Lately I've found a lot of my Google searches being answered by articles on About.com. About.com is filled with loads of great information and covers a massive variety of topics. Just recently I've been helped massively by Zarko Gajic who presents Delphi.About.com with his many Windows shell hook tutorials and other information.
About.com also has some really great photography articles, including details on lens cleaning and other topics.
I just wanted to point out how useful About.com really is.
Tuesday, 27 June 2006
Monday, 26 June 2006
Hooker beta
A very quick follow-up to the previous post, about hacking the Windows API.
I've not got my little application (affectionately known as "Hooker") to a state where I think it mostly works.
The number of lines has at least doubled since I first posted it on my blog. Almost all of these lines of code deal with the proper handling of various window types and getting the exact right state to allow windows to be moved properly.
The Windows "desktop" is now safe (early versions allowed the desktop icons to be moved, as a whole), as is the task bar and maximised windows. In fact, the early testing versions actually moved around controls inside a window, rather than the window itself... it was also possible to move the mouse so quickly that windows being moved could be "lost". To the best of my knowledge these are all sorted now.
The reason I've decided to upload this now is because I've just fixed the last outstanding problem: properly intercepting the initial mouse press properly. While windows were being moved perfectly a click was received by the application. For example, if the ALT key was down and an "Okay" button was underneath the cursor at the beginning of the move, when the move ended the mouse would come up and the net result would be a moved window that presumably disappeared as a result of the "Okay" button having been pressed. This no longer happens: a non-focused window is brought to the front and given focus, but the click is never registered by the application itself.
So... here's a beta version for you to enjoy. I've already come across a bug whereby the release of the ALT key is not registered, which means key clicks result in window moves, rather than proper key clicks. I suspect this is because I was trying to move Delphi windows which also intercept all sorts of hooks (including keyboard and mouse). If you come across this problem, please let me know... equally, if you don't come across it, that would be useful to know too.
To kill it off, you'll need to use the Processes tab of Windows Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) to end the HookerTest.exe process.
Enjoy!
I've not got my little application (affectionately known as "Hooker") to a state where I think it mostly works.
The number of lines has at least doubled since I first posted it on my blog. Almost all of these lines of code deal with the proper handling of various window types and getting the exact right state to allow windows to be moved properly.
The Windows "desktop" is now safe (early versions allowed the desktop icons to be moved, as a whole), as is the task bar and maximised windows. In fact, the early testing versions actually moved around controls inside a window, rather than the window itself... it was also possible to move the mouse so quickly that windows being moved could be "lost". To the best of my knowledge these are all sorted now.
The reason I've decided to upload this now is because I've just fixed the last outstanding problem: properly intercepting the initial mouse press properly. While windows were being moved perfectly a click was received by the application. For example, if the ALT key was down and an "Okay" button was underneath the cursor at the beginning of the move, when the move ended the mouse would come up and the net result would be a moved window that presumably disappeared as a result of the "Okay" button having been pressed. This no longer happens: a non-focused window is brought to the front and given focus, but the click is never registered by the application itself.
So... here's a beta version for you to enjoy. I've already come across a bug whereby the release of the ALT key is not registered, which means key clicks result in window moves, rather than proper key clicks. I suspect this is because I was trying to move Delphi windows which also intercept all sorts of hooks (including keyboard and mouse). If you come across this problem, please let me know... equally, if you don't come across it, that would be useful to know too.
To kill it off, you'll need to use the Processes tab of Windows Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) to end the HookerTest.exe process.
Enjoy!
Saturday, 24 June 2006
Hacking Windows
Woo! I'm the Windows API master ;)
I got fed up of not being able to use the old UNIX method of modifier+click then drag to move windows around the screen when running Windows. After all attempts to find a suitable programme to do it... I fired up Delphi.
I've now got some code that pretty much does it. The idea is fairly simple:
use a DLL with a global hook on the keyboard
wait for the ALT key to be pressed, when this happens start another global hook on the mouse
on each mouse movement check the status of the left button
set an initial mouse position, which is used to calculate a mouse movement delta next time the mouse moves
get the handle for the window under the cursor and move it by the movement delta
when the ALT key is released stop the global mouse hook
Obviously there are quite a few more checks and whatnot to go in there, but I have a working product right this minute. Right now it treats all windows equally... pretty interesting when you try and drag the taskbar around ;)
I've got this wedding tomorrow but after that I'm going to try and get the few bits and pieces sorted out, work on more of the sanity code, test it a lot and then make a "public" release.
