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VirtualBox and Operating System MashupsOver at www.virtualbox.org1 I downloaded a free2 VirtualBox program with which I just installed and ran Linux Ubuntu 7.04 inside a VBox window on a 2003-vintage XP machine.
Mashup! Mashup!But behold what I got: I have a combination of two operating systems which, arguably, works better than either of the two alone! ... It’s an Operating System Mashup! ... And how long will it take for some enterprising computer manufacturer to provide bare bones virtualizing software built-into his computer, to make Windows actually work!? ... Functional laptop hibernation! ... Short-cut Windows device driver development for the manufacturer’s hardware! ... The possibilities are endless! You wouldn’t be able to fix everything — the idiotic Vista UAC will remain — but many of Windows’ endless annoyances could be ameliorated with just a few spare gigabytes here and there.... ... As for the Linux side ... well Ubuntu 7.04 still runs a little slow in the virtual window on my antique inadequate-memory XP; but it’ll probably be all right on your more recent/2 gig equipment. ... To compare Ubuntu working by itself, I burned a copy of the Ubuntu Live CD4 and rebooted with it — and not only couldn’t it connect to the wireless, it couldn’t boot! ... A bit of startup screen, and then darkness and silence. ... So I think it’s fair to write that at least this Linux runs better on this PC in VirtualBox! ... Oh Owen so harsh! ... As is so often the case with our modern computerized equipment, I just didn’t wait long-enough! ... When I gave the thoughtful operating system a few minutes to sulk silently muttering to itself it eventually booted — in CGA text mode! — but after a while arrived at a beautiful Ubuntu desktop which, sadly, still could not figure-out the wireless. ... Actually it couldn’t even figure-out the pitiful proxy servers I use in the Computer Attic to get recalcitrant machines, including other Liniux firefox browsers, on the web. ... So Ubuntu by itself is probably faster — I was just using the “Live CD” version which is always pretty slow but still faster than VBox — but it can’t get on the web or update itself. ... So the decision still goes to VirtualBox.... ... But It’s Still Linux ...Then while trying to get gnome-terminal to run jstar from OwenShow, I foolishly upgraded the Ubuntu system, and after 5 hours I rebooted and the virtual wireless became like every other Linux wireless I’ve encountered — still and without function. So sad. .... But I can’t blame that on VBox. ... No wait Owen! It’s working great! I am just so negative! ... No you see in the upgrade the Ubuntu folks must’ve figured that little icon dancing around up there was too annoying, and just left it off! ... Obscurity through obscurity. ... Well no the icon apparently still dances, just not the way it used to. Or something.... —
the finally-impressed
programmer 1. I learned of this marvelous product in the British magazine PCPro, which provided a copy of VirtualBox and a “Live CD”/installable Ubuntu 7.04 ISO file in its 10/07 DVD. 2. VirtualBox wants to charge biz users for the product and, I assume, wisely concludes letting us poor home users play with it will further that cause, grabbing mindshare from existing players. Also note there is a Linux GPL version offered. 3. I believe VirtualBox’s share mechanism does not partake of the still-flaky Linux NT drivers; I assume they do it “in the mix” and use NT itself to read and write the Windows disk. ... At least they issued no warnings, as the more responsible Linices do when you try to write to an NT partition.... 4. VirtualBox happily mounts an ISO image of a CD to “boot” from. And of course like other virtual products, it stores its virtual disk drive on your drive somewhere, along with the memory image, so you can stop and start the virtualized operating system at any moment. ... While booting Ubuntu up the first time after the virtual install, it was taking a while and so I stoppped while it was booting, and came back and restarted where I left off after the weekend had passed....
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Help is on the way: OwenHelp that is....The world has been waiting ... and now at last it’s here: a Windows help package for the rest of us. ... No idiotic half-an-hour compiles; no cryptic weirdo file standards. ... No sirree, owenhelp is for the common folk; use a harmless HTML editor like Kompozer along with the numerous supplied bizarre programs, and you will have beautiful help for your project — in a trice! ... For free! Like it says, BSD license. ... Do not be deceived; this is not that tricky Microsoft-style CHM html help which is it itself already obsolete. ... No this is a stand-alone help program — well it uses a Microsoft browser component I suppose, but it seemed to work in W98 through Vista — that’ll render your desired help for your software with just a few simple contortions. ... Including complete Delphi and C++ source! As a special feature, the owenhelp package is supplied with Visual Basic Version 5 source for a demo project using the help. ... Basically your software would have to Winexec owenhelp with an argument or so, and then occasionally send it a file, like the demo does — and, of course, you have to write the original HTML help....
