being at work again raises a few interesting issues. One of them involves the period over Christmas. It seems like there's nobody in the office (I am one of three/four). I have 0.6 days holiday left and I am troubled. Damn my work related guilt.
December 2006 Archives
I'm listening to Joanna Newsom's album Ys. It sounds like an all english version of Bjork. And dammit but if she isn't addictive.
The old new thing has a short article about the use of the My Documents, which links to a short entry about the use of the Documents folder on the Mac.
Let's see how many folders I have on my little box that are not of my creation
Let's see how many folders I have on my little box that are not of my creation
05/05/2006 13:39 <DIR> ACT Projects 05/05/2006 13:40 <DIR> AdobeStockPhotos 24/11/2006 19:30 <DIR> Bluetooth Exchange Folder 04/12/2006 22:29 <DIR> Borland Studio Projects 23/08/2006 17:15 <DIR> History 04/05/2006 14:02 <DIR> InterVideo 06/12/2006 22:01 <DIR> Java Development 12/10/2006 13:07 <DIR> My Albums 05/05/2006 13:49 <DIR> My Data Sources 01/11/2006 15:29 <DIR> My Digital Editions 29/12/2006 03:06 <DIR> My Downloads 05/08/2006 16:19 <DIR> My DVDs 08/08/2006 18:26 <DIR> My Games 05/05/2006 13:53 <DIR> My MMS 25/12/2006 21:04 <DIR> My Music 28/12/2006 11:42 <DIR> My Pictures 11/05/2006 10:19 <DIR> My Received Files 05/05/2006 13:53 <DIR> My Shapes 05/05/2006 13:53 <DIR> My Skype Content 11/05/2006 10:19 <DIR> My Skype Pictures 27/12/2006 22:10 <DIR> My Videos 07/12/2006 14:43 <DIR> My Virtual Machines 21/12/2006 09:34 <DIR> My Widgets 12/12/2006 10:11 <DIR> Nero Recode 05/05/2006 13:53 <DIR> NeroVision 27/11/2006 14:40 <DIR> PSP Games 27/11/2006 14:56 <DIR> PSP Sync 06/10/2006 17:18 <DIR> Rogue Trooper 05/05/2006 18:23 <DIR> SimCity 4 15/10/2006 23:57 <DIR> Source Insight 05/10/2006 20:16 <DIR> Tomb Raider - Legend 05/05/2006 13:59 <DIR> TT Installer Logs 14/11/2006 12:14 <DIR> Updater 05/05/2006 13:37 <DIR> Visual FoxPro Projects 17/11/2006 22:39 <DIR> Visual Studio 2005 25/09/2006 18:02 <DIR> Visual Studio ProjectsI mean, what the frel is TT Installer logs? For the most part, all code goes into a version controlled sub directory, which is not under my documents (that would be silly). Bleugh... the save game location being under My Games is fine, but not in my documents; maybe under Application Data/Local Settings/Games would make more sense. You can't load them except from the game so why have them there.
Well, it only works with Sony-Ericsson phones (and the newer ones at that), and it has a steep price tag (€300). but it is a really nifty toy. It's just a shame that I got another watch for Christmas. Rveview at Mobile Review.
I'm a big fan of source code control systems. They help you not shoot yourself in the foot when making changes and it is an essential part of any form of development. Heck, it even comes in handy for managing changes to configuration files.
Solaris ships with SCCS, the source code control system for pretty much all forms of unix. It's a file based source control system, and is used as the binder for other products such as teamware.
On Linux there's rcs for file based source code control and then there's CVS or Subversion for the remote repository work.
Subversion really beats the pants off CVS for features that make it more sensible. If you've ever tried to move a file in CVS you know what I mean.
Solaris ships with SCCS, the source code control system for pretty much all forms of unix. It's a file based source control system, and is used as the binder for other products such as teamware.
On Linux there's rcs for file based source code control and then there's CVS or Subversion for the remote repository work.
Subversion really beats the pants off CVS for features that make it more sensible. If you've ever tried to move a file in CVS you know what I mean.
Continue reading Subversion for the oblivious (svn).
It's the Star Wars Christmas album. A friend asked me to get it for her as some form of present. I'm just about to experience it for myself. The review from i-mockery may be the the definitive explanation of this really terrible piece of tripe. For indeed, I have got to the start of the first track and my heart is hurting from the sheer horrific intensity of it.I saw the Bond movie and believe me, getting tortured like he was is probably preferable to listening to the frelling album. Well at least I can console myself with having the entirety of farscape to see over the holidays.
It's very simple really. Ubuntu uses dash as the default shell for executing init scripts as it is faster (there's less overhead). dash is, of course the debian almquist shell, which is a bourne shell compatible shell. Not bourne again, but simply bourne, this means that features such as [[ are not present (see a previous blog entry for a complaint about that). We all like the fast boot, but it kinda breaks Makefiles that assume sh == bash (ieeee80211.sf.net, ipw3945.sf.net).
I'm too used to writing makefiles under Solaris to use features that are not present in the original bourne shell.
I'm too used to writing makefiles under Solaris to use features that are not present in the original bourne shell.