Windows will be usable once more!
I got fed up of not being able to use the old UNIX method of modifier+click then drag to move windows around the screen when running Windows. After all attempts to find a suitable programme to do it... I fired up Delphi.
I've now got some code that pretty much does it. The idea is fairly simple:
use a DLL with a global hook on the keyboard
wait for the ALT key to be pressed, when this happens start another global hook on the mouse
on each mouse movement check the status of the left button
set an initial mouse position, which is used to calculate a mouse movement delta next time the mouse moves
get the handle for the window under the cursor and move it by the movement delta
when the ALT key is released stop the global mouse hook
Obviously there are quite a few more checks and whatnot to go in there, but I have a working product right this minute. Right now it treats all windows equally... pretty interesting when you try and drag the taskbar around ;)
I've got this wedding tomorrow but after that I'm going to try and get the few bits and pieces sorted out, work on more of the sanity code, test it a lot and then make a "public" release.
Windows will be usable once more!
Friday, 23 June 2006
Wednesday, 21 June 2006
Apache, permissions, "Groupware"
This evening I've spent most of my time setting up WebDAV on CompSoc's Apache22 server. For the most part this was straightforward but once again the whole process was let down by permissions. mod_dav requires that the files being read/written are accessible by the Apache httpd user (i.e. www or nobody, in many cases). Annoyingly there is no real way around this: MPM perchild (which allows virtual hosts owned by different users/groups) doesn't really work, and even restricting CompSoc members to files owned by www isn't a safe option in terms of security, despite my best efforts.
CompSoc run suExec and suPHP which *should* mean that any code executed is done so by the owner of the file (i.e. this site is running as me, rather than www). This means that per-user websites are "secure" (ish) from each other as a script written by user bob cannot access/overwrite protected files owned by user cedric, a common problem with many Apache/PHP setups. In fact, this very same problem was recreated by Mark Brown (network guy at Hymers College) when I told him I needed an Apache server with PHP installed. He made things even worse somehow and gave the Apache webserver read permission to every file on the network... about ten lines of PHP later and I had a PHP Explorer with read permission to everybody's files (including staff, Administrator, etc.). Thinking on, this would probably have been a neat way to get hold of upcoming exam and test papers.
However, the whole user/group/permission problem messes things up from a functionality standpoint. I personally have a WebDAV-enabled folder on CompSoc (and any other user can create one fairly easily, if they want) but I can't trust it for private information... I was planning to store calendar and contact details here, but that's no longer possible, thanks to the permissions issue.
One potential "solution" is to run multiple Apache servers and to reverse proxying. I would like to set up a secondary Apache server on CompSoc running as, for example, webdav:webdav. So long as this daemon does no more than provide WebDAV (i.e. no CGI or PHP scripts) it could be considered "secure" for the purpose. However, I quickly realised this wasn't worth the bother...
Curious to find out how things would work I tried to create a WebDAV calendar (CalDAV) and quickly realised that the WebDAV provider (i.e. mod_dav on CompSoc) needs to be aware of the calendaring protocol. Right now there is no solid solution out there, which makes WebDAV reasonably useless for most tasks it was designed for (of course SVN and filesystems are fine, if the permission problem is overcome).
The state of open groupware solutions is pretty poor right now. It seems CalDAV is fighting it out with GroupDAV and the groupware solutions that do implement it seem to take an all-or-nothing approach. This doesn't suit CompSoc well where we already have working LDAP, mail, IMAP, POP3, webmail and web servers.
Whatever happened to the UNIX mantras: "do one thing really well" and "plug small tools together to complete a task"?
I think the groupware suites need to re-focus and provide a single thing well. What the OS groupware world needs most right now is a single calendaring server that provides read/write calendar access for multiple users, shared calendars, conflict resolution and so on. Once this is done in such a way that attendees are referenced in a unique manner (i.e. support for multiple contact backends) all that's really needed is some glue to pull the whole thing together.
I don't think we'll be seeing it soon, as much as I'd like to.
