Recently in Programming Category

It's not difficult to set environment variable in Windows. System level variables are stored in HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Environment. User level variables are stored in HKCU/Environment. They are either REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ variables. REG_EXPAND_SZ values use other environment variables to get their ultimate value, while REG_SZ values are considered 'final destination' variables.

The issue arises when you programmatically change the value and want it reflected in new programs that are launched. You make your changes in the registry, but none of the newly launches applications notice the change. You need to inform all the running applications that the settings have been changed. To do this you send a WM_SETTINGCHANGE message to all the running applications.

The logic is to issue a SendMessage(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, 0, (LPARAM)"Environment"). As the meerkat in the advertisement says 'Seemples'. Unfortunately, I have a couple of applications with badly written message processing loops which don't defer to DefWndProc if they don't handle the message, which causes this function to hang.

The more sensible logic is to use a SendMessageTimeout call, which has 2 extra parameters, one of which is a flag and the other is a timeout in milliseconds. The timeout is a maximum per window, which means that if there are 10 windows causing timeouts and you're issuing it with a 1000 milli-second (1 second) timeout, then you will be stalled for 10 seconds. You have been warned. Most applications should respond in < 100 milli-seconds, and typically there are only a few badly behaved applications.

This brings us to the code. It's short, and it's C and it doesn't do anything fancy at all. Compiled using MinGW as gcc -mwindows settings.c -o settings.exe

Set a variable in the registry. Pop up a cmd window and issue a set command and the change is not reflected in the window. Close the window, run the settings program compiled above, then launch another cmd window and it will now reflect the change to the environment you made in the registry.

The message causes Explorer to re-read the environment, which is why newly launched programs see the changes. You are launching your applications from explorer (the start menu, icons on the desktop, the run menu) for the most part.

signal(int signum, void (*handler)(int))

signal

sigaction(int sig, const struct sigaction *restrict act, struct sigaction *restrict oact)

#!/bin/bash -p

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $(basename $0) " 1>&2
    exit 1
fi

while [ -d /proc/$1 ]; do sleep 0.5; done

function find_lowest_subprocess() {
    local -i parent=$1
    local pids
    typeset -a pids

    pids=($(pgrep -P $parent))
    while ((${#pids[@]} > 0)); do
        if ((${#pids[@]} > 1)); then
            parent=${pids[0]}
            local i=0
            while ((i < ${#pids[@]})); do
                local sub=$(pgrep -P ${pids[$i]})
                [[ -n $sub ]] && parent=$sub
                ((i=i + 1))
            done
        else
            parent=$pids
        fi
        pids=($(pgrep -P $parent))
    done
    echo $parent
}

• Apple Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines
• Microsoft Vista 'Design Guidelines'
• Palm OS Application Design Guidelines Pre PalmOS 6
• Java Look and Feel Guidelines (Version 2)
• Gnome Human Interface Guidelines (Gnome-HIG)
• KDE UI Standards

function find_lowest_subprocess() {
        local -i parent=$1
        local pids
        typeset -a pids

        pids=$(pgrep -P $parent)
        while [[ -n "$pids" ]]; do
                if (( ${#pids[@]} > 1 )); then
                        local i=0
                        while (( i < ${#pids[@]} )); do
                                local sub=$(pgrep -P ${pids[$i]})
                                [[ -n $sub ]] && parent=$sub
                                ((i=i + 1))
                        done
                else
                        parent=$pids
                fi
                pids=$(pgrep -P $parent)
        done
        echo $parent
}

(1) The [[ operator is not the same as the program /bin/[[ as a program you need to still use double quotes around the variables to be expanded; thus defeating the reason for having them in the first place.

For Example:

	# file="/tmp/let me go"
	# touch "$file"
	# [[ -e $file ]] && echo "There"

Yields [Busybox]:

	[[: me: unknown operand

- as $file is word split before handing it to the command [[

Yields [bash]:

	There

- due to $file not being split when passed to the test -e.

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.

This can be useful for extracting the lowest numbered element of a bit set. Given a 2's complement binary integer value x, (x&-x) is the least significant 1 bit. The reason this works is that it is equivalent to (x & ((~x) + 1)); any trailing zero bits in x become ones in ~x, adding 1 to that carries into the following bit, and AND with x yields only the flipped bit... the original position of the least significant 1 bit.

