MindlessCode.net http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog Life, The Universe, and Everything through an ADSL connection. Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:10:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.3 en In case anybody needs to know… http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/30/in-case-anybody-needs-to-know/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/30/in-case-anybody-needs-to-know/#comments Sun, 30 May 2004 00:00:54 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=142 …what has happened to a server that keeps falling over. 2 Million (a number I just pulled out of my hat) geeks are descending on your server.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/30/in-case-anybody-needs-to-know/feed/ Crossover Office http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/29/crossover-office/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/29/crossover-office/#comments Sat, 29 May 2004 06:29:08 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=141 I’ve been playing around with a CrossOver Office trial from CodeWeavers. It’s awesome…absolutely awesome. It installs and runs "supported apps" quite well. Some non-supported apps run great too. Noteably (no pun intended), NoteWorthy Composer runs very well. CXOffice even adds items to the KDE menu and desktop! Of course, when I installed MS Publisher, it added an IE “shortcut” to my desktop :S.

Apps that I’ve tried so far include:
* Internet Explorer 6 (Installer worked great, app works great–as well as IE can work, anyway)
* Microsoft Publisher (Installed fine, runs slow and is pretty buggy)
* Dreamweaver MX (Installed great using the install routine that CX Office provides. Runs good, kind of slow with major holes)
* NoteWorthy Composer (Installed Great, Runs great!)
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Also, I’ve been hacking out the design of the Icewater website. Tell me what you think.
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Also, check out these pages with cool pictures on them:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~ph76a/snopix2/snopix.htm

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/29/crossover-office/feed/ Flash 7 for Linux! http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/28/flash-7-for-linux/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/28/flash-7-for-linux/#comments Fri, 28 May 2004 17:08:57 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=140 Yay! Macromedia released Flash 7 for Linux. It’s suspossed to be faster with a few new features. You can download it from http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash.

Installation was pretty easy. I couldn’t get it to install for Mozilla…I don’t know why. I have three mozilla-* directories in my /usr/lib folder, so that could of been the issue. I specified /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox and it installed and ran fine. Then I told Konqueror (my default/favorite browser) to look in the /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox directory for plugins, and scanned. Flash 7 showed up! If you want to test your new Flash capibility, then try http://www.foxone.fr/intro.swf (Slashdotted probably…)

Also, this comment on Slashdot really caught my eye: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=109149&cid=9275274

Anyways, enjoy!

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/28/flash-7-for-linux/feed/ Utho… http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/27/utho/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/27/utho/#comments Thu, 27 May 2004 06:28:45 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=139 Total Transfer remaining this month: 32MB.

Sheesh, I wasn’t even Slashdotted…instead I mirrored KDE 3.2.2 for 10 days.
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I’ve been working on Icepack lately and have an implementation of dependency resolution plan on a piece of paper. Maybe I’ll get enough time to implement it this week. Hell’s Half Acer (The lettuce disease nursery at GTF)needed weeded, so I’ve been hoeing 4800 little lettuce plants and celery.

Anyways, maybe I’ll be able to work on Icewater and maybe even get it’s webpage up. Have a good Memorial Day, everyone.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/27/utho/feed/ Wow http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/24/wow/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/24/wow/#comments Mon, 24 May 2004 05:20:01 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=138 Wow…a lot’s gone on this weekend. As I said in my last post, we went to a fiddle contest. Had a good time. Lots of great fiddling! My brother and I competed in the twin devision and placed 5th out of 10 places. The next day I competed in the junior division…placed 9th of 10th (sheesh…I know…). Many thanks to my guitar backups, David Hargraves, Dan Emmert, and Rod Anderson!

Today, we had the WCO orchestra concert…it went pretty well. But then our card broke down…stupid cooling fan burned up. Oh well. At least it didn’t break on Hwy 99.

Anyways, I’ve had fun this weekend :).

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/24/wow/feed/ Fiddle contest! http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/22/fiddle-contest/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/22/fiddle-contest/#comments Sat, 22 May 2004 01:13:12 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=137 Bye! I’m off the the Oregon Old Time Fiddling Contest. I’ll be playing in the twin and junior divisions. See you Sunday!

