Author: fheald

So you may notice I’ve added comments here. They’re just barely working, I know I’ve got some cleanup to do. Feel free to comment here about them.

Now I’m testing refactoring the screen. We’ll see if this works, too.

Yeah, of course you know that. But bear with me, I’m talking about something different here.

For years we Mac users have been able to run Windows emulation – through SoftPC, SoftWindows, Virtual PC, and now Virtual PC for Mac by Microsoft (shudder). We can use the same software (so long as Microsoft still allows it) to run UNIX.

Now Windows users can run Mac OSX with Pear.

These people are missing the point! I have no desire whatsoever to run Windows. However, there are a handful of Windows programs that I would like to use (mainly ’cause they’re not available for MacOS yet, or in the case of most M$ stuff, ever). I want these to be intergrated with the OS so I don’t even know I’m using software from a different platform.

I might also want to run UNIX programs on either Windows or the Mac.

There are a few ways to do this now, slowly, painfully and with (often free, but) third party software.

UNIX users can use WINE . This actually looks pretty slick, tho I’ve never actually used it. WINE (so says the FAQ) just provides the Windows API (Application Program Interface – the thingey that takes commands and makes them happen). This means that it’s not running a program (whatever software you actually want to run) within a program (the emulator). This is especially difficult to do since Microsoft is so bad at documenting and allowing access to their APIs.

(Unfortunately WINE won’t run on a Mac because it requires an actual Intel x86 CPU; Mac has the superior G3 and G4 CPUs).

OSX is based on UNIX, so there’s a command line prompt which will run nearly all Unix programs flawlessly.

UNIX GUI programs, on the other hand, require X11 – which Apple provides, and it works great – for what it is. The problem being, when you run X11 programs, they look and act like X11 programs. Flaky menus, non-adherance to the user interface, etc.

Under Windows, you can emulate UNIX command line quite well with Cygwin. (Ah, there’s my buddy the slash, and not that teeth-grindingly offensive backslash used by DOS inherited from CP/M that’s caused 30 years of lUsers asking “Which one is the backslash, you mean the one that goes right to left, or left to right?” Grrr.) Cygwin is great for getting back UNIX utilities like “grep”, although that’s about all I really use it for; I understand it can even run Apache web server.

Apparently Xwin32 can run X11, er, server (separate rant about how X11 “server” and “client” are reversed which annoys me slightly less than the backslash thing) under Windows, but I’ve never tried it.

OSX did a great job of running Classic Mac applications – too great a job, I’d say. They were running an emulator, but it integrated about as well as could be expected with the new OS. So a lot of users kept using the old versions of software instead of upgrading. There was also a rumored “Red Box” that would have run Windows software in a similar integrated emulator.

Then there’s things like the Java virtual machine, which lets you run Java apps on any platform. Again, this is really convenient, but the user interface is mucked up (example: from a Mac Java app, hit command-q. Instead of your application asking if you want to save, the JVM quits and you lose your work).

The point of this long diatribe is that I believe that Apple and the UNIX folks should really be putting the effort into making workable integrated emulators, especially such as Wine which implement the “guest” applicaitons through APIs without the overhead of the entire OS (and without the overhead of the CPU either). Like it or not, despite the fact that OSX and Linux are far superior operating systems to the Windows junk – we’re still the underdogs, and as such, we must still try harder. A the same time, we should be using all legal means to lean on the behemouth M$ to document and open their APIs, and using evangelist means on Windows applications vendors to work with us so they don’t have to produce two separate versions of their software.

Here’s a final interesting example. Aspyr makes a lot of the “ported” games for the Mac, like The Sims. As a matter of fact, they don’t actually make them – they just take existing games from Windows and make them work on the Mac. Is there really more money in converting a shoot-em-up, than there is in converting actual useful business software? Yeah, probably there is. But still. Unfortunately, the biggest examples of Windows software I’d like to be able to use on the Mac come from Microsoft – Visio, Access, SQL Server, Visual Studio. Most everything else has an equivalent (or arguably a superior) on the Mac, and even these have alternatives – unless I have to, for example, develop software in Access, SQL Server or Visual Studio. (Omnigraffle is getting there, but it’s still no Visio, even though I despise Microsoft all the more for buying up Visio).

This is too cool. And I actually was able to do it! (Link requires Windows Media Viewer, yuck!)

Was asked for information about go-ped style scooters, so of course I had to create a webpage. Feedback welcome.

I’ve got a washer and dryer. They’re great; got ’em from the used appliance store (along with a free burn barrel!) My kind of labor-saving appliance.