CompSoc run suExec and suPHP which *should* mean that any code executed is done so by the owner of the file (i.e. this site is running as me, rather than www). This means that per-user websites are "secure" (ish) from each other as a script written by user bob cannot access/overwrite protected files owned by user cedric, a common problem with many Apache/PHP setups. In fact, this very same problem was recreated by Mark Brown (network guy at Hymers College) when I told him I needed an Apache server with PHP installed. He made things even worse somehow and gave the Apache webserver read permission to every file on the network... about ten lines of PHP later and I had a PHP Explorer with read permission to everybody's files (including staff, Administrator, etc.). Thinking on, this would probably have been a neat way to get hold of upcoming exam and test papers.
However, the whole user/group/permission problem messes things up from a functionality standpoint. I personally have a WebDAV-enabled folder on CompSoc (and any other user can create one fairly easily, if they want) but I can't trust it for private information... I was planning to store calendar and contact details here, but that's no longer possible, thanks to the permissions issue.
One potential "solution" is to run multiple Apache servers and to reverse proxying. I would like to set up a secondary Apache server on CompSoc running as, for example, webdav:webdav. So long as this daemon does no more than provide WebDAV (i.e. no CGI or PHP scripts) it could be considered "secure" for the purpose. However, I quickly realised this wasn't worth the bother...
Curious to find out how things would work I tried to create a WebDAV calendar (CalDAV) and quickly realised that the WebDAV provider (i.e. mod_dav on CompSoc) needs to be aware of the calendaring protocol. Right now there is no solid solution out there, which makes WebDAV reasonably useless for most tasks it was designed for (of course SVN and filesystems are fine, if the permission problem is overcome).
The state of open groupware solutions is pretty poor right now. It seems CalDAV is fighting it out with GroupDAV and the groupware solutions that do implement it seem to take an all-or-nothing approach. This doesn't suit CompSoc well where we already have working LDAP, mail, IMAP, POP3, webmail and web servers.
Whatever happened to the UNIX mantras: "do one thing really well" and "plug small tools together to complete a task"?
I think the groupware suites need to re-focus and provide a single thing well. What the OS groupware world needs most right now is a single calendaring server that provides read/write calendar access for multiple users, shared calendars, conflict resolution and so on. Once this is done in such a way that attendees are referenced in a unique manner (i.e. support for multiple contact backends) all that's really needed is some glue to pull the whole thing together.
I don't think we'll be seeing it soon, as much as I'd like to.
Tuesday, 13 June 2006
Monday, 12 June 2006
Crash!
Well, it didn't take long! I've found out why I never was so keen on Windows ;)
Fortunately it wasn't Windows itself, but MacDrive 6, which allows HFS+ (Mac OS X Journalled partitions) to be mounted under Windows. Once this was disabled I'm free to get using the machine again.
Interestingly I've enabled sloppy focus for Windows... but it seems harder to use Windows with it, than without. By contrast, running GNOME or OS X without sloppy focus is a nightmare. Is this some magic Microsoft have managed?
Fortunately it wasn't Windows itself, but MacDrive 6, which allows HFS+ (Mac OS X Journalled partitions) to be mounted under Windows. Once this was disabled I'm free to get using the machine again.
Interestingly I've enabled sloppy focus for Windows... but it seems harder to use Windows with it, than without. By contrast, running GNOME or OS X without sloppy focus is a nightmare. Is this some magic Microsoft have managed?
Windows
Wow. I never believed I'd be so happy to see a Windows machine. It's not that I don't like Windows... it's just that on the whole it doesn't work as well for me as Linux does.
But now I want to run Photoshop CS2 to play with photos. I also want to be able to run a bunch of other great Windows/Mac-only pieces of software. Of course Bibble Pro is something I don't want to lose, either.
But now I've just installed Windows XP SP2 on this "Mac OS X" box. Wow. I can't believe how nice and friendly Windows is! Okay, so things don't "just work", but this OS is... hmm, four, five years old now? The point is that I've already got my wireless working, the graphics and sound drivers are on the way and the SATA seems to work out of the box (I believe the motherboard does some funny emulation there).
My keyboard layout is spot on, the @ key is where the @ key should be, the " key is where the " key should be, the \ key exists, as does the # key. Wow! Eat that, OS X!
