Cheap 500+ Sound Effects for $2.59

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Steven Sentosa

Are you a movie maker or may be just someone who like to create an audio book, like Whitsend.org? Couple days ago I just found this great collections of sound effects that you can use for whatever your need is. It has so many sound effects for different occasions. It is so many that I was overwhelmed by it.

I was creating a background audio for an on-stage performance several years ago, and I had problem finding the sound effect that I needed. I searched around the Internet with little results. There are actually a lot of sites out there that offers this, but just imagined how much money it would cost you to get 500 sound effects one by one. It is going to be really expensive.

I realized that not everyone needs 500+ sound effects stored on their hard drive. They might not be used ever. However, for people in the entertainment business, this could be a really good resource for their projects. They are also a DRM-free content, so you can use them freely.

So, if you happen to be those people who “play” around with sound effects regularly, you want to go and grab this great sound effects compilation now.

500 Sound Effects

500 Sound Effects

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Tips and Tricks to Catch King Mackerel from the Pier

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Steven Sentosa

King Mackerels from Pensacola PierYesterday was an amazing day, simply because I caught my first King Mackerel. :) If you were following my blog, you can tell that I just started fishing seriously about 5 months ago, so I’m not really “that” expert. However, I have a mentor who teaches me different kind of things in fishing. He has fished for many many years and landed different kind of fishes (tarpon, blue, red, bass, king, spanish, etc.) Therefore, at this time, I am just going to share what I learned from him. It’s not going to be everything that he taught me, but at least, they are going to be enough information for you to catch your first King Mackerel, like I did. Keep in mind, the information is more related to Pensacola Beach Pier fishing, since that’s where I usually fish at. Here we go:

  • Make sure you have the proper equipment. I’m using Okuma Avenger 65a which has about 310yds using 15lbs lines and a Shakespeare Power Rod with medium heavy action that can hold up to 30lbs line. Your equipment is REALLY important in catching King Mackerel. Catching a fish is one thing, and landing a fish is another thing. With lighter rod, you can still land a King, however, the amount of energy and effort you put into it is much bigger than if you were using a good rod and reel. Another thing is you HAVE to use a leader line. King Mackerel has a really sharp teeth that will cut of your regular line, so use a leader wire. For the hook, use a size 4 treble hook.
  • For the bait itself, nothing is better that cigar minnows. Use a whole cigar minnows as the bait. It doesn’t matter if if it was previously frozen, or a live one. Both will work just fine.
  • Before you cast, set your drag rather loose as a preparation to fight with the fish.
  • When you cast, you might want to cast to further away from the pier, because the closer your bait is to the pier, than the bottom feeders will chew out your minnows. Sometimes, a remora might grab your bait and got hooked. So, try to cast far from the pier, and occasionally, reel in your bait to make sure you have tight lines and keeping your bait from sinking to the bottom of the sea.
  • After you cast, open your spool and hold your lines on your index finger to hold your line. The idea is this. You don’t want the Kind to feel any resistance when he grab your bait, because it will scare them and make them chew out the bait, so having an open spool will prevent this. When the Kind ate your bait, let go your finger, and let him take up your lines from several seconds. The purpose for this is to make the King swim away from the pier, because you are going to fight with him. If he is close to the pier, he might tangle your lines around the piling and you end up lose your fish and your lines. Also, sometimes, the King will only eat half of the minnow in his first attempt, he will go back again to grab the other half (hopefully….), so just wait until he takes away your lines and hold for several seconds until you are sure that he took all the bait along with the hook, and then, you close your spool and jerk your rod up high in 90 degree angle to set the hook onto the King (this is the most fun part :) because you can hear your reel “singing” You’ll know what I mean). Since your drag was set little bit loose, the King will take up your lines quite a bit. This is fine, just make sure you hold your rod up high in order to tire the fish. Tighten your drag little bit more as the King takes up your line (pay attention to your lines. Don’t let the King spool you).
  • After a while, the King will be tired and you can reel in little by little to land the King. It will still fight along the way, just make sure you tighten up your drag, and work the fish little by little until it gets closer to the pier. Hopefully, there will be someone around you who has a gaff to pull up your King, because you might snap your line if you are using your lines to pull up the fish. While you are waiting for someone helping you gaff the King, make sure you pay attention not to let the fish to wrap around the pile, it will mess you up for sure. Tighten up your line, don’t let any slack, and force the fish to stay away from the pilings. You should be good then.
  • After you land your King, CHECK to make sure it is at least 24″. That’s the rule here in Florida. If it is less than that, you have to throw it back to the water. Also, you can only keep 2 King Mackerels per day. I know your adrenaline will be pumped up to catch more than 2 Kings, but rule is a rule. Don’t break it. If you do, they will fine you, take you to the court, and take away all your fishing gears.

