Wine Launcher GUI "frontend" for Mac OS X

By , 2009-12-31 12:31

Yesterday I installed Wine 1.1 on my Mac using MacPorts. It works great, however it’s not as well integrated as wine on Linux or CrossOver on Mac. What I mean by this is that it’s not possible to double-click a Windows EXE and have it open with wine. So I made a quick and dirty app using Platypus (http://www.sveinbjorn.org/platypus) to allow me to launch Windows executables directly from Finder.
WineLauncherOSX

Weblib – a library of Netbooks

By , 2009-12-30 18:19

I was browsing Facebook today and glanced up at the usually useless “Suggestions” box. For the first time, I saw something interesting. My cousin in France had become a fan of “Weblib”.

Intrigued, I clicked the link. It seems like a pretty interesting concept. To quote their website: “Besoin d’aller sur Internet? Pas d’ordinateur? Weblib vous en prete un gratuitement.” For all you English-speakers, that means “Need to use the Internet? No computer? Weblib will lend you one for free.”

I think that speaks for itself. Not sure what their business model is, but I hope it works, and perhaps we’ll have something of the sort in Canada soon!.

http://www.weblib.eu/

No wireless networks and no IP detected on Windows

By , 2009-12-22 10:42

Today I booted up my Windows Server 2003 laptop. All seemed OK, but I couldn’t get an IP address on my wired connection and my wireless card didn’t detect any APs. I thought i would have to reimage my machine, but a quick google brought up this page:

Tech Support Guy Forums – View Single Post – Solved: Wireless networks detected – no wireless networks found.

In a command prompt window,
Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults, type: netsh int ip reset reset.log

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults, type: netsh winsock reset catalog

And it works!

Old Apple ad

By , 2009-12-18 21:37

apple-adam

for more, see http://oldcomputers.net/oldads/

Linux fortune: Love

By , 2009-12-18 19:55
matthieu@localhost:~$ fortune
LOVE:
 When you like to think of someone on days that begin with a morning.
LOVE:
	When it's growing, you don't mind watering it with a few tears.
LOVE:
 When, if asked to choose between your lover
 and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat.
LOVE:
 When you don't want someone too close--
 because you're very sensitive to pleasure.

Converting Adium XML chat logs to HTML format

By , 2009-12-18 11:39

http://trac.adium.im/ticket/6569

XSLT could be used to transform the .chatlog files to HTML. Attached is an XSLT stylesheet that I have written to do this. The libxslt library is present on all versions of Mac OS X since 10.2, and its command-line tool can be invoked in a sub-shell using system(3):

xsltproc -o 'foobar (2007-03-08T09.19.11-0700).html' format-html.xsl \
            'foobar (2007-03-08T09.19.11-0700).chatlog'

Christmas cheer

By , 2009-12-17 22:51

I don’t think this week can get any better. Today we had a fantastic Christmas breakfast at work, and were treated to a big lunch at Congee Time.

And even better than that, after running into my friend on Tuesday, I called her and we arranged to meet up for dinner on Wednesday. She had to work until 8:30pm, so I stayed late at work and met her at Yorkdale afterwards. We were both tired and hungry, so we settled on dinner at Moxie’s because it had the shortest wait time, and delicious white chocolate brownies. I had a great time, couldn’t ask for a better night. Good company, good conversation, good food… fantastic.

By the way, Emma, hats off to you for surviving all those 10-hour work days. You deserve better :).

Change UUID of hard drive in virtualbox

By , 2009-12-16 11:08

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=33678

Workout and Yorkdale

By , 2009-12-15 16:30

Today I finally started working out again. After much coaxing from a couple of my colleagues, I headed over to the weight room for the first time in quite a few months. I must say, it isn’t so bad, it was actually a nice change from all the sitting around I usually do…

After that, I decided to head over to Yorkdale for lunch, because I was craving some Thai Express. I figured that while I was there, I’d pay a visit to the good old Apple Store. On my way there, I passed by Santa’s “Castle” (which was actually more like three large cones made to look like trees using LED lights) and was admiring the flashing lights when one of the girls working there caught my eye, but then went into a back room. She looked very familiar, so I decided to wait around and see if she would come out again. Eventually, she did, and I realized that it was a very good friend of mine. She didn’t notice me and looked really busy, so I decided to go and buy her a nice hot tea latte. I came back to give it to her, but there was a Global TV reporter and camera in the way. I waited until they left and then went up to the counter to give it to her. She was surprised to see me but unfortunately was quite busy, and I myself was late for work, so I rushed off.

Lessons to be learned today: Working out is GOOD. and not unpleasant. Also, going out for lunch can lead to interesting things.

A non-techy post

By , 2009-12-15 01:08

Lately my blog has been essentially a pell-mell repository of random procedures and other technology tidbits. The reason for this is that lately, work has been quite busy and the social life has kinda been on the down-low. I did accomplish some pretty cool things though.

Last Monday I got to meet up with some friends for the first time in a little while. It was a really nice “chill” night; we watched some YouTube and I was coerced into trying some shisha and mint tea. I couldn’t fall asleep until quite late, so the next day at work I was quite tired, but I have no regrets.

Anyway Christmas is fast approaching. It’s strange, it didn’t really register in my mind without the usual exam period stress. In any case I am now quite aware of it and am both stressed and excited. The holidays will be a welcome break after these long months of work and an opportunity to meet up with friends and family! On the other hand, this year is the first year where I have a real job so I feel like I should be buying some slightly bigger gifts… and I have no idea what to get for anyone.

A nice little thing this year is that our little church will finally be getting proper church benches in time for Christmas. Should be interesting to see the chapel’s new, more permanent look.

Winter, however, is a different story. Last week we got our first snow of the year in Toronto, and winter seemed to have arrived in full force. The rest of the week was quite frigid, requiring gloves and hats and scarves. This week so far seems pretty mild though. Gotta love climate change.

Today I also finally started working out at lunch again, after much encouragement by some colleagues. It feels great to have gotten back into it, although my arms are kind of tired.

Well, now it’s getting late and I’m losing track of my ideas. So I guess it’s time for bed.

Custom theme by me. Based on Panorama by Themocracy