Alternatively, since (x&(x-1)) is actually x stripped of its least significant 1 bit, the least significant 1 bit is also (x^(x&(x-1))).

A branchless, lookup-free, alternative to code like if (a<b) x=c; else x=d; is ((((a-b) >> (WORDBITS-1)) & (c^d)) ^ d). This code assumes that the shift is signed, which, of course, C does not promise.

Given 2's complement integer values x and y, the minimum can be computed without any branches as x+(((y-x)>>(WORDBITS-1))&(y-x)). Logically, this works because the shift by (WORDBITS-1) replicates the sign bit to create a mask -- be aware, however, that the C language does not require that shifts are signed even if their operands are signed, so there is a potential portability problem. Additionally, one might think that a shift by any number greater than or equal to WORDBITS would have the same effect, but many instruction sets have shifts that behave strangely when such shift distances are specified.

Of course, maximum can be computed using the same trick: x-(((x-y)>>(WORDBITS-1))&(x-y)).

Normally, a dual-linked circular list would contain both previous and next pointer fields and the current position in the list would be identified by a single pointer. By using two current pointers, one to the node in question and the other to the one just before/after it, it becomes possible to store only a single pointer value in each node. The value stored in each node is the XOR of the next and previous pointers that normally would have been stored in each node. Decoding is obvious.

Unfortunately, using this trick in C is awkward because the XOR operation is not defined for pointers.

My old, unreliable mobile phone died a couple of days ago, and I needed to buy a replacement. I'm not able to upgrade my phone for another 2 months so I decided to buy a pay-as-you-go phone and just slip my SIM into it (same network, no issues with locking). People who know me, will understand that I have a liking for flip-phones, so I went for the Motorola V3 (Razr). Aargh! christ, but the phonebook is the biggest piece of shit I've ever come across. I understand this misbegotten need to have the phone book maintain some compatibility with the SIM, but for christ's sake, they need to get their act together on this. Practically every contact in my phone book has two entries, in fact most have 3. On the motorola phone book every contact is a separate entry on the person list. This means I have to wade through 2+ entries per person to scroll from one person to the next. Factor in that I store people's full names on the phone, in surname order, wading through the 9 Shanahan's in the book takes a long time. It always integrates the SIM contacts onto the phone book. There is no visible option to disable this 'feature' (my SIM contacts always were a backup of my phone entries), so I end up with loads of duplicates (or purge my SIM). I can't send my entire contact details to someone, I have to send it piece by piece. It shows the email addresses interspersed with the phone numbers which is pointless most of the time.

The next complaint is really a bit of a click-fascist thing. You know what I mean by this - it just seems to take an extra click or two to perform some tasks. Just enough to annoy perceptibly.

Then there's the syncing software. Following the really annoying splash screen - slow, irritating and serving no purpose, we are presented with a rendering of my phone on the bottom right corner of the screen, a bunch of icons and no idea what does what without mousing over one of the icons and seeing what it does, based on the tooltip! Come on people, tooltips cannot replace text! Apparently I can dial numbers from the number pad (never would have guessed at that). The only way to pop up the menu is to hit a box that's about 20 pixels square, replicating the menu button on the phone itself. Too small to hit easily, and there is no keyboard navigation, unless you can guess at the magic hotkeys. Most of the hard work is farmed off to other applications, none of which share details of the current state of the phone (contacts, calendar), each sub-application launch causes the data to be re-read, which takes ~30 seconds each. None of these sub-applications are keyboard navigable (bugbear of mine). Quitting the application requires either clicking on the really small off switch, or doing the acme Alt+F4 close the window trick. Practically everything visual about this application could do with a rewrite.
On the plus side, it does synchronize, which is it's primary role, but I just wish it wasn't so annoying about it.

Badly implemented phonebook aside, practically everything else about the phone is good. It's small, neat and call quality is great. I've not tested the bluetooth functionality very much so I can't say either way on it. Over all, I'd consider it a good replacement phone, but unless something good happens with the phone book, I'm not planning on buying another Motorola phone in the forseeable future after this one.