That’s it. Hopefully these tips and tricks will help you to land a King Mackerel. My best luck for you. Luck will help you catch the fish; however, to land a King, there is no luck involve, it’s just pure skill, so don’t blame your luck if you lose your King. :) Happy fishing!

Cleaning and filleting King Mackerel

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How to Tether or Connect AT&T Blackberry Bold to Laptop Computer using USB Cable

Posted on September 5, 2009 by Steven Sentosa

I have been wanting to use my blackberry as a modem for a long time, but never really had the motivation to do all the research needed to do so. But, I made up my mind today and researched around about it, and finally able to tether my Blackberry 9000 (Bold) to my laptop. Here’s how you do it.

  1. Make sure you installed your Blackberry Desktop Manager properly, open it, and connect your Blackberry Bold using USB cable. Your Blackberry Desktop Manager should recognize your device by showing “Device Connected(PIN): xxxxxxxx” Once your device is connected to your laptop, check in the Control Panel -> Phone and Modem Options -> Modem tab -> select your blackberry modem (it is listed just as “Standard Modem” in my computer”, and click “Properties” -> Diagnostics tab and click “Query Modem”, it should give you result in command and response field.

  2. Choose “Advanced” tab on the same window and enter this in the “Extra initialization commands” field: +cgdcont=1,”IP”,”wap.cingular” Ok, if everything went as it should, you are now able to use your Blackberry Bold as a modem. You just have make a dial-up connection to actually connect to the Internet.

  3. To create a new dial-up connection, go to your “Network Connection” and under “Network Task” choose “Create a new connection” A connection wizard will come up and ask you several questions. The main thing is to choose this: Connect to Internet -> Next -> “Set up my connection manually” -> Next -> “Connect using a Dial-up Modem” -> Next -> check your Blackberry Bold modem -> Next -> make up your own ISP name (it doesn’t matter what you put there) -> Next -> *99# as your phone number -> Next ->leave the username and password blank -> Next and Finish.

  4. Your newly created dial-up connection will show up in your Network Connection window under dial-up connections. Double-click it and hit dial.

There you go. That’s how you connect to the Internet using your Blackberry Bold. I think this will work also for other Blackberry devices. Let me know if you have any questions, ok! I’m not promising that I can solve your problem, but we can give it a try, right?

[Updated on 10/24/2009] – Instruction for Windows Vista
[Updated on 11/03/2009] – Tether using Blackberry Desktop Manager
[Updated on 02/01/2010] – Warning for additional fees
[Updated on 04/19/2010] – Instruction for Mac OS

[UPDATED ON 10/24/2009] – Instruction for Windows Vista (Thanks to Jerry Gunawan)

These tether instructions are for Windows Vista users:

1. Install and Run the Blackberry Desktop Manager.

2. Connect your blackberry using USB cable. It should show your Blackberry PIN number at the bottom left corner of the Blackberry Desktop Manager.

3. Go to Control Panel -> Phone and Modem Options -> Modem tab -> select Standard Modem -> click Properties -> Diagnostic Tab -> click Query Modem. It should show result in command and response field. Don’t click Ok button because we are not done yet.

4. Then on the same window go to General tab -> click Change Setting -> Advanced tab.
In the extra initialization commands, please enter: AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”wap.cingular”. Then click Ok.

