It's kind of noticeable. Respect the grid!I wonder what it looks like on windows...
June 2008 Archives
It's kind of noticeable. Respect the grid!I wonder what it looks like on windows...
I would not recommend using spaces on a multi-monitor setup. It's just a bit too painful to use. Things just disappear into the pit of another space.
It works well on a single-monitor setup though.
It works well on a single-monitor setup though.
These bloody security measures drive me up the wall. I may, or may not have already stated where this special error message comes from, but probably didn't. In this case it's caused by the sysinternals process explorer running. It would also probably be triggered by the registry monitor as well, I'm just not certain. The issue is a two parter. Yes, I understand that you're trying to protect your damned stupid copy protection mechanism, but would you please put a decent damned error message up so that the common user can have a chance of getting past the problem. But no, this is at the same level as 'General Protection Fault' under windows 3.11. There's no actual protection from this. A practiced hacker has already changed the pattern of the virtual drivers of procexp and regmon to be undetectable (generally using permissions on the registry).I use No-cd patches for this reason. There's no obvious no-cd patch for mass effect, simply because it needs a single activation before playing. Unfortunately the entire securom scheme is still in place, causing play degredation and generally making life difficult for people.
I created a file with a series of slashes in the name under Mac OSX; Or at least they look like slashes. When I look at it under the cli they're colons. Ok mac, which one is it [:/] ???
I was concerned that it wasn't working properly when I was trying a ::tick-100 /execname == "iTunes"/ { @[ustack()] = count() }, which is kind of useless, and all I received was a bunch of errors involving invalid addresses.
However, it seems to be working...
However, it seems to be working...
himitsu:/Library/Extensions# gdb --pid=$(ps -fe | grep '[i]Tunes' | grep -v Helper | awk '{print $2}')
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-960) (Sun May 18 18:38:33 UTC 2008)
Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i386-apple-darwin".
/Library/Extensions/15971: No such file or directory.
Attaching to process 15971.
zsh: segmentation fault gdb --pid=15971
himitsu:/Library/Extensions# kextload pt_deny_attach.kext
kextload: pt_deny_attach.kext loaded successfully
himitsu:/Library/Extensions# gdb --pid=$(ps -fe | grep '[i]Tunes' | grep -v Helper | awk '{print $2}')
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-960) (Sun May 18 18:38:33 UTC 2008)
Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i386-apple-darwin".
/Library/Extensions/16048: No such file or directory.
Attaching to process 16048.
Reading symbols for shared libraries . done
Reading symbols for shared libraries .................................................................................................................................................... done
0x943114a6 in mach_msg_trap ()
(gdb) quit
The program is running. Quit anyway (and detach it)? (y or n) y
Detaching from process 16048 thread 0x20b.
himitsu:/Library/Extensions#
Plaxo doesn't like my openid server. It seems to be timing out.
Investigations later, when I don't have hardware to fix
Investigations later, when I don't have hardware to fix
Testing the fluid/iphone ui for moveable type. It seems quite usable
I thought my camera was charging over USB. Boy was I wrong. It complained with a 'battery low' message yesterday. The previous camera had a different power supply (out to the recycling for it, then). It's a really squat charger, without a cable which makes it a pain for recessed plugs (not many of which were found in the good old US-of-A).
Ah well...
Ah well...
Busybox is pretty much essential if you're using a small, embedded linux. It's small footprint and complete replication of most of coreutils (and a bunch of other packages) makes it great. All you end up with are a bunch of symlinks.
The problem is, though, that pretty much all the commands are 'slightly different'. They don't take long options. Help is not helpful (I've regularly had to look at the source to tell what's the problem).
The real problem comes when you decide you want to rip it out of your system. All those minor things that had to be changed to work under the busybox system now have to be re-checked under coreutils and family.
Fun for all the family.
The problem is, though, that pretty much all the commands are 'slightly different'. They don't take long options. Help is not helpful (I've regularly had to look at the source to tell what's the problem).
The real problem comes when you decide you want to rip it out of your system. All those minor things that had to be changed to work under the busybox system now have to be re-checked under coreutils and family.
Fun for all the family.
Oh my god. That is completely and utterly insane. Apparently you can only install/activate Mass Effect three times on a machine before you need to contact EA to get more of them. Typically, I'm not a big installer/reinstaller, but this is in-f***ing sane.
Oooooooh, and don't point at the EULA and say 'Haha!'. Nobody reads them, and there's a very good chance that it's not enforcable due to the fact that it's not been signed and witnessed. Computers do not witnesses make. You can fake everything.