When am I going to get a folder? I mean, really. That’s the part of the whole cycle that’s still time-consuming manual labor. I’d pay a couple hundred dollars for a shiny new G.E. electric clothes folder. It doesn’t even need to have an ironer.

In fact, that’s a good thing to do with my tax refund!

Then again, last time I was in Euro, they still hadn’t caught on to the novelty of the clothes dryer – that or they’re all exhibitionists who like to display their delicates on the clothesline for all the neighbors to see.

Clocks that automatically set themselves forward: cellphone, computers (looks like, every one of them including the Sun Linux boxes), living room (atomic), GPS (also atomic). Probably several others I won’t notice.

Clocks that I didn’t set themselves: Bedroom alarm, car (I used to have a dashboard clock and a car radio clock, which didn’t keep in sync – I’m sure you can imagine how that annoyed me; the Pinz has no clock). The Swiss Army Land Rover watch that hangs from my bag has a dead battery. I stopped wearing a wristwatch years ago and rarely miss it. The clock on the stove that never keeps time properly anyway. Probably several others I won’t notice, for a while.

One reason I prefer Spring Forward to Fall Back: ~10 fewer keystrokes. Or 22. Or a somewhat shorter period of holding the button down and waiting, hoping to set it properly without having to roll all the way around again.

But at least no manual twisting, so far.

By the way, I’m not one of those people who sets clocks ahead so they get places on time; I tried that for a while but decided it was better to know and use the actual time properly and aim for getting places a little early. But for those people, should these automatic clocks have an option of “15 minutes ahead of standard time”? I’d think it would work better if it had them set themselves a random amount of time – say 5 to 30 minutes – ahead of standard so you could never be sure how early you were and you’d have to stay on your toes.

What is the bizarre compulsion people have, for creating fake news stories on the internet for April Fools’ day? Most of them aren’t even funny, but they are dumb. Slashdot is always littered with them, destroying my faith in nerds and geeks having any worthwhile sense of humor at all. It’s so bad that people pretty much assume every story posted today is a joke of some sort. Macsurfer has fewer joke stories but they’re even worse! U.S. Department of Homeland Security Standardizes on Macs – “…Apple stock rose $4.01 on the announcement…”

Give me a break. April Fools pranks should be mean and nasty and humiliating – cruel and unusual. Involving mayhem if possible. They may be simple, but are better if they’re elaborate. But please, don’t waste my time if they’re just plain stupid!

My spam blocker just intercepted a message “Secure SMTP Message” from president@whitehouse.gov. Wonder what W needed to ask me about this time – you know he always wants me to help him out. I keep telling him, “George, you’re the president, why are you sending me emails about this? Can’t you ask your buddies Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld? Or are you asking me because you know I won’t lie to you?”

Either that, or the spammer/cracker/idjit that created the message thinks people will open this. They must not be familiar with typical procedures for processing postal political junk mail (step 1: throw away; step 2: vote for anyone else). Between the Outlook/Exchange viruses and the ads for Viagra, it’s amazing any actual mail gets through.

Speaking of which, the other day I got a long diatribe from a friend of mine, all about politics. Which I might have read if it had been on his blog, but as email I skimmed and deleted it. Pull, don’t push, people!

Will someone please explain to me, the deal about pulling the tabs off of aluminum cans to send to charity? I mean, I understand the point of donating to a worthy cause, but all the rigamarole with pop tabs seems to me like a massive waste of effort. Is it because this is the only easily detachable proof of purchase? And who’s doing the actual donating – the soda companies (or god forbid the beer companies)? I can’t believe this because I don’t think there’s an identifier on the actual aluminium tab, so how would the manufacturers know it was theirs – even so, imagine workers examining each little bit of metal to determine what must at most be a fractional penny donation? Then there’s the mailing – I guess the people in the office who ask us to collect these mail them somewhere? And sure, they’re recyclable, but the worth of that has got to be less than the mailing expenses alone. I just don’t get it.

(I know this goes against the strategy my company is taking of credit card affinity donations, but…) If you want to donate, just f’n donate. Dig into you wallet and pull out some of those cold green dead presidents. Write a check. Put it on your credit card and pay for it eventually. But peeling tabs off of cans and mailing them in? What’s up with that?

Update: a reader writes in to suggest that this may be what they’re used for.

Also found this on Snopes: Pull tabs from aluminum cans have special redemption value for time on dialysis machines: FALSE. Well, that warms my heart. Do I dare tell the guys in the next room, or do I just smile and nod at their folly? Or do I kidnap all their saved tabs and make myself some chainmail?

But then I read that the “Ronald McDonald House” actually collects them! Go figure. The site I looked at even repeated the claim that they’re made of higher grade aluminum, which they aren’t, and rationalized not collecting the whole can. Bah.