5. Create a dial-up connection. Go to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Click Set Up Connection or network -> Click set up a dial-up connection -> Standard Modem ->
Enter Dial up phone number : *99#
User name : WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password : CINGULAR1
You can create your own connection name, then click Ok.

[UPDATED ON 11/03/2009] – Tether using Blackberry Desktop Manager

I just found a faster way to tether your Blackberry (any) to your laptop. This technique is available thanks to the new version of BB Manager, Blackberry Desktop Manager 5.0.1. Here’s the way you do it:

  1. Open BB Desktop Manager, choose IP Modem in your BB Desktop Manager’s main menu. If the icon is gone, close BB Desktop Manager, and go to c:/Documents and Settings\all users\application data\research in motion\blackberry to find a file, “ip_modem_configuration.xml”

  2. Edit it, find your carrier, and set the “enabled” from “false” to “true.”

  3. Open BB Desktop Manager again, click IP Modem, and select your carrier. I’m using a new AT&T connection with user: wap.cingulargprs.com ; password: CINGULAR1 ; access Point: wap.cingular.

  4. Once a profile has been created and selected, you will be asked if you want to use BB as a modem. Click “continue” and hit “Connect.”

You now have different ways to connect to the Internet using Blackberry phone device. I hope they all be useful to you. Let me know if you have any problems.

[UPDATED 02/01/2010] – Warning for additional fees
First of all I want to thank you for all the good responses I received. I am glad I can help a lot of people through this post. However, just a reminder (thanks to Brian) that when you tether your blackberry to your laptop, standard internet usage charge will still apply. So if you don’t have unlimited data plan for your phone, I strongly recommend you to not tether your phone to your laptop as this will significantly increase your monthly bill.

[UPDATED 04/19/2010] – Instruction for Mac OS
This would be a reply to Martha. Thanks to Rod Father for the reply. I was searching for ways to tether using USB for MAC, but I can’t find one. It seems that the only option so far is by using Bluetooth connection.

I found this page very helpful as I am trying to set up a Dial Up connection for my friends ATT.

I myself have a mac and a curve, the only way i could get the tethering working on my macbook pro running snow leopard is by bluetooth connection, and i want to add my experience (by the way, I am on a different CDMA carrier)

I will assume you have already paired your BB to your mac.

Go to network preferences and add a new connection/interface, select BLUETOOTH DUN.

On telephone number add the connection number (in my carrier is #777, att I believe is *99#
Enter your username and password as instructed in this article.
Now click on Advanced, in the MODEM tab i have the following:
Vendor: Generic
Model: Dialup Device
I have “Enable error correction and compression in modem” checked, I have heard of people leaving it uncheck and still working.
Dial Mode: Wait for dial tone before dialing
Dialing: Tone
Sound: On

DNS and WINS tab is empty, in Proxies tab I had to setup proxies for my carrier which are wap.metropcs.net and the port number as well. I dont know about att.

Maybe someone can use this as a start and complete with ATT info, the official BB connect for mac will also recognize the phone as a modem, however with MetroPCS Bluetooth is the only way i have been able to get it working.

I myself have a mac and a curve, the only way i could get the tethering working on my macbook pro running snow leopard is by bluetooth connection, and i want to add my experience (by the way, I am on a different CDMA carrier)

I will assume you have already paired your BB to your mac.

Go to network preferences and add a new connection/interface, select BLUETOOTH DUN.

On telephone number add the connection number (in my carrier is #777, att I believe is *99#
Enter your username and password as instructed in this article.
Now click on Advanced, in the MODEM tab i have the following:
Vendor: Generic
Model: Dialup Device
I have “Enable error correction and compression in modem” checked, I have heard of people leaving it uncheck and still working.
Dial Mode: Wait for dial tone before dialing
Dialing: Tone
Sound: On

DNS and WINS tab is empty, in Proxies tab I had to setup proxies for my carrier which are wap.metropcs.net and the port number as well. I dont know about att.

Maybe someone can use this as a start and complete with ATT info, the official BB connect for mac will also recognize the phone as a modem, however with MetroPCS Bluetooth is the only way i have been able to get it working.

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