Now if only I could make my own phone book. I wonder if it's even possible on these kinds of phone. Maybe I should check this out.

AttachThreadInput(GetWindowThreadProcessId(
  GetForegroundWindow(), NULL),
  GetCurrentThreadId(), TRUE);

SetForegroundWindow(hWnd);

AttachThreadInput(GetWindowThreadProcessId(
  GetForegroundWindow(), NULL),
  GetCurrentThreadId(), FALSE);

  IDBInitialize *pIDBInitialize = NULL;
  IDataInitialize *pIDataInitialize = NULL;
  IDBPromptInitialize *pIDBPromptInitialize = NULL;
  LPOLESTR strConn;

  CoCreateInstance(CLSID_DataLinks, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, IID_IDataInitialize,
    (void **)&pIDataInitialize);

  CoCreateInstance(CLSID_DataLinks, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,
    IID_IDBPromptInitialize, (void **)&pIDBPromptInitialize);

  pIDBPromptInitialize->PromptDataSource(NULL, 0,
    DBPROMPTOPTIONS_PROPERTYSHEET, 0, NULL, NULL, IID_IDBInitialize,
    (IUnknown **)&pIDBInitialize);

  pIDBInitialize->Initialize();

  pIDataInitialize->GetInitializationString(pIDBInitialize, true, &strConn);

  MSDASC.DataLinks oDL = new MSDASC.DataLinksClass();
  ADODB.Connection conn = new ADODB.ConnectionClass();
  conn.ConnectionString = "Provider=sqloledb";
  object oConn = (object)conn;
  oDL.PromptEdit(ref oConn);
  OleDbConnection xconn = new OleDbConnection(conn.ConnectionString);
  xconn.Open();

Registry Keys that needed permission changes:
HKCR\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}
HKCR\CLSID\{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}
HKCR\CLSID\{50BAEEDB-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}
HKCR\VFPOLEDB
HKCR\VFPOLEDB.1
HKCR\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage
HKCR\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage.1
HKCR\VFPOLEDB.ConnectionPage
HKCR\VFPOLEDB.ConnectionPage.1

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}]
"OLEDB_SERVICES"=dword:ffffffff
@="VFPOLEDB"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\ExtendedErrors]
@="Extended Error Service"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\ExtendedErrors\{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}]
@="VFPOLEDB Error Lookup"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\Implemented Categories]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\Implemented Categories\{D267E19A-0B97-11D2-BB1C-00C04FC9B532}]
@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\InprocServer32]
"ThreadingModel"="Both"
@="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\System\\ole db\\vfpoledb.dll"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\OLE DB Provider]
@="Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\ProgID]
@="VFPOLEDB.1"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\TypeLib]
@="{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\VersionIndependentProgID]
@="VFPOLEDB"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}]
@="VFPOLEDB Error Lookup"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\InprocServer32]
"ThreadingModel"="both"
@="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\System\\ole db\\vfpoledb.dll"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\ProgID]
@="VFPOLEDB.ErrorLookup.1"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\VersionIndependentProgID]
@="VFPOLEDB.ErrorLookup"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDB-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}]
@="VfpOLEDBConnectionPage Class"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDB-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\InprocServer32]
"ThreadingModel"="Both"
@="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\System\\ole db\\vfpoledb.dll"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{50BAEEDB-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\Programmable]
@=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib\{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib\{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\1.0]
@="Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro 7.0 Type Library"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib\{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\1.0\0]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib\{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\1.0\0\win32]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\System\\ole db\\vfpoledb.dll"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib\{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\1.0\FLAGS]
@="0"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\TypeLib\{50BAEECA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}\1.0\HELPDIR]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\System\\ole db\\"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB]
@="Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB\CLSID]
@="{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB\CurVer]
@="VFPOLEDB.1"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB.1]
@="Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB.1\CLSID]
@="{50BAEED9-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage]
@="VfpOLEDBConnectionPage Class"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage\CLSID]
@="{50BAEEDB-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage\CurVer]
@="vfpOLEDBDLink.ConnectionPage.1"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage.1]
@="VfpOLEDBConnectionPage Class"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Vfpoledb.ConnectionPage.1\CLSID]
@="{50BAEEDB-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB.ErrorLookup]
@="VFPOLEDB Error Lookup"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB.ErrorLookup\CLSID]
@="{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB.ErrorLookup.1]
@="VFPOLEDB Error Lookup"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VFPOLEDB.ErrorLookup.1\CLSID]
@="{50BAEEDA-ED25-11D2-B97B-000000000000}"

