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By Matthieu, 2010-01-05 13:56

http://windowsconnected.com/forums/t/1050.aspx

After the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 Microsoft began doing software updates in a new way.  They now maintain two different development environments a General Distribution Releases (GDR) and Quick Fix Engineering (QFE) that only converge again at Service Pack levels.

The GDR branch of updates are used when Microsoft issues one of the following types of updates: security updates, critical updates, updates, update rollups, drivers and feature packs.  This branch does not include the updates from the QFE branch.

The QFE branch are cummulative hotfixes issued by Microsoft Product Support Services to address specific customer issues. These updates do not get the same quality of testing as the GDR branch.

GDR-class fixes are included in hotfix files, but hotfixes are not included in GDR version files. The GDR and hotfix versions of a particular file in a security update, critical update, update, update rollup, driver, or feature pack package will typically have the same version numbers. If the version numbers are different then the hotfix file will have a later version number. This indicates that the hotfix file includes a hotfix that was created after the GDR-class fix.

When a security update, critical update, update, update rollup, driver, or feature pack installs you will automatically get the correct “branch” based on your current file type (GDP or QFE). Additionally if you install the GDR version files, the hotfix files are also copied to the %windir%\$hf_mig$ folder. This supports migration to the appropriate files if you later install a hotfix or service pack that includes earlier versions of these files.

Sometimes, you will need to force the installation of the GDR package only or of the QFE package only. To do this, use the following command-line switches.

To install the GDR package only, use /B:RTMGDR

To install the QFE package only, use /B:RTMQFE

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By Matthieu, 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

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By Matthieu, 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/

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By Matthieu, 2009-12-18 21:37

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

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By Matthieu, 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.

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By Matthieu, 2009-12-16 11:08

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

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By Matthieu, 2009-12-12 10:10

CBC News Photogallery.

A beautiful set of pictures from around the world showcasing current events.

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By Matthieu, 2009-12-06 17:29

run a sudo port install vpnc

then cd to /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/vpnc
tar xzvf vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz

then cd to vpnc-0.5.3 and edit the Makefile. find and uncomment the lines pertaining to OpenSSL GPL violation:

# Some distributions like Suse and Fedora seem to think otherwise.
 
# Comment this in to obtain a binary with certificate support which is
# GPL incompliant though.
OPENSSL_GPL_VIOLATION = -DOPENSSL_GPL_VIOLATION
OPENSSLLIBS = -lcrypto

matt@matthieu-imac:/opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/vpnc$ sudo mv vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz vpnc-0.5.3-GPl.tar.gz
matt@matthieu-imac:/opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/vpnc$ sudo tar czvf vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz vpnc-0.5.3

sudo port uninstall vpnc
sudo port clean vpnc

Now, you’d think you can build vpnc using macports. however, running sudo port install vpnc gives:

$ sudo port install vpnc
—>  Computing dependencies for vpnc
—>  Fetching vpnc
—>  Verifying checksum(s) for vpnc
Error: Checksum (sha1) mismatch for vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz
Error: Checksum (rmd160) mismatch for vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz
Error: Target org.macports.checksum returned: Unable to verify file checksums
Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

Macports checks the checksum of the tar.gz to ensure that your download isn’t corrupted. So open up a new Terminal window.

$ cd /opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/ports/net/vpnc/

$ sudo nano Portfile

Find the current checksums:

checksums           sha1 321527194e937371c83b5e7c38e46fca4f109304 \
                    rmd160 6f3926901e75dc98762f6ef45782930f2fb76a2f

Back in your other Terminal window,
matt@matthieu-imac:/opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/vpnc$ shasum vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz
22feb011388d0d7d1ef2c81ff2f1fb22039c475a  vpnc-0.5.3.tar.gz

Replace the sha1 checksum with the one you found using the shasum command. Then delete the \ and the whole rmd160 line.

Now run sudo port install vpnc. it should now build with OpenSSL support!

Now only one thing left, install the TunTap driver from http://tuntaposx.sourceforge.net/.

And vpnc works! edit your config file in /opt/local/etc/vpnc.

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By Matthieu, 2009-12-04 00:17

I did actually get my MBP (Unibody/2009/2.66GHz/SD) to triple-boot. I first partitioned my drive using the instructions found here: http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp

The command you need is :sudo diskutil resizeVolume [disk identifier] [disk size] [partition type] [“Partition label”] [partition size] [partition type] [“Partition label”] [partition size]

where [partition type] is one of the types that shows up when you run
sudo diskutil listFilesystems

After that, install Windows 7 as normal, by booting from the CD (press Option to get the menu). Once Windows 7 is installed, download and install EasyBCD. Then reboot and boot from the Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit CD (you NEED 9.10 if you have a unibody macbook, 9.04 doesn’t work). Follow the install prompts, and on the last screen that summarizes the installation actions, click Advanced. From the dropdown menu for where the bootloader is to be installed, pick your Ubuntu root partition.

Once the Ubuntu install finishes, reboot your system into Windows 7. Then run EasyBCD and add an entry for Linux/GRUB.

You now have triple-boot working. To boot to Windows 7, use option and select “Windows”. to boot to ubuntu, use option and select “Windows”, then pick Linux from the EasyBCD menu.