Oooooooh, and don't point at the EULA and say 'Haha!'. Nobody reads them, and there's a very good chance that it's not enforcable due to the fact that it's not been signed and witnessed. Computers do not witnesses make. You can fake everything.
It's great. simply prettier and a lot more usable than Firefox 2. The awesome bar (the address bar) kicks ass. Much easier to use than the previous one. Bookmark management has been improved. The look and feel is nicer. I even 'kind of' prefer the subtle dialog box improvement which turns up at the top of the form, which is like a wide series of websites that perform the same thing themselves.
This definitely has replaced my web browsers in Windows and Linux. There's a very high chance that it will replace Safari on the Mac. The only niggle I have is that it doesn't store your passwords in the Mac keychain, which I still feel is the better place to have them.
Damn the electric fence...
This definitely has replaced my web browsers in Windows and Linux. There's a very high chance that it will replace Safari on the Mac. The only niggle I have is that it doesn't store your passwords in the Mac keychain, which I still feel is the better place to have them.
Damn the electric fence...
Defeating the laughing octopus this time round was significantly easier, simply due to knowing all the patterns already. I do like the leaking the color out of the scene effect that is used at certain sections. Very artsy and very well done.
Then I played for at least an hour after that and remembered to save.
Why can't these folks auto-save upon zone transitions (like half-life 2). I was saving every time I could simply to be on the safe side.
Then I played for at least an hour after that and remembered to save.
Why can't these folks auto-save upon zone transitions (like half-life 2). I was saving every time I could simply to be on the safe side.
Short and simple: http://en.gravatar.com/avatar/<md5 hash of email address>?.
e.g. echo -e 'bob@email.com' | md5sum gives: c961431faea38ed65bfd982cf2e31bd0. Optional add-ons are size (s=<Number of pixels>), content rating (r=<g, pg, r, or x>), and default (d=<escape encoded URI of an image or one of identicon, monsterid or wavatar>).
great place to do something akin to the 'imitate a lotus notes password entry trick'.
e.g. echo -e 'bob@email.com' | md5sum gives: c961431faea38ed65bfd982cf2e31bd0. Optional add-ons are size (s=<Number of pixels>), content rating (r=<g, pg, r, or x>), and default (d=<escape encoded URI of an image or one of identicon, monsterid or wavatar>).
great place to do something akin to the 'imitate a lotus notes password entry trick'.
Two nights ago I got past the Laughing Octopus boss battle in MGS4. Last night I fired up the game and guess what? It had me right at the start of the battle again.
Aargh! That's just infuriating. I gave up on the game for the night at that. Just not in the mood. Maybe on Sunday when I return from the Kingdom.
Kojima seems to have a big on for the Octopus :)
Aargh! That's just infuriating. I gave up on the game for the night at that. Just not in the mood. Maybe on Sunday when I return from the Kingdom.
Kojima seems to have a big on for the Octopus :)
I like my cartoons. I especially like my Japanese cartoons (anime). The problem I have is the bloody price that's charged for the individual discs. Last time I was in HMV they were charging in excess of €35 for a single disk containing two episodes of a series (can't remember the name; all I remember is nearly gagging at the price).
When I was in the States I picked up a few Anime series for about $40 each. Reasonable price considering that they were oldish (big fan of the cheaper when older thing).
Tower are better for pricing individual series, but they are still a tax on a person's wallet. Most 26 episode seasons are > €100 for the entire collection. And that's for the Australian imports (which they claim are region 2 but it's all a lie).
which brings me to シゴフミ(shigofumi). It was picked up really early on in the airing in Japan, which means that to be fair, I should be picking them up. The problem is that it's $30 per disc. They are, of course, not available in Region 2. Picking up the original Japanese is a bit of bother (my language skills are not that good; and they generally don't have any subtitles). Decisions, decisions.
When I was in the States I picked up a few Anime series for about $40 each. Reasonable price considering that they were oldish (big fan of the cheaper when older thing).
Tower are better for pricing individual series, but they are still a tax on a person's wallet. Most 26 episode seasons are > €100 for the entire collection. And that's for the Australian imports (which they claim are region 2 but it's all a lie).
which brings me to シゴフミ(shigofumi). It was picked up really early on in the airing in Japan, which means that to be fair, I should be picking them up. The problem is that it's $30 per disc. They are, of course, not available in Region 2. Picking up the original Japanese is a bit of bother (my language skills are not that good; and they generally don't have any subtitles). Decisions, decisions.
I'm just wondering why there's this aversion to flash from Apple. Is it that developers of flash applications depend on mouseover events that simply are not suitable for a non-mouse environment?