Anyway, you might want to check out this page:
http://www.hometownmotocross.com/pages/asinine_laws__all_locations.htm

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/22/fiddle-contest/feed/ Black Box Voting http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/20/black-box-voting/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/20/black-box-voting/#comments Thu, 20 May 2004 06:35:55 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=136 Heck, won’t I ever stop posting depressing stories? Maybe, but in the mean time more depressing news came up.
The feds want Bev Harris, ownder of BlackBoxVoting.org to pony up her access logs that tell who visited her site. Looks like they’ll get their way too. The logs probably weren’t even redirected to /dev/null, sheesh :(.

Gosh, I’m probably on the list *now*.
If you care, you can read about it in the Seattle Times.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/20/black-box-voting/feed/ EU Approves Software Patents http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/19/eu-approves-software-patents/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/19/eu-approves-software-patents/#comments Wed, 19 May 2004 03:19:33 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=135 Well, it happened.
Shame, shame on them. How long before we see the first patent on a button or scrollbox? What will happen to SuSE and all the other European Linux distros?

There is of course a /. article.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/19/eu-approves-software-patents/feed/ Googol http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/18/googol/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/18/googol/#comments Tue, 18 May 2004 21:11:11 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=134 The family of Professor Edward Kasner is sueing Google over their name. Kasner first used the word Googol in his book Mathematics and the Imagination to describe a very large number. A Googol, by the was is a 10 raised to the 100th power.

It does appear that Google is a play on Googol. But you can trademark an amount?

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/18/googol/feed/ Torvalds “did not invent Linux” http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/17/torvalds-did-not-invent-linux/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/17/torvalds-did-not-invent-linux/#comments Mon, 17 May 2004 17:18:08 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=133 …is what Alexis de Tocqueville Institute says. This is the same person who crafted the report proving that terrorism works better with Open Source software and that all the US’s IT troubles are because of open source.

Never mind the fact that these studies were funded by Microsoft.

A quote:

“It is clear that people’s exceptional interest in the Unix operating system made Unix one of the most licensed, imitated, and stolen products in the history of computer science. Over the years, many have envied the startling and pervasive success of Unix. For almost thirty years, programmers have tried and failed to successfully build a Unix-like system and couldn’t. To this day, we have a serious attribution problem in software development because people have chosen to scrupulously borrow or imitate Unix.”
–Kenneth Brown

Nuhuh.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/17/torvalds-did-not-invent-linux/feed/ Fiddler on the Roof http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/17/fiddler-on-the-roof/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/17/fiddler-on-the-roof/#comments Mon, 17 May 2004 00:15:25 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=132 Went to CCT’s (Corvallis Community Theatre) production of Fiddler on the Roof last night. Wow. It was awesome, and required a lot of hard work (over 200 people were involved). Sorry, no pictures due to copyright restrictions. The local newspaper might have something, but their search function is broken.

Anyways, it was a great show! Good job all of you who were in it!

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/17/fiddler-on-the-roof/feed/ Dabber exploites Sasser Hole http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/15/dabber-exploites-sasser-hole/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/15/dabber-exploites-sasser-hole/#comments Sat, 15 May 2004 04:53:23 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=131 Well, what would you expect. Someone has released a worm called Dabber, which exploits a security hole on Sasser. It scans for machines infected with Sasser, then opens up port 9898 so that crackers/attackers can enter and check our your computer (or run something, make your computer crash…whatever crackers do. I don’t know. Really).

You can of course read about this in The Register.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/15/dabber-exploites-sasser-hole/feed/ Bomb Iraq — Songs for peace demonstration http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/15/bomb-iraq-songs-for-peace-demonstration/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/15/bomb-iraq-songs-for-peace-demonstration/#comments Sat, 15 May 2004 01:00:29 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=130 http://www.fredsvagt.dk/intern/bomb_iraq.html
Yes, Paul sent me that one.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/15/bomb-iraq-songs-for-peace-demonstration/feed/ Robot Patrol http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/14/robot-patrol/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/14/robot-patrol/#comments Fri, 14 May 2004 23:48:34 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=129 CNN has an article up about how the US may deploy tiny robots into the nations water ways to sample water in real time “…to protect our waterways from terrorist attacks”.

Maybe this could be used to monitor pollution from chemical and other plants? Or maybe not…
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/05/14/water.robots.ap/index.htm

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/14/robot-patrol/feed/ Justice Department Censors ACLU http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/14/justice-department-censors-aclu/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/14/justice-department-censors-aclu/#comments Fri, 14 May 2004 00:58:29 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=128 Hmm, what next.
The Justice Department has forced the ACLU to remove a paragraph from their website about what FBI agents could do under the PATRIOT act. The article is located on the Washington Post website. You can still get the text via Google cache (read /. for a link).