We'll forgo the usual straight from the property pages lines and go for a couple that I find humourous.
First there's 'easygoing'. This one really means that we're a bunch of stoners.
Then there's 'Professionals only'. This usually translates to we don't need no steenking students. Let's be honest, they tend to leave a mess (see previous point).
We have 'neat', which is another term for anal-retentive enough to follow yourself around with a disinfectant wipe.
Would not suit couple... It's too small to fit even one person; I mean get real here, look at the price.
No couples... They tend to piss single people off with all their lovey dovey stuff.
Appointments will be made with the most suitable people... Look at me, I'm lazy and I'm just clinging to the little bit of power I have.
Enough of the bitterness. I'm calling a letting agency :)
First there's 'easygoing'. This one really means that we're a bunch of stoners.
Then there's 'Professionals only'. This usually translates to we don't need no steenking students. Let's be honest, they tend to leave a mess (see previous point).
We have 'neat', which is another term for anal-retentive enough to follow yourself around with a disinfectant wipe.
Would not suit couple... It's too small to fit even one person; I mean get real here, look at the price.
No couples... They tend to piss single people off with all their lovey dovey stuff.
Appointments will be made with the most suitable people... Look at me, I'm lazy and I'm just clinging to the little bit of power I have.
Enough of the bitterness. I'm calling a letting agency :)
My sister bought my Aunt a mobile phone. Dear god but it is such an unusable piece of crap. It reminds me of the worst things about the phone I first bought, but thought were really cool at the time. For example finding someone in the phonebook. Using a Nokia, Sony Ericsson all you do is tap the down arrow and you're browsing the phone book. No, apparently that is initially bound to 'voice memo'. Oops, you think, I'd better get out of that... it forces you to navigate back from where you are to the main menu. Time to look up a number using the non-intuitive 'phonebook'. Click. I'm looking at a menu asking me if I want to Search, Add an entry.... For crying out loud, the most common use of the phonebook is to look for numbers, so make that the default phonebook action.
Well, I may as well change the down shortcut to browse the phonebook. No such luck, there's no option to allow you to do that. The menus are a mess, there's no other way to get to the phone book except through the front end. The center button is bound to make an internet connection (which given fat fingers will become really expensive).
Non intuitive, poorly designed piece of dreck. I won't even mention the model number. It makes my heart hurt that this was a gift for a 70+ year old who has a hard enough time using her phone in the first place.
Well, I may as well change the down shortcut to browse the phonebook. No such luck, there's no option to allow you to do that. The menus are a mess, there's no other way to get to the phone book except through the front end. The center button is bound to make an internet connection (which given fat fingers will become really expensive).
Non intuitive, poorly designed piece of dreck. I won't even mention the model number. It makes my heart hurt that this was a gift for a 70+ year old who has a hard enough time using her phone in the first place.
I was looking for a case for the UMDs for the PSP. Could not find one anywhere unless I bought a complete hard-shell case for the box. I got back to the house and there was a small present from Sony - a case for holding 5 UMD's. What a nice Christmas present, it put a smile on my face (and another on my case as I don't have to carry around all those UMD boxes.
It's a carol for the old ones. Brilliant, need to post it to some other folks...
I love it. Very funny and fits well in the time
You too can have a USB pole dancer for Christmas. Let's be honest, it's not serious, it's just plain silly.
Isn't youtube great. It's a Dell XPS laptop, the display does this wierd tearing thing like it can't determine the refresh rate of the display. It happens occasionally on Windows, normally in a game when switching display modes. It happens with annoying regularity on Linux under XGL/Compiz, which leads me to the belief that it's a driver problem.
This one is a bit of a gotcha that I encountered in the ieee80211 and ipw3945 source. The make files used some convoluted shell syntax to check the state of the kernel. The problem is that it uses particular non bourne-shell isms, such as the [[ syntax, which simply doesn't work in bourne, because it's so bloody simple.
The short solution was to put SHELL=/bin/bash at the start of the Makefile, which causes the shell that is used to be bash instead of sh. This is of course one of the regular issues between the different versions of Linux that float around. Some use bash as sh, which technically speaking is a bit of an evilness. It can hit you time and again in writing rc scripts as well, where the choice of shell is not generally determined by the magical '#!' on the first line, but by the rcX script (X is generally S, 1, 2, 3, ...).
The short solution was to put SHELL=/bin/bash at the start of the Makefile, which causes the shell that is used to be bash instead of sh. This is of course one of the regular issues between the different versions of Linux that float around. Some use bash as sh, which technically speaking is a bit of an evilness. It can hit you time and again in writing rc scripts as well, where the choice of shell is not generally determined by the magical '#!' on the first line, but by the rcX script (X is generally S, 1, 2, 3, ...).
Again, the quantity of run levels is determined by the provenance of the Operating System - for example the machine I'm currently working on(Ubuntu) claims a run-level of 2, while the fedora core desktop I've just checked claims a run-level of 5. Solaris makes thing really fun by informing you that tour run-level is a legacy state that you should stop considering to be useful, after all it's about the services that you have enabled, not the run-level.