Possibly? Probably? I don't know.
Possibly? Probably? I don't know.
And when you get to the end of the first act there's another 3 minute hard-drive install while the game chastises you for staying up too late. Nice of it to do that.
For Linux and the mac, it means that the file has an ACL associated with the file.
~% ls -ld . drwx--x--x 163 pshanahan pshanahan 12288 2008-06-16 16:26 . ~% setfacl -m user:postfix:rx . ~% ls -ld . drwxr-x--x+ 163 pshanahan pshanahan 12288 2008-06-16 16:26 .On the Mac if you see an '@' sign where the plus(+) is, then it indicates that there's extended attribute information. If you've got a version of ls that supports extended attributes (takes the -@ option), you should see the same thing in Linux.
I Don't know. It seems kind of slow to start. I must be rusty in these kinds of games. On the plus side, Mass Effect for the PC is fine, once you remove the film grain visual effect it actually looks quite nice.
Don't go to the release for Battlefield:Bad Company. The only thing you end up with is a hangover. Courtesy of the cinnamon flavored spirit of evil.
You only get to download the game for up to 6 months after you buy it. This is completely lame as it means that you have to back it up somewhere just in case you lose it. For an additional $6 you get to download it for an entire 2 years. <sarcasm>>How brilliant is that!</sarcasm>>. Compared to a service like Steam where you can download it an arbitrary number of times to any pc that is connected to the steam service. Anywhere in the world. At any time. Until they go broke (but that will be telegraphed well in advance I hope).
Six months. Silly billies!
Six months. Silly billies!
4076 twhirl 4.2% 0:27.47 9 182 568 40M 7664K 52M 402MThis is while it's hidden. I presume it's not actually twhirl, but is instead is the Adobe Air platform.
When I start top and I'm not doing anything I expect to see something akin to:
4102 top 6.5% 0:01.00 1 18 29 1124K 188K 1716K 18Mat the head of the list. Not something that's supposed to be running in the background doing nothing
Jeez, these little blighters either work correctly straight out of the box or they want to break your soul.
Step 1: Install the software that tries to be installed when you plug in the device. If you're lucky once the software is installed you may be just able to work. If not then proceed to step 2
Step 2: Check that the device has been assigned correctly. Open up the device manager. From the start menu in vista in the search box you can type 'devmgmt.msc' (no quotes). This should give you one option, on the search list that you can click on. Accept the windows UAC prompt and you should now be faced with the scary device manager.
From the view menu choose View->Devices by Connection. Tunnel Down the line of + signs that probably start at 'ACPI x86-based PC'->'Microsoft ACPI Compliant System'->'PCI Bus' looking for a 'USB Host Controller'. It may be called something like 'Intel(R) .... USB Universal Host Controller', or something like that. The one you're interested in has a 'USB Root Hub' below it that has a 'Mass Storage Device' which, when expanded shows the pretend CDrom that you installed the software from.
Right click on the Mass Storage Device that's immediately below the 'USB root hub' and choose 'Update Driver Software...'. Pick 'Browse my computer for driver software'. Pick 'Let me pick rom a list of device drivers on my computer'.
Uncheck the 'Show compatible hardware. In the manufacturer box pick the (Standard USB Host Controller) manufacturer. In the model list pick 'USB Composite Device'. Click Next. Expect a complaint from windows saying that it's probably incompatible so click the 'yes' button there.
Once that's complete unplug the data modem thingy wait a few seconds and then plug it back in. It will take a few seconds (up to 30, be a bit patient). If the datamodem software starts up without an issue at this point then you may be able to simply use it. If not then there's the painful stage 3 Stage 3: You probably have some program that is interrogating the cdrom drive of the modem. The quick fix is to de-assign the drive. From the start menu type 'diskmgmt.msc'. Accept the UAC prompt.
There should be a list of Disk 0 (and possibly more Disk entries) at the bottom, below a smaller table of 'Volume, Layout, Type, File System ....'. There should be one CD-ROM entry matching the physical cd/dvd drive in your computer and another matching the pretend one from the modem software. Right click on the CD-ROM entry for that and pick 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'. Click Remove and choose the Yes option from the complaining dialog.
The disadvantage here is that when you plug in the USB modem from now on the datamodem support application will not automatically start up. The advantage is that you don't need to uninstall nero or whatever application is causing the problem. I keep the convenience of nero for the cost of starting the program by hand.
If by this stage the datamodem application does not show you the modem, I would recommend boxing it back up and bringing it back to where you bought it as they need to be thwacked over the head with this POS.