Ugg, the article will probably get censored.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/14/justice-department-censors-aclu/feed/ Google to post image ads http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/13/google-to-post-image-ads/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/13/google-to-post-image-ads/#comments Thu, 13 May 2004 17:22:06 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=127 Well, it looks like Google is going to start adding “targeted image ads” to websites (not its own, though). No animations, and they must be a standard size. However, they will be distributed, editing HOSTS won’t block them. However, downloading the AdBlock Extention for Firefox and adding some filters for ads should work.

In other news, just tell Google what you think. Send them a message like this:
Dear Google,
I have been a long time user of your search engine. However, with your recent announcement of graphical ads, I am looking for another search engine now. I click on text ads, only. I understand that you will only be placing these on parter sites. Will you contact the partner sites? What if they object to having banner ads on their site?
I urge you to reconsider this.
<Your Name>

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/13/google-to-post-image-ads/feed/ The state of the US Postal System http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/the-state-of-the-us-postal-system/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/the-state-of-the-us-postal-system/#comments Wed, 12 May 2004 18:19:44 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=126 The US Postal System (USPS) is getting driven out of business by private companies. I recently (well, three weeks ago) purchased a battery from CompUSA. They only ship via FedEx. Only. The FedEx truck couldn’t find us :(. It was “returned to sender” without any notification from CompUSA. I requested it be shipped by USPS. Nope. Why? They have a contract with FedEx that demands that ComUSA will only ship via FedEx. This is similar to what UPS does.

So, we finally got CompUSA to refund out $176 order, and I went out on eBay in search of a battery that would be shipped via USPS. Every, single, web site (that I found) shipped via UPS. Finally, I located a company that shipped via USPS…and it was $70 cheaper!

I encourage all of you to only order from companies that ship via USPS.
OK, so I’m mad. Sorry.

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/the-state-of-the-us-postal-system/feed/ Scribus 1.1.6 http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/scribus-116/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/scribus-116/#comments Wed, 12 May 2004 06:16:04 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=125 I downloaded and compiled Scribus 1.1.6. For those of you who don’t know what Scribus is, it’s “GPL Desktop Publishing and More”. I have an upcomming concert brochure that I need to do and thought that I’d try out Scribus.

The build was simple, just the regular ./configure, make, make install procedure. Of course, I’m a geek to I made a Slackware Package out of it. If you want the package, please download it.

Scribus is built with Qt, so it fit in well with my KDE desktop. It still has the ugly Qt dialogs, though. The new dialog offers you many different paper sizes, organized alphabetically rather than by common use. Letter is way down at the bottom.
There didn’t seem to be an option to create half-page (book fold, as MS Publisher calls it), so I had to skew the numbers a bit and find the right settings for the margins, orientation and paper size.

The editor itsself was very easy to use with many features. All text styles are applied through the Styles menu. Although this is a little confusing at first, you get used to it after a while.
The PDF support is very good, you can insert annotations and links, as well as export your document in a high resolution. You can also insert PDF fields, such as buttons, check boxes, and other controls.

In short, Scribus is pretty good, but still needs some work, especially in the “basics” area.
Good work Scribus team!

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/scribus-116/feed/ Redmond Mis-information minister http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/redmond-mis-information-minister/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/redmond-mis-information-minister/#comments Wed, 12 May 2004 03:41:27 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=124 http://www.thesunmachine.net/image_archive/archive/oct03/al_sahhaf_microsoft_no_bugs.jpg
Thanks Paul!

]]> http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/12/redmond-mis-information-minister/feed/ The 2.6.6 Kernel http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/11/the-266-kernel/ http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/2004/05/11/the-266-kernel/#comments Tue, 11 May 2004 19:34:08 +0000 taj http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/blog/?p=123 Andrew Morton released version 2.6.6 (please use a mirror!) of the Linux Kernel yesterday. Soo, of course I downloaded the 2.4 MB of bzip2′d patches.

Shucks, well it broke support for my wireless card AND my PS/2 mouse stopped working. Now I’m back to 2.6.3. Now you know why I have 10 options in my LILO…

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