December 2001

Boingo info from 80211b News. Part of this article caught my attention. (Not not the part about Dayton being "a committed Macintosh user" - all Macintosh users should be committed... har har...) It's the part about the "Macintosh version" of the software being available sometime in 2002. I'm no expert on these things, but if I was creating a such a product, wouldn't it make sense to develop a *BSD version, and then port that to Mac OS X (as well as Linux, etc.)? And in this case, I wouldn't even create a Classic Mac OS version. Here's my justification. By the end of 2002 (when the software will probably ship) Mac OS X will be firmly in place. All those people who bought TiBooks and iBooks just to run Mac OS X are the type of geeks who would use wireless networking, right?

I really hope I'm running Mac OS X on my G4 at work by spring - ok, summer - of 2002...

Today I got a check at work. It was for the money I've been putting aside for the last few months because they aren't going to pay us for three days next week. That was a pleasant surprise... It's a Christmas Miracle!

Thanks to the SkunkWorks Dept. of some giant, faceless corporation, I may have my homemade USB Paddle soon... cool...

I've taken a look at MAME, just a bit, and gotten MacMAME running under Mac OS X, I actually played some games yesterday. While I was playing I kept thinking about how I need to find an old non-optical USB mouse so I can dissasemble it and build it into a paddle so I can play these old games properly. I mean, sliding a mouse across a desk just isn't going to cut it!

XML Database Ju Ju talks about the Divinity of Mac OS X... didn't I mention some of the same things here previously? I see a trend...

Also, go read what Wes has to say... He always seems to have something good to say...

Coming from the Mac OS (Classic) and having only a slight comfort level with all things *nixy, I was a little nervous about compiling apps into real, live, executable code - since 99.9% of my development has been with languages like perl, etc. but things are looking good! I'm getting used to typing make and install and ./configure and what not... I type the right commands and lots of text speeds past me in the terminal, and things seem to work... wow. yay. cool...

Ok, I'm actually fine with it snowing anytime between the 21st and the 25th. After that though, the snow's gotta melt.

A "White" Christmas!? What's that supposed to mean!

Signing off: you might not hear from me over the next week or so, as I'll be busy not using broadband in any way, and suffering through life with the 46k dial-up... argh!

If you live in Bullfrog Junction and you need a pizza, you might try Rosati's. If they deliver way the heck out there, you're set!

I'm really pleased with the convergence that is Mac OS X. *nix geeks and Mac pushers can now be one in the same. O'Reilly gets new stuff for their Mac Dev Center constantly. Even on slashdot you see posting by people who gave Mac OS X a try and got hooked... it's good... very good...

Now if only I didn't have to physically pull out the plug to shut down my OS X machine every other week or so...

If you're in the area, and feel like stopping by on Friday, let me know...

Woz was on The Screen Savers last night... unfortunately, I fell asleep before his appearance... pretty sad, I know... maybe I can catch a replay...

I've yet to find a way to download rtsp 'files' to disk. Anyone got an idea? Can it be done?

Damn power outages.... this time the Mac OS and Win2k boxes were fine... the Linux box hasn't come back to life yet... I'll have to take a look at it during lunch.. it's been up for over a month with no problem... of course it doesn't do that much most of the time...

Perl Service for Mac OS X

We all love our TiVo's (well, I would if I had one :/) and when we really love our TiVo's we get into hacking the TiVo, and you'll find info on that at Hacking the TiVo. That's all well and good, but soon there will be a new obsession. Sometime next year we'll all be riding Segways around town instead of watching the old TiVo, and that's fine, but we will need a Segway hacking site. You'll learn how to reprogram your Segway to ride on walls without falling off, how to get that 'ol scooter scooting along at 35+ miles per hour, how to rebuild a pair of Segways into a four wheeler for off-road adventure... The time is soon, my friends... prepare!

Sally rode her Segway to Subway to satisfy her starving with a salami sub... and a soda!

