Computers: May 2006 Archives

Step one: apply fix for T_OSTYPE to typemap, and fix the same problem in MacPerl::GetFileInfo, which bypassed T_OSTYPE.

Step two: fix ReadHex in Carbon.h, which takes a hex string of two or four bytes and converts it to an integer for use in GUSIPath2FSp, which converts a GUSI-encoded file spec to a FSSpec. For Intel, it was doing it in the wrong order.

Step three: there's no step three!

Fixing those three bugs tonight dropped me from 79/199 failed tests, down to 1/199. And the one remaining is GetAliasInfo(), which is deprecated, and simply does not work on Intel Macs (nor UFS volumes).

So, it's all done. Well, not really. I have a lot more testing to do. But I am far further along after one night with this loaner Mac than I thought I would be. I really need to doublecheck and expand my test coverage, and then test a bunch of other things that use Mac::Carbon.

The remaining point that worries me most is that I was informed that the blanket fix for OSType might be wrong on a per-API basis, as mentioned previously, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case with any of the APIs I am testing.

I got a loaner Intel Mac mini from Apple for the next month (thanks!) to port Mac::Carbon. The first patch I've got reduced the number of test failures from 79/199 to 57/199. A lot more left to do, plus, I was informed that four-char-codes are SOMETIMES taken in network byte order, and sometimes in native order, and that it changes on a per-API basis.

Well, I've been wanting to improve the test suite coverage for Mac::Carbon, so this may be my opportunity ...

There is a screw loose inside the Mac. A little black screw. I can see it through the vents on the base of the unit. I shan't upend it, especially while power is connected, I suppose.

I am connecting to the box via VNC and ssh. I installed ceno on it so I can easily open files to BBEdit on my PowerBook. No need to bother using the maching directly, although if I have time before I send it back, I'll install some games etc. on it to give it a whirl.

I'll be giving a talk on porting Mac::Carbon at YAPC.

You can immediately start to listen to tracks/episodes from a podcast on iTMS by double-clicking it directly in the music store. If you do that, it starts streaming immediately from your server; Apple doesn't cache it at all.

Just so you know.

Apple is sending me a Mac mini for a month so I can port Mac::Carbon to Intel. Now my YAPC talk won't be 20 minutes of me saying "um."

Although to get it I have to say I am the authorized representative of "The Python Foundation," as there was a mixup on the request. I am not sure if it is worth it. :-)

I have a bunch of old floppy disks with papers and other junk on them. I don't need most of it, but I don't want to lose it either.

So I need a computer with a floppy drive and HD that can read both DD and HD disks.

(And, preferably, one that I can install my old software on, in case I need to export data as I did with the MIDI programs from one of the songs I recorded a couple of years ago, but had originally programmed back in '92 on Deluxe Music Recorder.)

I had a Power Mac 7100/66. I figure I can copy to it, then move over the network. But alas, the clock battery leaked all over the motherboard. $10 to drop it off at the dump.

Next up: an LCII. I can copy to its internal HD, and then move to high-density disks, which my USB floppy drive will read, and I can then copy to my server for archival. That would suck, but I could always connect my PowerBook G3/400 (which runs Mac OS X 10.3) to it as a SCSI drive (making sure I use the correct cable), since it has a SCSI port.

Ah, but then, I remember I have a Syquest EZ135 SCSI drive. So even better: copy data from floppies to EZ135 cart, then to PowerBook from there. I forgot I also had archived stuff on those carts, so I first test it on the PowerBook, copying off all the carts (some of which are temperamental). Then I go to the LCII. And it works great ... until the LCII stops working. Restart. Death chime.

Ow. But it still sorta works, for a few minutes, so last resort, I can try to use the LCII anyway.

Next up: a Quadra 610. It works OK ... except no video. Argh. Video card just plain doesn't work. $10 to the dump.

Not wanting to waste any more time, I find a IIsi on eBay for $20.50, shipping included. It says it all works fine. So, I get it, it arrives, and I plug it all in. No video. I forgot the IIsi video is a little wacky. But I have some video adapters, and one of them actually works.

That obstacle hurdled, I pop in some floppies. The first two work, then ... the next dozen don't. The floppy drive doesn't work properly. This was not mentioned on the eBay page, except for a little item about having to load the OS from an external hard drive. Figures.