Any OS that can't properly handle a different keyboard layout is one that should be avoided. That's my professional opinion, as a maybe-almost-CS graduate.
For all its shortcomings... Windows is King!
But now I want to run Photoshop CS2 to play with photos. I also want to be able to run a bunch of other great Windows/Mac-only pieces of software. Of course Bibble Pro is something I don't want to lose, either.
But now I've just installed Windows XP SP2 on this "Mac OS X" box. Wow. I can't believe how nice and friendly Windows is! Okay, so things don't "just work", but this OS is... hmm, four, five years old now? The point is that I've already got my wireless working, the graphics and sound drivers are on the way and the SATA seems to work out of the box (I believe the motherboard does some funny emulation there).
My keyboard layout is spot on, the @ key is where the @ key should be, the " key is where the " key should be, the \ key exists, as does the # key. Wow! Eat that, OS X!
Any OS that can't properly handle a different keyboard layout is one that should be avoided. That's my professional opinion, as a maybe-almost-CS graduate.
For all its shortcomings... Windows is King!
Saturday, 10 June 2006
Mac OS X, continued
I've been running OS X 10.4.6 on my Intel machine for a while now. Admittedly a lot of time has been spent getting it all running perfectly. Some hackery was required for the sound card, as well as the DVD drive and a total reinstall for the wireless. But all in, everything is working very well. The dual monitor support is absolutely great: you just plug the second display in and it magically works.
There are some things I really like:
* The lack of window borders is nice; I wasn't sure how I'd get on with this, but with the drop shadows it works pretty well.
* AdiumX, the OS X version of Gaim, is great, as is the integrated Growl (pop-up notifications) support. I particularly like the way it can appear as a semi-transient window and grow vertically as it needs to. There are a few things I could do with changing, but overall it's a really great piece of software.
* The Dock is pretty interesting... I've heard people say that because of the way it tries to deal with applications that are already running, as well as those that are available it is critically flawed. I say not so, it's pretty handy to use overall.
* Apple's DVD player is fairly nifty. It "just works", although it did try and deinterlace my non-interlaced DVD by default.
* Fonts are absolutely excellent, they're a decent size by default and for the most part the hinting is spot on. The Asian font support is great.
* VLC for OS X is fairly nifty. It blends in well and plays plenty of file types. Not WMV3 support though, which Linux handles fine. My main grouch with VLC is that it is incapable of remembering what size the video is being played it and switches from full screen to normal at will.
* Out of the box, it does a fair bit. It sure beats Windows and Linux at playing DVDs (although this is for legal reasons). It's not the most intuitive OS, but for most people getting the basics to allow full control over the OS will be much faster than figuring out how to get some things going with Linux.
Unfortunately I see a lot more wrong that right. The most important thing is the overall speed: most applications seem to *do* things fairly quickly, but their interfaces seem like treacle. This is a dual core 2.66GHz Pentium 4 D; my Athlon XP2800 (about 2.1GHz clock speed) runs GNOME quite a lot faster... something tells me it will blow OS X away on the same dual core CPU.
So, what's wrong with OS X?
* Lack of sloppy focus; lack of virtual desktops (that work properly); lack of modifier click to move/resize.
* Poor documentation of pretty much everything; no labels for buttons, badly explained install process.
* Stuff seems to crash reasonably frequently. I was expecting a bit more stability.
* The Finder is a big joke. It's hard to use, renaming files is done by single clicking a file or hitting enter (wtf?). Sorting options are limited. No SSH integration (that I can see).
* Dual display support is terrible. While the second display is detected and set up fine, OS X window placement is rubbish. If I have Firefox open on my main screen and the second screen free and I open a terminal... it will be placed on top of Firefox, instead of in the free space on the right screen. Certain applications seem to run in full screen on the same display as the smaller version (i.e. VLC fullscreen *always* runs on the same screen as the VLC playlist... no good if I want to change files without switching out of fullscreen). The DVD player seems to be unable to run fullscreen without holding focus. No good if I want to talk to somebody on MSN while watching a DVD in fullscreen.
* I can't seem to adjust the clock -- I want to see the date. There is no drop down calendar, as with GNOME, although Expose provides one. This isn't as handy.
* The keybindings are bad; some applications use Windows-style keybindings, others use Mac-style.