—
the public-spirited programmer
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Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse (Model 1023)This is the one where the USB gadget sticks into the bottom of the mouse and turns it off, i.e. when not in use. ... The thing is adorable, but eventually the left button got sick and would click no more, and we had to take it into the shop — where I spent half a half-hour figuring-out how to get to the battery, since the LOL didn’t tell me....
 The
battery cover (shown lolling on the right of the picture) comes off by
pressing that silver button (bottom of
picture) and pushing the cover away
from the buttons.
... So it’s considerably easier putting the mouse back together, but the mouse cover, again, requires subtle jiggling and meditation to get it back in the working position. ... Note that while you’re trying to figure-out if your tuner cleaner fixed it, you can tell by the red light on the bottom of the thing if the microswitch got clean; i.e., when it arrived, the right-button’d light-up the thing, but not the left.... ... So the documentation I downloaded from Microsoft had several notable features:
the
bemused technician-after-all-these-years
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How to Win32 RS232 in C++Head over to http://sourceforge.net/projects/cx777es-rs232 and download Harold Howe’s program. It talks to some gadget I don’t know and I never compiled it, but his “comm.cpp” and “comm.h” along with my 16-bit (!) source I’ve been using for years seemed to compile OK in C++Builder version 5, with no stinking custom libraries or DLLs. ... It was all relatively painless! Aside from dumping/translating all my 16-bit port-level comm junk, the only changes I had to make were (1.) renaming my source from “.C” to “.CPP” — a generally good idea to flush-out bugs, and necessary to work with his TCommPort class — and (2.) commenting-out the Microsoftish “stdafx.h” include in his source. ... Howe explains, “This file provides an object that encapsulates the win32 serial port routines” and that’s exactly what it seems to do. ... Quite helpful and instructive.... I only bother to mention this helpful source because I went through 5 or six google pages looking for “win32 rs232 library” and finding the most astonishing drivel. ... I’ve used the Marshallsoft WSC4D library for Delphi since around 2001, but it costs money and apparently more money to upgrade and, really, just adding this source file was much more fun. ... Although I’ll doubtless stick with WSC4D for the ongoing Delphi projects. (But I changed my mind, and concocted a “Howe” DLL for a Delphi project q.v.) —
the ever-delving programmer
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Polaroid Land Camera Model 195; et al
Well I’ve finally gone ’round the bend; scrounging in the basement
I
found a nest of Polaroid cameras, and while the various obsolete
SX-70-style machines — including an actual SX-70 — were charming,
the
fully-manual 1977 mostly-black-&-white model 195 whimpered at
me.
... These are all the Donation of the Father,
who in the golden distant days would wreak reality-challenging
pointless magic with his Polaroid menagerie, and aside from the
cameras, he left an assortment of film including 3 or four black
&
white 665 boxes with which the Model 195 took at least one beautiful
pointless black & white image! ... I’ve been keeping the film
in
the attic refrigerator for decades, and finally thought I’d sweep
it
out — but instead reveled with the rediscovered cameras! ... However,
all
the film is apparently obsolete; the two kinds of color film for 2 or
three kinds of SX-70ish things I had, and the 685 b&w and 668
color
film for the 195. ... I think there’s a 669 that’s still available
— wait, through the
miracle of modern
synchronicity, Renninger’s
Antique Guide,
4/21/08, page 9, in an article by Linda Rosenkrantz, informs me “The
Polaroid Era Comes To An End”. ... Sorry folks, that’s all:
“the
company has announced that it will discontinue production of its film”.
And please note the up-to-date automatic flash I’ve attached to the 195, thus neatly defeating the whole total-manual point of the thing! ... And I must say, based on a random collection of ridiculously-outdated instant film, the black & white pictures I’ve taken look much better than the color things from the other cameras! ... Better detail, less washed-out. ... I suppose if you’re going to systematically abuse film, the b&w takes it better....