But I still have the LCII. And a SuperDrive is a SuperDrive (at least, it was circa the early 90s). So I switch them, and ... happiness. (And the LCII will cost me another $10 at the dump.)

Among my floppy archives were tons of games. And now I have a IIsi in great condition to play them on! Mmmmm, Falcon. I have only 9MB in it, maybe I should try to max it out to 65. It also has over 100MB of HD space.

Lots of fixes for the Discussion2 beta. Nothing too obvious by looking at it, but it should work properly on IE7 beta and non-Mac Firefox now.

It does not work in IE6.

It does not work in Opera, because of an odd bug in how Opera parses object literals in JavaScript: numeric keys are restricted to 2^23, and our cids are greater than that. (I filed a bug report, it's bug-207597, but I have no way of knowing if or when they plan to fix it.)

It does not work in iCab 3 beta, because of what I suspect is improper CSS implementation.

We can work around the problems remaining in Opera, but I would prefer they fix their bug. I don't think we will bother with iCab, and the three people who use it. I like iCab and all, but we're busy ... patches welcome. Hopefully they can fix it on their end.

IE6 is, of course, the biggie. I have no idea how and if we can get it working on IE6. That IE7 works properly is great, because it means a. IE6 is the problem, not us, and b. it will be fixed in the next version. But ... can Slashdot wait for Microsoft?

Beyond all this, the CSS was made a lot more sane and proper, and I changed a lot of the JavaScript behavior, using plenty of feedback from users. So, thanks. Still in progress though ... hopefully soon we can open it up to more users than just subscribers.

I was mailed a perl script, and I double-clicked it in Eudora, which opened it in BBEdit, where I ran it from. I got this error:

/Users/pudge/Documents/Eudora Folder/Attachments Folder/Config.pm:1: Perl lib version (5.004) doesn't match executable version (5.008004)

Heh. Oops.

I love closets. We have a bunch of them in the house, and I use them for putting all sorts of things I don't want to see.

The main coat closet near our home's front entrance is the stereo closet. All our stereo components and DVDs are in there. The only stereo-related things out in the family room are the TV and speakers.

In my new office, I have a walk-in closet. That has all my hard drives, peripherals, printers, extra computers, network hardware, books, magazines, boxes of cables, papers, manuals, CDs, and so on. Everything I don't need to be able to see is in there.

Adjacent to this closet is another big walk-in closet, for Jennifer to load up. This should help clean up the house considerably too.

I am more efficient when my mind is uncluttered. Organization helps keep my mind uncluttered. But keeping it not just organized, but out of sight, and hence out of mind, is even better.

I have a really good memory about some things, and really bad memory about others. I can barely remember most of my experiences at college, except for a few notable ones. Like, I remember playing an outdoor show on the front lawn of the campus, plying guitar with my two mates Porthos and Hobbes, but I can't really remember much about it. Not any of the songs we played, not what the audience looked like, or anything.

I don't think back too much on things that don't directly affect me today. I am good with remembering various facts, but not so much personal experiences or impressions. I don't think about them, and they fade. It's not that they were not important or interesting to me at the time, but, of course, they did not continue to be.

I am sure these flaws in my memory would bother me if it weren't for the fact that I would forget about it pretty soon.

I updated Discussion2 again just now. The "Threshold" popup is replaced by a couple of buttons.

The main point of the More/Less and Worse/Better buttons is to help narrow a discussion based on the scores of the comments. This is not very useful in most use Perl; discussions, but you can see it in action in some big discussions.

Also, one thing not mentioned previously, is if you have a long comment so you get the "Read the rest of this comment" link, that will now use AJAX-y goodness to fetch the rest of the comment and load it in-place. Spiffy.

We are making discussions in Slash be DHTML-ified.

Today I rolled it out for all users on use Perl. You need to check the box either in your user preferences (select "Slashdot's New Discussion System" under "Discussion Style") or activate the checkbox in the huge box at the top of a discussion.

Much of this will work without JavaScript, but much of it will not. So, you non-JavaScript users are warned.

Read the FAQ entry for more information, and feel free to comment here.