This entry is prompted by having to guide someone over the telephone on how to do this themselves. It is not fun.
Step 1: Install the software that tries to be installed when you plug in the device. If you're lucky once the software is installed you may be just able to work. If not then proceed to step 2
Step 2: Check that the device has been assigned correctly. Open up the device manager. From the start menu in vista in the search box you can type 'devmgmt.msc' (no quotes). This should give you one option, on the search list that you can click on. Accept the windows UAC prompt and you should now be faced with the scary device manager.
From the view menu choose View->Devices by Connection. Tunnel Down the line of + signs that probably start at 'ACPI x86-based PC'->'Microsoft ACPI Compliant System'->'PCI Bus' looking for a 'USB Host Controller'. It may be called something like 'Intel(R) .... USB Universal Host Controller', or something like that. The one you're interested in has a 'USB Root Hub' below it that has a 'Mass Storage Device' which, when expanded shows the pretend CDrom that you installed the software from.
Right click on the Mass Storage Device that's immediately below the 'USB root hub' and choose 'Update Driver Software...'. Pick 'Browse my computer for driver software'. Pick 'Let me pick rom a list of device drivers on my computer'.
Uncheck the 'Show compatible hardware. In the manufacturer box pick the (Standard USB Host Controller) manufacturer. In the model list pick 'USB Composite Device'. Click Next. Expect a complaint from windows saying that it's probably incompatible so click the 'yes' button there.
Once that's complete unplug the data modem thingy wait a few seconds and then plug it back in. It will take a few seconds (up to 30, be a bit patient). If the datamodem software starts up without an issue at this point then you may be able to simply use it. If not then there's the painful stage 3 Stage 3: You probably have some program that is interrogating the cdrom drive of the modem. The quick fix is to de-assign the drive. From the start menu type 'diskmgmt.msc'. Accept the UAC prompt.
There should be a list of Disk 0 (and possibly more Disk entries) at the bottom, below a smaller table of 'Volume, Layout, Type, File System ....'. There should be one CD-ROM entry matching the physical cd/dvd drive in your computer and another matching the pretend one from the modem software. Right click on the CD-ROM entry for that and pick 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'. Click Remove and choose the Yes option from the complaining dialog.
The disadvantage here is that when you plug in the USB modem from now on the datamodem support application will not automatically start up. The advantage is that you don't need to uninstall nero or whatever application is causing the problem. I keep the convenience of nero for the cost of starting the program by hand.
If by this stage the datamodem application does not show you the modem, I would recommend boxing it back up and bringing it back to where you bought it as they need to be thwacked over the head with this POS.
This entry is prompted by having to guide someone over the telephone on how to do this themselves. It is not fun.
Software is hard. I kinda get that. Something to having worked in the business for a few years. When a bug is filed in software I wrote if feels like a little arrow in my chest. Now start selling it mainstream. Every issue you've not addressed in the current version is poked at you 10,000 times.
That's why you file issues to a generic mail address in large corporations. The only problem is that because you don't know "the language" to use when filing, it will probably be lost. Filling in series of forms might make this easier for the company, but not for the consumer.
Oh well, looks like we're screwed?
That's why you file issues to a generic mail address in large corporations. The only problem is that because you don't know "the language" to use when filing, it will probably be lost. Filling in series of forms might make this easier for the company, but not for the consumer.
Oh well, looks like we're screwed?
I'm sitting here at 12:45 in the morning watching Buffy. Season 6; The musical episode. I absolutely hated the first time I watched Season 6 of Buffy and the First time I watched Firefly. It was awful. I just didn't like it.
Then I watched them again. When; I don't know; maybe when I felt better about the entire thing and possibly actually got it.
Season 6 of Buffy was the worst to watch. It had the worst main bad guy and the entire thing was completely miserable.
The thing was that it was miserable. It was designed to be miserable. It was intentional to have the utter schlemiel for an opponent.
The issue is that the energy that was invested was spent getting to the end of Season 5. She had to fight a god. Her mother died. Hell, even she died in the end. I was done with it. Then it started again. Fecker.
So, Where do we go from here?
Then I watched them again. When; I don't know; maybe when I felt better about the entire thing and possibly actually got it.
Season 6 of Buffy was the worst to watch. It had the worst main bad guy and the entire thing was completely miserable.
The thing was that it was miserable. It was designed to be miserable. It was intentional to have the utter schlemiel for an opponent.
The issue is that the energy that was invested was spent getting to the end of Season 5. She had to fight a god. Her mother died. Hell, even she died in the end. I was done with it. Then it started again. Fecker.
So, Where do we go from here?