* Terminals don't support tabs.
* Desktop wallpaper is limited to a different image per display. No option of having a 2560x1024 wallpaper and stretching it that I can see.
* Mail.app threads by subject, rather than message id. This is plain crap.
* Lack of select to copy, middle click to paste.
There must be more things I can't quite remember right now. All in all I'm not very impressed. It seems to me that OS X's primary feature is that it can run Adobe Photoshop and a bunch of other things. The actual applications that come with the OS (such as Mail, iCal, iChat, etc.) are inferior to what GNOME and KDE ship with.
I expected to be pretty impressed with OS X, although I knew there were going to be things I wouldn't be too keen on. The UI was one thing in particular that I hoped would be good... no such luck. Right now I think I'm getting to the stage where I'd rather run Windows over OS X. By comparison Windows has no shell, but I might be able to live with Cygwin, or, if I try a Vista beta, Monad might be just as good.
Ideally I'd like to run Ubuntu (or some other good GNOME distro). This has the best UI I've come across so far, makes installing and updating software really easy. They're also free and don't require specific hardware or custom hacks. The sooner that somebody figures out how to get the good software running, the better.
There are some things I really like:
* The lack of window borders is nice; I wasn't sure how I'd get on with this, but with the drop shadows it works pretty well.
* AdiumX, the OS X version of Gaim, is great, as is the integrated Growl (pop-up notifications) support. I particularly like the way it can appear as a semi-transient window and grow vertically as it needs to. There are a few things I could do with changing, but overall it's a really great piece of software.
* The Dock is pretty interesting... I've heard people say that because of the way it tries to deal with applications that are already running, as well as those that are available it is critically flawed. I say not so, it's pretty handy to use overall.
* Apple's DVD player is fairly nifty. It "just works", although it did try and deinterlace my non-interlaced DVD by default.
* Fonts are absolutely excellent, they're a decent size by default and for the most part the hinting is spot on. The Asian font support is great.
* VLC for OS X is fairly nifty. It blends in well and plays plenty of file types. Not WMV3 support though, which Linux handles fine. My main grouch with VLC is that it is incapable of remembering what size the video is being played it and switches from full screen to normal at will.
* Out of the box, it does a fair bit. It sure beats Windows and Linux at playing DVDs (although this is for legal reasons). It's not the most intuitive OS, but for most people getting the basics to allow full control over the OS will be much faster than figuring out how to get some things going with Linux.
Unfortunately I see a lot more wrong that right. The most important thing is the overall speed: most applications seem to *do* things fairly quickly, but their interfaces seem like treacle. This is a dual core 2.66GHz Pentium 4 D; my Athlon XP2800 (about 2.1GHz clock speed) runs GNOME quite a lot faster... something tells me it will blow OS X away on the same dual core CPU.
So, what's wrong with OS X?
* Lack of sloppy focus; lack of virtual desktops (that work properly); lack of modifier click to move/resize.
* Poor documentation of pretty much everything; no labels for buttons, badly explained install process.
* Stuff seems to crash reasonably frequently. I was expecting a bit more stability.
* The Finder is a big joke. It's hard to use, renaming files is done by single clicking a file or hitting enter (wtf?). Sorting options are limited. No SSH integration (that I can see).
* Dual display support is terrible. While the second display is detected and set up fine, OS X window placement is rubbish. If I have Firefox open on my main screen and the second screen free and I open a terminal... it will be placed on top of Firefox, instead of in the free space on the right screen. Certain applications seem to run in full screen on the same display as the smaller version (i.e. VLC fullscreen *always* runs on the same screen as the VLC playlist... no good if I want to change files without switching out of fullscreen). The DVD player seems to be unable to run fullscreen without holding focus. No good if I want to talk to somebody on MSN while watching a DVD in fullscreen.
* I can't seem to adjust the clock -- I want to see the date. There is no drop down calendar, as with GNOME, although Expose provides one. This isn't as handy.
* The keybindings are bad; some applications use Windows-style keybindings, others use Mac-style.
* Terminals don't support tabs.
* Desktop wallpaper is limited to a different image per display. No option of having a 2560x1024 wallpaper and stretching it that I can see.
* Mail.app threads by subject, rather than message id. This is plain crap.
* Lack of select to copy, middle click to paste.
