AVCHD thumbnails

This registry file for thumbnails

http://gidon.reid.googlepages.com/AVCHDthumbnails.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mts\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.m2t\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.m2ts\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

Doesn't seem to work straight away, even after a reboot. But on importing from camcorder began to work!

Can force it to start working by deleting thumbnail cache.

In Vista run disk cleanup (type "cleanup" from start). Select "thumbnails" and delete.

Internlet connection sharing ...

Enabling on XP and connecting to from Vista using wireless connection:

First I established an ad-hoc wirelss network using Vista:

Network sharing centre Set up connection or network Setup wireless ad hoc
Give it name and I disabled security in this case.

Now you should be able to connect to this network from XP machine.

Now enable ICS on XP machine - right click Internet connection (not wireless) and select properties. Then in the Advanced tab tick share this connection. Think I also shared files etc. This gives the other connection - the wireless connection a static IP address 192.168.0.1. And this is the gateway (and DHCP server) for the other client machines (but this happen automcatically on the client machines)

That should be it - you can watch the connection in the Network Sharing Centre to see if you get Internet - and it'll prompt you for what sort of network this is.

Backing up / restoring Windows Media Player 11 library

I had to rebuild my PC recently and was forced to recreate my music library with all its tracks and library art. WMP doesn't appear to offer any backup utility for this which is odd. Anyhow this is the process I followed to restore everything as was.
I made things easy by doing a full backup image of my C drive before rebuilding my system (with a previous image) - I use True Image (v.11) for this. With my new system updated, I installed WMP v.11. I then went into my True Image and restored the following files and folders from this location:
C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player
CurrentDatabase_360.wmdb
Art Cache (Folder)
wmpfolders.wmdb
CurrentDatabase_59R.wmdb
These last two I'm not sure are needed but the first two certainly are. Bingo - everything loaded up in WMP as was - phew!
Make sure of course all your actual media files are in the same place as they were (mine are all stored on a removeable USB drive).

But then I had a problem actually seeing the music on my Pinnacle Homemusic network player. It connected fine but would show "0 items" when I tried to play anything. After searching the Roku newsgroups, found this suggestion:
Try Removing and Adding back monitored folders
1. Open windows media player
2. Go to Library
3. Remove the folders that Windows Media is watching for content
4. Quit WMP11 5. Re-open WMP11, and add your music folders back
I first made sure the Rip musc folder was correct (it wasn't). And then checked this folder was monitored - it was after selecting as Rip folder. I deselected everything else and when I ok'ed the dialog box it checked 1000 odd tracks. After it'd done this I exited and reloaded WMP and reconnected to the Pinnacle box - and it worked!

Editing PDF files in PDFedit under Cygwin

This is one of the few free ways I can find of editing, inlcuding deleting and adding text to a PDF file. It seems complicated but it isn't.

First download Cygwin. Select the qt3 library when you get prompted (you can sort the list of available options to make it easier to find and select - the runtime is what you want). Also select ghostscript (I had problems with fonts before I selected this). It takes a while to install even with a quick connection but you don't really have to do anything, the default options are fine. Watch your Firewall warnings.

Now download PDFedit. Extract the files to their default directories under the created Cygwin directory.

Now run Cygwin. You'll get a command prompt. Type:

$ x

Now start a new Cygwin session and type:

$ pdfedit

If you get an error message about DISPLAY type:

$ export DISPLAY=:0.0 (this selects the created X window to run the application)

It won't open encrypted files unfortunately and it's pretty sluggish to say the least. But it works - perfect if you want to change some text or such like. Just select it with the text select tool and edit the box in the toolbar to what you want. Sometimes it selects a whole sentance or part of - look at the parameters in the right frame and you should be able to edit each character seperately. It doesn't seem to update as it should but try copy and paste or scrolling around.

Can't see a way of creating form fields. Oh and if it gives a warning about "linearized PDF" it doesn't seem to really matter, but you can delin the file using the delin lin PDF tool.

For form filling found PDFill very good and at $20 prolly worth the price.