bool
IsSoftIceLoaded() {
    HANDLE fh;

    fh = CreateFileA("\\\\.\\NTICE", GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
        NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, 0);
    if (fh != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
        CloseHandle(fh);
        return (TRUE);
    }
    return (FALSE);
}

cygrunsrv --install sshd --path '/usr/sbin/sshd' --env 'PATH=/bin;/sbin' --env 'CYGWIN=ntsec tty' -a -D

• My Computer, My Network Places, My Documents - ease of navigation
• My Bluetooth Places - bluetooth makes me so happy
• Firefox, Explorer, Thunderbird - web, and email
• Skype - cheap calls
• w.bloggar - web logging
• PE Resource Explorer - occasionally my projects don't compile so good
• Acrobat Professional - Lot of PDFs
• Nullsoft Install System - for making those all important installers (still learning this)
• Nunit GUI. One of these days I'll actually write those tests I've been promising myself
• IDA. The intelligent disassembler. Really good disassembler. This one is old, but I can't afford a new version (~€320 + vat at last check)
• Code-Work, my projects folder. Practically everything lives here. It's not on my desktop, it's a folder-link
• Visual FoxPro 8 - upsizing some code to SQL server. The venerable Fox needs to die, as it has not kept up with the times.
• Visual Studio.NET - I write a few bits and bobs in Microsoft C, C++, C#
• Delphi 2005 - Best Delphi yet, sadly it's got the nastiest price tag also. God be with the days when pascal cost $60
• Netbeans 4.1 - the gui designer alone is worth the download
• Palm OS Developer Suite - I caved, cscope just didn't cut the mustard - pocketcity
• Simcity 3000, UK Edition - reference for pocketcity
• Copernic Desktop Search - partial word search; 'nuff said
• El Bin of Recycling

[.ShellClassInfo]
CLSID2={0AFACED1-E828-11D1-9187-B532F1E9575D}
Flags=2

(conditionflag & STATUSBIT) ?
        (KdPrint(xxxx)) : 0;

if (conditionflag & STATUSBIT)
        (KdPrint(xxxx));

• Apple Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines
• Microsoft XP 'Design Guidelines' (or Buy the book argh)
• Palm OS Application Design Guidelines Pre PalmOS 6; and Post PalmOS 6 (aka Protein)
• Java Look and Feel Guidelines (Version 2)
• Gnome Human Interface Guidelines (Gnome-HIG)
• KDE UI Standards

• XMLHttpRequest rocks!
• MT is a bit of a pain to customize
• IE caches more than it should - I can't get the comments to reload.

• Remote queues per printer - spool jobs for each printer on the single machine. This cuts down on the scalability of the system, but it's probably the quickest fix
• Combine all the separate documents into the one print job and send that to the printer. Requires no reconfiguration of the printer queues. Means we have to concatenate all the jobs from the batch into the one file. This is ok, as weve got PDFs and there are a multitude of programs around that allow us to concatenate them.

target: dep1.c dep2.h
   $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o target dep1.c

#define please
#define also
#define thanks
#define let

then you can write code like:

also please let a = 1 thanks

Ok, it all works correctly in the office, as we have a 802.11g wireless hub, but when I'm at home this isn't the case - it's only 802.11(a/b).
All I get is a complaint that it can't set the bit rate.
Grrrr.

Well I have a presentation from 12.00 -> 12.30 tomorrow in DCU. It's on Dtrace. This will be my first presentation on Dtrace in front of an audience of more that 10 people. With any luck I should have them all converted to using the One True Tool. Scary to be putting work related stuff here, but I think people should know that I have a mostly un-life.