... A Polaroid of the Camera GuruThis admirable fellow is the
old
camera guru at the Browsery, a Long Island antiquery Anyway, I took this historic portrait with probably the last few bits of 1200si film — an SX-70ish successor; there’s a little number “4” indicator that may mean there’re that many left, or maybe the fourth picture is next? ... Gee I thought I had a manual around here somewhere. ... Well a different manual says the indicator shows what’s left; so four more pictures probably, and bye-bye 1200si. ... This is my least-wrecked color film; the other stuff I’ve got is even older, producing uglier pictures; except as noted the elderly b&w film seems to survive much better.... — the
jack-of-all-trades
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Are DVDR Drives like Snowflakes?Monday, July 21, 2008 4:11 pm. The plot with CDR and then DVDR drives was that the stuff they wrote would be readable in other drives; even non-rw drives! ... And so it often is! But not the DVDR drive in an emachines W3644 I bought in Walmart for $300 a few months ago.... In other ways, this unit was truly admirable: the price, the stack of boxes on the floor at Walmart, and it came with XP home! — no stinking Vista! But its DVDR was cranky; it couldn’t read CDRs I’d created over the years on other machines, and which of course read successfully in many CD and CDR drives alike! ... But not on the W3644. ... And for those unfamiliar with the art, when a CD has difficulty reading, Windows often has such a fit that you’re lucky to escape a reboot. ... So I was going to indignantly return the thing to Walmart and demand my vast expenditure back, when the LOL pointed-out I had a closet full of thrift-shop CD/CDRW drives, and the W3644 thoughtfully came with an extra bay just waiting for such an enhancement! ... So I compromised; ... I accommodated, annoying as it was. ... I gave-in. ... I mean, after all, at least it was XP.... But then recently I wrote a DVDR in the thing, and it couldn’t be read by other machines! ... Several could; several — the older DVD (read-only) drives I think — couldn’t. ... I.e., each one like a snowflake, so unique and beautiful. ... But when I installed a $30 replacement DVDR from Microcenter, it read the old CDRs and wrote readable DVDRs without fault. ... At least once or twice.... The bad drive I took out is a “Sony NEC Optiarc” (“Model No. AD-7200A”; some people say it’s absolutely fabulous, and it’s apparently part of other emachines); for me, the Sony brand is enough, conforming with years of shoddy debris. ... And then I got another Walmart emachines $300 computer, with the different model-number-of-the-week, knowing the DVD’d probably be whacked — and it was! ... This time, it wouldn’t eject the “unreadable” CDR; I got out the trusty paper clip which didn’t seem to do much good but eventually it gave it up. ... Another $30 to Microcenter (the bad drive was same junk as before). ... And it’s still better than Vista. A General Theory of CDR/DVDR SuckinessI gifted one of the Sony NEC Optiarcs to a friend, with a warning of course, but then I installed the other one back in the machine from whence it came originally, because the replacement DVDR specialized in creating blank DVD+R DVDs! (Note the “+”; the usually-better DVDR flavor.) And indeed, the reinstalled Sony NEC Optiarc was fine at writing DVD+Rs. So what does it all mean the yammering world demands to know? ... For years I’d seen the usual know-it-all twits on the web snooting about how CDRs were a somewhat unreliable medium, and about how they’ll melt in a decade or two. ... But now I realize this was the natural scammery of the kind of people who pontificate on the internet, trying to get-around the idea that frequently a CDR/DVDR written on one machine won’t read on another; or perhaps a particular brand or just a particular disc on a particular piece of junk manufactured by Sony will hang-up the machine, requiring a power-cycle without shutdown — because it won’t shutdown — just because it feels like it. ... That is, the data storage on CDR/DVDRs was unreliable because the incompetent scam artists who supply our hardware never bothered to make the stuff work. ... I mean, they were busy; it was usually good-enough for stealing music and movies and, heck, what’s all this data stuff anyway? ... Who does that? I still use them for data backup, but it’s true the percentage of people who bother verifying them like I do is probably down there in the decimal places beyond the sun. “Whatify?!” they’d cry. ... But even I cannot actually verify them on all the different drives I have, or of course the drives of tomorrow or offsite; so I will just learn to avoid certain optical read/write drives — and brands, Heaven knows — and get on with things.... It is indicative of how little the industry actually concerns itself with data backup that they seriously suggest we should use the ever-reliable web for such purposes! ... Given that choice, I’ll stick with my flaky optical drives. ... But not Sony; well, except perhaps for special-case DVD+Rs....
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Pure
... Anyways, it’s like
this:
So
the pitiful little film boxes in my fridge are the end of 
on Jericho Tpk somewhere.
... Polaroids are a little nouveau for his area of expertise, and
he was surprised when I claimed the film was no longer manufactured.
Then
again, I have only the 
hard-won
imaginary insights....
— the so-picky programmer
Zoom USB Wireless 4410A Sux