There must be more things I can't quite remember right now. All in all I'm not very impressed. It seems to me that OS X's primary feature is that it can run Adobe Photoshop and a bunch of other things. The actual applications that come with the OS (such as Mail, iCal, iChat, etc.) are inferior to what GNOME and KDE ship with.
I expected to be pretty impressed with OS X, although I knew there were going to be things I wouldn't be too keen on. The UI was one thing in particular that I hoped would be good... no such luck. Right now I think I'm getting to the stage where I'd rather run Windows over OS X. By comparison Windows has no shell, but I might be able to live with Cygwin, or, if I try a Vista beta, Monad might be just as good.
Ideally I'd like to run Ubuntu (or some other good GNOME distro). This has the best UI I've come across so far, makes installing and updating software really easy. They're also free and don't require specific hardware or custom hacks. The sooner that somebody figures out how to get the good software running, the better.
Wednesday, 7 June 2006
Tuesday, 6 June 2006
Sloppy focus
Very definitely missing from OS X. But why, if by default every window's traffic light buttons in the top left are accessible without first focusing the window are Apple claiming that the whole WM is unsuited to this?
I know the technical reasons behind some of it... but I don't think that's the whole story.
I know the technical reasons behind some of it... but I don't think that's the whole story.
OS X, first impressions
I've been running OS X 10.4.6 on my desktop machine for a few hours now. I'm impressed with some parts, but massively let down with others. The install was relatively straightforward, but nowhere near as intuitive as your average designed-for-desktop Linux distro, or Windows install. My hardware all works (including the sound with a bit of hacking) but this was thanks to having the right pieces.
Getting dual monitor support up and running as a breeze: I just hooked them both up and picked the appropriate resolution and refresh rates.
There are loads of goodies to be played with... some of which are snappy, some of which aren't. A lot of it is just a plain pain in the arse after the initial "ooooh! wobbly!" reaction (for example adding new widgets to Dashboard).
I have a few main issues for now: my keyboard layout is horrendously messed up. Sure, this will have a lot to do with the fact that I'm running a hacked version... but how hard is it to make the keys match up? I'm unable to type my admin password as there is an utterly different keyboard layout there.
So far the lack of standard UNIX mouse select/middle button copy/paste is a pain, as is the lost ability to use sloppy focus and move/resize windows by holding a modifier.
The lack of feedback is shocking... at no point was installing applications explained. In Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) this is a straightforward process that largely involves clicking "Next" a couple of times. Under OS X you have to figure it out for yourself, most of the time.
I always though that Apple aimed for a clean desktop interface... but it feels cluttered to me. As for the Finder... well, let's not even go there. GNOME's Nautilus is *lightyears* ahead.
What's up with Preview? It doesn't (that I can see) allow an image to be displayed fullscreen; this is something GNOME's Evince has done for quite some time.
Mail.app is more poor UI design. I connect to my mail via Secure IMAP and yet no option is provided for me. I have to bumble along and wait up to five minutes before it times out with regular IMAP, after which I am presented with the required SSL options. Same for outgoing mail.
That's mostly it for now... there are plenty more annoying things. I honestly expected a more cohesive system. It's more than a little patchy and the UI design is poor, at best.
Getting dual monitor support up and running as a breeze: I just hooked them both up and picked the appropriate resolution and refresh rates.
There are loads of goodies to be played with... some of which are snappy, some of which aren't. A lot of it is just a plain pain in the arse after the initial "ooooh! wobbly!" reaction (for example adding new widgets to Dashboard).
I have a few main issues for now: my keyboard layout is horrendously messed up. Sure, this will have a lot to do with the fact that I'm running a hacked version... but how hard is it to make the keys match up? I'm unable to type my admin password as there is an utterly different keyboard layout there.
So far the lack of standard UNIX mouse select/middle button copy/paste is a pain, as is the lost ability to use sloppy focus and move/resize windows by holding a modifier.
The lack of feedback is shocking... at no point was installing applications explained. In Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) this is a straightforward process that largely involves clicking "Next" a couple of times. Under OS X you have to figure it out for yourself, most of the time.
I always though that Apple aimed for a clean desktop interface... but it feels cluttered to me. As for the Finder... well, let's not even go there. GNOME's Nautilus is *lightyears* ahead.