Another one of those silly problems in C programming that occasionally crops up.
Depending on the compiler, declaring a char * variable pointing to a string constant can cause that string to go into the .text segment of the application. This segment is marked as readable and executable; but explicitly not writeable.
When you try to write to this address it issues a memory protection fault (SEGV on linux). Solutions are:

1. copy the string using strdup before writing to it. This means you need to remember to free the memory once the function has completed.
2. use alloca and strcpy to populate the string. This eliminates the need to free the memory, but adds a bit to the set-up overhead

I've been using the font called 'proggy clean' for all my programming needs for the last while and find it a very capable font for editing programs. Everything is clear and easy to work with.
It came up today as it is a great typeface for use in LCD projector demonstrations. It's available from http://www.tactile3d.com/tristan/

Most people think that you can only mount a directory onto another file system, which is true most of the time. Most file systems have code to prevent you from mounting a filesystem on a file,

not the loopback file system under Solaris (I've not checked on linux). With this lovely beast you can mount a file on top of another file.

Say you're on an unsupported operating system
, and every time you try running a script it moans at you using a dialog that the OS you're running on is not supported. You copy the file locally and make the changes to it. Then through the magic of lofs you issue:

then when you issue a /dist/brokenfile it runs your new /tmp/fixedfile, without you having to copy anything else to the new location.

This comes in handy when you're trying to install a machine over NFS and you can't write to the /etc/default/login file which has a

you fix the file, use the mount -f lofs /tmp/login /etc/default/login and then you can telnet to it with ease to do some last minute checks before rebooting the machine from the comfort of your home.

I've got to put in an entry to the keyclick hack, becuse people have started to look for it. I have a search form, but it's not linked into the other elements of the site. By adding this entry, linking to the keyclick hack I'm ensuring that it will be findable when people go looking for it. There have been a minimum of 2 searches for palm related stuff.

Anyway the keyclick hack is at http://www.petesh.com/palmos/. I'm sure I'll put some more stuff in there.

{p}

Ok,

We have the X position:
- getMapXPos()

this is a fraction of the overall display:

(getMapXPos() / getMapWidth())
multiply by the width of the display.

Making sure to order them such that there is never a zero value
for the multiplication.

the high resolution support for the PalmOS5 is driving me nuts.

little new pieces of the API seem to appear every now and again that make older code stop working. The testing matrix looks like:

• pre palmos 3.5 device
• palmos 3.5 device
• grey
• color
• palmos 4 device
• grey
• color
• palmos 5 device (simulator)
• 320x320 resolution
• palmos 5.?? device (simulator)
• collapsible display, reorientable display
• 1, 1.5 and 2x resolution
• palmos 6 device (simulator)
• all the 5.?? matrix

The distribution algorithm results in some silly output. There are times
where zones that are adjacent to power plants have no power.

I need to flag power shortages as well.

It looks like wasps find me sweet...

Quote from http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/spray_on_usability:

Oh, I see: the problem is that Linux developers are just so fucking smart that they overlook the problems faced by "dumb users" such as dear old A.T. But everything will fall into place with just a little attitude adjustment.

I need to use a smaller font for the default pocketcity UI. The 16x16 tiles
are using too much space.

Need to get the scroll bars working (and not lying).

It looks like I've got the simulation routine back under control.
For a while there all I had was downgrades happening. Turns out that
there was a sign error in one of the conditional statements making it
always terminate.

I still need to implement the linear vs. random zone thing for low occupancy.

Bad randomness in the system.

Fix the repaint rate for the linux game (use an offscreen pixmap). It bites
at the moment when I fullscreen the game (slow, juddery).

I'm sitting at the trian station waiting for the dart home. It's been a long
day in the office. I arrived at just before 10am.

Things that happened today: I nearly fainted on the train coming into the
office. That cost me 1/2 an hour waiting for missing trains.

I got 2.6.3 working on my laptop. It just simply refused to boot. I forgot
to translate the modules.conf file into the modprobe.conf file. Aargh!

I've been getting it working under vmware too, I needed to build the vmhgfs
module. Rewrote the Makefile to be a 2.6 modules makefile. One fix in the
driver.c file (add a #define for NODEV) and it built and installed fine.

