War Chalking, invented by Matt Jones, is a simple set of symbols used to denote discovered 802.11 wireless networks.
Other than the one Robert set up at our apartment, do any of you readers know of some nice WiFi networks in the Atlanta area?
Irritated by the NY Times‘ moronic insistence on harvesting your private information before letting you read documents on their site? Try out the NY Times Login Generator!
Recipe for easy use and management of Open-Source Unix apps on OSX:
Download and install the Apple Developer Kit. It’s a pretty hefty install at around 500MB, but you’ll need it for the Darwin C compiler, cc.
Download and install X11 for OSX.
Download and install the OroborOSX window manager.
Download and installFink.
5. Finally, download and install FinkCommander.
FinkCommander is an excellent, indispensible GUI interface for the command-line Fink package manager. It allows you to update your installed Unix packages at the touch of a button, and to search for new packages by name or by keyword.
I really hate nosy people, especially when I’m at work.
“What’s your last name?”
“It’s just Eric, from ___, in Atlanta.”
“You don’t have a last name?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s strange…”
“I’m adopted.”
“..Oh.. I see…”
“Have a nice day. Goodbye.”
In OSX, it actually is possible to remap your keyboard to swap the Control key with the Caps Lock key, putting them in the correct place.
I’ve recently discovered the Joy of Applescript.
Applescript can be used to very easily mount SMB shares. Open /Applications/Applescript/Script Editor, and paste in the following script (change the variables to match your setup):
tell application "Finder"
open location "smb://user:password@computername/sharename"
end tell
Save the script as an application, and be sure to check “Do not show startup screen.” This will yield a clickable item that will behave like any other app, and can be used to quickly connect to an SMB share.
Yesterday I needed an application that would connect to a router via its serial port. In Windows, I would normally use Hyperterminal. After some research, I discovered Dave Alverson’s Zterm. Zterm has been around for a while –since 1995, as far as I can tell. However, the author has updated the code to be compatible with OSX. Now I can use my iBook to gain dialup out-of-band access to routers. Bwahaha!
Over the weekend, I learned how to update the firmware on my G4 server. The poor thing was running Firmware version 4.1.old, and didn’t know about booting straight into OS X via holding the ‘x’ key at boot, network boot, or Firewire Target Mode.
Since the only Mac I’ve ever owned came with OSX, I’ve had no real use for Classic in any real sense, so I chose not to install it on this system. Once I downloaded the firmware updater, I found it would only run from OS 9.x (Classic). I’d never done a Classic installation before, but it wasn’t very difficult, with the exception of a few snags.
The Blue People of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, are a group of people living in a small, relatively isolated area who all have varying shades of blueness to their skin. Dr. Madison Cawein researched the anomaly and isolated it to a recessive gene that caused the an absence of the enzyme diaphorase. Diaphorase converts converts methemoglobin, the blue, oxygen-depleted form of hemoglobin, back to the hemoglobin that gives oxygenated blood a red color.