What's up with Preview? It doesn't (that I can see) allow an image to be displayed fullscreen; this is something GNOME's Evince has done for quite some time.
Mail.app is more poor UI design. I connect to my mail via Secure IMAP and yet no option is provided for me. I have to bumble along and wait up to five minutes before it times out with regular IMAP, after which I am presented with the required SSL options. Same for outgoing mail.
That's mostly it for now... there are plenty more annoying things. I honestly expected a more cohesive system. It's more than a little patchy and the UI design is poor, at best.
Friday, 2 June 2006
The Git
A very quick follow-up to the post a while ago about the guy who started threatening me for "immortolising" him. Well, here he is (and a lovely me in the mirror :).
Thursday, 1 June 2006
Hiccups
I think this is the first time I've had hiccups in a good few years.
Please, somebody sneak up on me and set an airhorn off!
Please, somebody sneak up on me and set an airhorn off!
Life, Part 2.
On the first day of June in the year of our Lord twenty-hundred and six the second chronicle of the Life of Lewis thusly began.
It was mostly like the first chronicle on the whole. However, this may change considerably as currently it has only lasted 22 minutes.
The final exam today was on hypermedia and the web; an entirely useless and stupid module that deals will, well, common sense, really. But common sense is too hard to give people low marks on, so instead they add fancy words, acronyms and "technologies" to make themselves sound good. Such words include: ontology, folksonomy, OWL, and so on. But the exam is over, and that's what counts.
Some people (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Vuh-LAD!) have to wait until Wednesday for this great pleasure and achievement.
The rest of the day was spent attempting to return Vlad's fancy Tagan power supply to the manicly depressed Chinese kid at Micro Direct. They close at 4:30 and we got there about 5:15. He looked like he was about to slit his own throat when Vlad asked him if it would be possible. Unsatisfied we also asked the guy at the collection counter if he could do it (when collecting their cheapest PCI sound card and a 9cm fan). He said he couldn't, so we left. Fortuitously we met Rog just outside the door, who happened to be going to MD to say hi to his friend. An opportunity like this could not be passed by, so we went back in (which got us some funny looks) with Rog. It turned out that the counter guy we had already asked was Rog's mate, but this time he managed to convince Mr. Give-me-a-foot-of-thick-rope to process the return, but not without throwing some invisible eye-daggers in the general direction of everybody in the room.
Were it not for this turn of events the day could have been classified as "an utter waste of time".
With any luck today (June 1st) will be a whole new lease of life. But more importantly, I hope my new motherboard will turn up (for now I just sit on the floor with an (otherwise complete) collection of computer bits and pieces strewn around me... but more on that another day).
It was mostly like the first chronicle on the whole. However, this may change considerably as currently it has only lasted 22 minutes.
The final exam today was on hypermedia and the web; an entirely useless and stupid module that deals will, well, common sense, really. But common sense is too hard to give people low marks on, so instead they add fancy words, acronyms and "technologies" to make themselves sound good. Such words include: ontology, folksonomy, OWL, and so on. But the exam is over, and that's what counts.
Some people (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Vuh-LAD!) have to wait until Wednesday for this great pleasure and achievement.
The rest of the day was spent attempting to return Vlad's fancy Tagan power supply to the manicly depressed Chinese kid at Micro Direct. They close at 4:30 and we got there about 5:15. He looked like he was about to slit his own throat when Vlad asked him if it would be possible. Unsatisfied we also asked the guy at the collection counter if he could do it (when collecting their cheapest PCI sound card and a 9cm fan). He said he couldn't, so we left. Fortuitously we met Rog just outside the door, who happened to be going to MD to say hi to his friend. An opportunity like this could not be passed by, so we went back in (which got us some funny looks) with Rog. It turned out that the counter guy we had already asked was Rog's mate, but this time he managed to convince Mr. Give-me-a-foot-of-thick-rope to process the return, but not without throwing some invisible eye-daggers in the general direction of everybody in the room.
Were it not for this turn of events the day could have been classified as "an utter waste of time".
With any luck today (June 1st) will be a whole new lease of life. But more importantly, I hope my new motherboard will turn up (for now I just sit on the floor with an (otherwise complete) collection of computer bits and pieces strewn around me... but more on that another day).
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