The only problem is that getting the interface status i.e. link up/down isn't
working so the ifup script wasn't assigning them IP addresses. A couple of
fixes to that (remove the link test) and it all worked perfectly. I should
probably fix the link test to work correctly, that way I can take the laptop
on the road again.

That's just about all the work related stuff I'm allowed to talk about the
rest is hush hush.

dear god, I can't believe I ever managed to live without the z shell. It
is just screams 'feeping creature'. The filename completion is simply scary
the globbing is something from god.

Moo!

For some reason the building of the overlay zones on rail wasn't working.

Turns out that the code was missing. This looks like a CVS dodginess thing
in relation to the date/times.

Fixed. Now on to the scrolling problem.

I still can't reproduce it dadblast it.

The river is missing at the top edge of the graph. I've obviously got an
off-by-one error that's doing this.

I fixed it in the CreateFullRiver routine by specifying
k >= 0, instead of k > 0

Transparency and GdkPixmaps.

Do I need to create a transparency mask for each of the map overlay types?
it seems as though I do.

1. Toolbar has too many icons. Need to make this customizable or else
split the toolbar into multiple choices (possible, bit difficult).

Text is not at the correct bottom of the display, and is not horizontally
at the correct location either.

13.28 -
- Fixed the text.

Support is now coded in to deal with multi-resolution displays. It can
handle single, sony high resolution and palm OS 5 high resolution displays.

More work is needed for 1.5 resolution displays. I will examine what is
needed to get them to work today.

Having spent a long time rearranging the tiles, I've still not added in any
of the elements that are animated. It's simply too much like rasterbating
for my liking.

The first plan is to export the current 256 color tile set out to both the
4 color and the 2 color for the palm devices (which is really irritating).

The 256 color icons export without any effort, it's just that the other
ones need to be color-reduced to make sure that the look OK.

Sitting on the sofa, tapping on the laptop putting documentation into the
game. Boy is it fun, as at the same time I'm watching the wonderful Kate &
Leopold. someone somewhere must be impugning my masculinity as a result of
this, but I really find it enjoyable.

I'm placing doxygen documentation into the application to make it easier to
navigate the source code. It is helping me keep up with the code.

The next objective is to improve the simulation so there is a better
relationship between the three primary zones. This will allow us to develop
the desire graphs.

Problems with the virtual key character mappings and buttons in the
Palm Simulator witht the virtual silk screen. They don't have a calculator
button, so we're in trouble with the 'Menu Popup' button being interpreted
as the Calclator Button.

The question is that under this system, when we're displaying the toolbar do
we need the extra build list popup?

Character list with 320x480 screen:
btn: 0 char: 00000110 - vchrKeyboardAlpha
btn: 1 char: 00000111 - vchrKeyboardNumeric
btn: 2 char: 00000108 - vchrLaunch
btn: 3 char: 00000105 - vchrMenu
btn: 4 char: 0000010A - vchrFind

Other Modes:
btn: 0 char: 00000110
btn: 1 char: 00000111
btn: 2 char: 00000108
btn: 3 char: 00000105
btn: 4 char: 0000010B - vchrCalc
btn: 5 char: 0000010A

The vchrMenu item is being interpreted (do'h)

Just to make it more fun, I got the palm SDK and it's got:
Double Density
btn: 0 char: 0000050D - undefined
btn: 1 char: 0000050E - ditto
btn: 2 char: 0000050F - ditto
btn: 3 char: 00000510 - ditto
btn: 4 char: 00000511 - ditto
btn: 5 char: 00000512 - ditto

on a Tungsten T3

Zire 71 helps here as it has:-
btn: 4 char: 00000108 - vchrLaunch
btn: 5 char: 00000105 - vchrFind
btn: 6 char: 0000010B - vchrCalc | (when set to go to calc)
btn: 7 char: 0000010A - vchrFind

Otherwise:
btn: 0 char: 00000110 - al
btn: 1 char: 00000111 - num
btn: 2 char: 00000500 - clock
btn: 3 char: 00000502 - bright
btn: 4 char: 00000108 Launch
btn: 5 char: 00000105 find
btn: 6 char: 0000010B calc (?)
btn: 7 char: 0000010A find