We did it. We actually got an Xmas tree and put it in the house. There wasn't even any arguing this year. It all went very smooth. It's beginning to look a little like Xmas. I actually told our neighbor yesterday that I'd rather clean the house than watch football, which is what I did. Those kids are messy. What a bunch of slobs... ahhh, but we love em! That's what it's all about...

I caught The Matrix on TNT this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it. (Still trying to convince the female it's a love story.) TNT also showed Johnny Mnemonic. I won't say I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it wasn't terrible. Rollins and Ice-T were in it, that made it amusing...

It's testing day today! It was supposed to be upgrade day, but when your bug list is as long as ours, it's still testing day. I think we could use testing week, if we could. In house apps are so much fun. Especially when it's less than 3 people trying to write code, test it, support users, design new features, etc, etc, etc... why am I here again?

Yesterday I heard some radio station that was giving away an iPod. While this is cool, it's also not so cool. If you don't have a machine at home to run Mac OS on, it's not as good, sure it's still a nice 5 gig Firewire drive, but is it really a music player? (Well, it is if someone releases Windows software for it... has anyone yet?) It's a reversal of the normal computer type prizes, where Windows compatibility is the requirement. Good and bad I guess... Hell, I have to deal with the "Will it run on Mac OS X, even under Classic, and if so, will it ever be OS X native?" question everytime I think about printers, scanners, digital cameras, A/V converters, etc... it's all so painful...

Ahhh, I never get tired of seeing this message: SiteScope Alert, error, CPU Utilization on dbserv, 91% avg, cpu1 93%, cpu2 89%

I finally got around to configuring CPAN under Mac OS X. Now I can actually start installing modules and really seeing what perl can do under darwin...

I thought I'd make a list of some of the open source apps that we use at The Company, I wouldn't be surprised if this list grows over time, either as I find out about more apps, or as we integrate new stuff. (I'm using the term 'open source' loosely, don't get all psycho on me...)

• Perl (should be on every machine!)
• Python
• Apache
• Snort
• GnuPG
• VNC
• ImageMagick
• ghostscript

This list covers what is actually used in production by people other than me. My list is probably much, much longer since I actually have a Linux box lying around... I didn't mention the small things like tar, gzip, etc. though they definitely make things a little more bearable under Win32...

Release dates make me nervous.. high anxiety... sick to stomach... arrgghhhhh...

I've heard rumors The Tick will be on tonight. Please watch it. Please...?

Well, I did get ImageMagick working ok on Win2k, and I even got ghostscript installed and configured properly. Automatic low-res generation, here we come!

David Chess is over here temporarily... we hope...

Geez, nowadays you might lose your domain, or have your broadband company go out of business, or have the cable guys lose your service for days at a time... I'm still doing the dial-up at home - feel my pain - and I'll try to feel yours... The worst thing about being out of the office for a week was the lack of T-1 at home. I'd better prepare, since I'll be out of the office for almost two weeks at Xmas time. I need that broadband fix!

I had a meeting yesterday that started at 2:00 PM. It ended by 2:04 PM. This may have been the most productive and satisfying meetings I've ever been a part of.

Now I can understand how the word 'meeting' could be abbreviated to 'mtg' but how does the work 'manufacturer' get abbreviated to 'mfg' - I suppose 'manufacturing' is the true log-format of 'mfg' - though I work daily on an app where we use 'mfg' to mean 'manufacturer' - it's very distressing...

Or maybe MFG is something else entirely...

Damn this Mac OS 9! I need to be able to deal with long file names! I can't do much good with names like 'REPORT~1.CFM' and 'REPORT~2.CFM' now can I?

Meanwhile... I got ImageMagick working fine on Mac OS X, but I can't say the same for Mac OS 9, or even Win2k. So I'm somewhat pleases, as I've been meaning to get it installed for a long time now... let the fun begin!

When people kept talking about riding on Ginger, I thought it was some obscure Gilligan's Island reference... I guess not!

Ghost Dance...

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