: Many years ago the drives A and B were reserved for floppy drives. Even in Windows XP you were (with the regular way...) unable to mount another drive with the letter A or B. Since Windows 7 (and I guess probably also in Vista) the letters A and B were free to use for any other drive...

Google Play Store error: 'Insufficient storage available'

Installing apps on android-based systems can sometimes be a problem. The download works, but then... 'error'

After WhatsApp failed to work another time yesterday evening a message appeared that my version is too old and I should install the latest update.

So then I did what they wanted: I went to the Google Play Store and selected 'Update' to download the latest version.

After the download the software started to install. Or better it attempted to install. In the end it failed with the message 'Insufficient storage available'.

I remember having the error once before, I guess one and half years ago. Probably the error isn't only a WhatsApp problem.

Last time also the Facebook messenger failed to install.

So let's fix it: I deleted some files from the internal storage to get some space. I also removed some apps I don't need with the application manager.

After that I made a reboot of my phone and tried to install the application once again. This time the update worked and WhatsApp was running again.

Last time it didn't worked that way: After all attempts failed I decided to make a factory reset to 'solve' the issue.

Linux PC Linux OS BR - Installation

There are so many Linux distributions all over the world - today I will the Brazilian version of PC Linux OS.

How should I better test a new operation system than using a virtual machine. The free available Virtual Box is always a good start.

I downloaded the ISO image pclos_br_e_17_2013.4 and bootet it within a new virtual machine. After booting the image you're welcomed with the PCLinuxOS logo in the colors of the Brazilian flag.

The DVD boot screen

After you've chosen 'Install PCLinuxOS' the installing process will start.

The system is booting and the first decision you have to make is the chose the keyboard layout. As usual for a Brazilian distribution the default layout is 'Brazilian' - of course I chose a familiar one and continued.

Then you can change the partitioning settings for the virtual disk if you like.

In the next step you'll see the regular warning, that all data will be lost after if you chose to continue. Because it's a new created empty virtual hard drive - it doesn't matter!

The installation process will take a couple of minutes - even in a virtual machine. After that you can make some settings for the bootloader before you reboot.

Shortly after that, the computer will restart after the confirm that with 'Finish'.

The change of messaging

It's fascinating how quick the way of messenging has changed over the last ten years. Let's take a look back at my experiences in Germany!

Back in 2004 I had honestly barely contact with the internet and messenging. I didn't even had a mobil phone. I can remember using internet chatrooms just for fun - for example at school or in an internet café. 

But just two years later it started to change: I began using a mobil phone with writing text messages and using ICQ as an instant messenger on the computer.

This software has been quite popular back then. You could use the included searching option to find people you may know. You could also exchange the nine digit long 'ICQ' number with your friends or tell them your individual nickname. If you had been at another computer you used ICQ2GO in the web browser. It was the time where I was at 9th and 10th grade.

We also used another social media platform which was really popular that time. It was a website made for the youth to keep in touch with people which they have met at parties in the local region.

Just one year later by the end of 2007 if I am not very much mistaken it seemed that everybody switched to another social media site. Unlike the previous website the users were named in their real names instead of using nicknames. And site was made for entire Germany! They added the countries Austria and Switzerland later. 

Besides that and the whole design there wasn't much difference concerning both websites. But somehow the users went from one platform to another. Meanwhile ICQ has still been used.

So far so good, but then came Facebook. During the years 2010 and 2012 most of the users I know being at the German social network site switched in different time periods to Mark Zuckerbergs famous website.

The switch to Facebook was also a problem for ICQ. Facebook's included chat in its own messenger made it easy to use with a smartphone app. Ok, also ICQ had an app, but using just Facebook seemed much easier.

But there was also WhatsApp: I knew it since the begin of 2012 even if it was available a few years longer. Since the people in my social environment also got android-based smartphones and many other people also started using it this application it was used more and more. Especially since 2013.

Currently WhatsApp has almost replaced SMS messaging if you look at the messaging behaviour of many people. The reasons are of course that you can use it easily with the data network mode in flatrates and you can send messages to people with using another network provider for free. Messaging over wireless LAN is also very helpful, especially if you are in another country. Transferring pictures to your friends is also possible.

Ok, the last point is nothing new: The in my experience rarely used MMS and the messenger ICQ was also able to do that. Many years ago we used bluetooth to send pictures from one phone to another - so a connection between two devices. Yes and before that there was also IR (infrared).

But there's also not everyone using WhatsApp or Facebook. I have contacts which strictly avoid these opportunities - they use the classic email or SMS instead. Or Google Plus.

Future expectations

After seeing so many technologies and software changing over the years it's hard to predict what's next. But it seems like the technologies which are easy to use mostly gain acceptance.

Let's take WhatsApp as an example: You just have to download the app and it works. Your account is your phone number. In ICQ you have a completely different number while a file transfer over bluetooth is more complicated than just sending a picture via WhatsApp.

Facebook is unlike other small social media websites a real platform: There are games, famous people or companies have its own 'sites' - the whole world is connected! It's an almost invincible opponent for the other competitors. It's also easy to use, the smartphone apps are getting improved all the time.

The Facebook messenger is good way to send messages to people using both computer and smartphone. You don't have this opportunity with WhatsApp - you need a mobile phone number.

But after we know that Facebook bought WhatsApp we can expect they will develope an easy way to combine these two apps somehow. Maybe there will be a connection between both accounts so that you can send a WhatsApp message while you're sitting on the computer using your Facebook account.

But let's see what the time will bring us. The internet is getting faster and the opportunities are getting more which makes very hard to be successful. 

ASUS EEE PC 1002HA and Windows 7

Usually delivered with Windows XP the EEE PC 1002HA is also able to be used with Windows 7. With the official ending of the support (April 8th, 2014) it's now the time to install a newer Windows version.

STEP 1: LATEST BIOS VERSION

But it's a long way to reach the goal: First, it's recommended to update the BIOS to the latest version. If you don't do that Windows 7 will start with a black screen and you can only avoid it by pushing the power button for a few seconds to switch to the sleep mode and pressing the power button again to awake (normal screen will appear). But it's surely annoying to do that after every start.

So, in my case the BIOS had the version 0302 and the last one available is 1004. You can check the version with the Asus Update for EEE PC Update Tool and also update your BIOS (only if you're still using XP). Either try connecting with the internet or try to find the following ROM file by yourself: 1002HA-ASUS-1004.ROM

If you don't have the tool, then you can format an USB device with FAT16 (not FAT32, won't work!!!) and copy the ROM file to it. Rename the file to 1002HA.ROM.

Note: Devices bigger than 4GB can't be used with FAT16!

After that you just simply have to boot from your USB device (with pressing ALT + F2).

Process takes less than a minute

If the process is finished, remove your USB drive and push the power button to reboot the EEE PC.

STEP 2: INSTALL WINDOWS 7

To continue you need an ISO image with Windows 7 which you have to use on the bootable USB drive. The Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool is actually really helpful to convert and copy your image to a bootable USB device (check if it's big enough!).

Before booting from the USB device make sure, you have a backup of the current drive C, in case anything would went wrong.

You also need the files from C:\Program Files\EeePC\ACPI\Driver for installing the ACPI driver afterwards (it will be missed after the installation).

Simply save anything driver and software related EEE PC stuff. The safest way would be a hard disk image.

Finally you can boot from the USB device and install Windows 7. Except ACPI all drivers will be found by the operation system. It will work with just 1GB RAM but upgrading it to 2 won't be a bad idea. Good luck!