Having fun with Wine

I tried my luck at installing nine Windows applications via Wine & Wine-doors today:

The success:
- Mozilla Thunderbird (Windows version)
Works perfectly, haven't noticed anything odd about it.

- Apple Safari
The install was successful, but it crashes when ever it is done loading a page.

- Visual C++ 6

Visual C++ 6 running with a project I'm working on (thanks to GT for this great simulator). Installing Visual C++ 6 was the most tricky, but was successful. The steps I followed are here.

- RPG Maker XP

Installation process is smooth and error free, clicking on the buttons you can create or open an existing project, all the buttons function well.

You can run, edit and play your project and I didn't notice any obvious bugs.

But the moment you click on a menu, or try to resize the window it will crash immediately. When listening to music BGS and SE will work but BGM and ME wont!

The failure:
- IE6
Tried it for the lulz and it failed, and I couldn't care less.

- Windows Journal Viewer
Of all MS programs, this has the cleanest and fastest setup process on Wine, yet it crashes the instant you try to start it.

- Visual C# 2005

At first tried installing it with Wine-doors, an hour later, nearly no progress.

Decided to use Wine, now more improved and usually a double click on an EXE file is all you need to do. The installation process went smoothly until...

Was it a failure or a success? I think it is more of a failure, everytime I start Visual C# 2005 it crashes immediately (can't even grab a screenshot).

- Visual C++ 2005

One third of the way I got an error, ignored it and the installation process continued normally.

A while later it is telling me it installed successfully, yet as with Visual C# 2005 it crashes as soon as it starts.

- iTunes
Installs successfully, but very buggy and crashes more than it runs.

Aptera moves into production

The world's most efficient car, from San Diego, California, on its way to production. The Typ-1, has odd looks, as if it came from a Sci-fi movie or novel, and with a drag coefficient of 0.11. The target price is around $20,000, and it will achieve 230 mpg at 55 mph when running on gas, and will run 120 miles on an electric charge.

Aptera and Tesla, are examples of new American motor companies, that are dedicated to building fuel efficient and eco-friendly cars.

Update: WebKit first to passing Acid3?!

According to one blogger this is the case. Opera developers claimed 100/100, but Acid3 test gone through a minor correction, which pushed Opera back to 99/100, when WebKit just passed it to score a full 100/100. I knew WebKit would be first to pass.

Interestingly, it seems that scoring 100/100 on Acid3 is just passing 1/3 of the test, according to a post in Codedread blog.

Original blog entry: Acid3: Neck-and-Neck

WebKit passes Acid3

So yesterday Opera scored 100/100 on Acid3 (I just reported on it though), and today WebKit (Safari's rendering engine) scores a full 100/100. Now we have two browsers that fully pass the test. I applaud the people at WebKit and at Opera, and congratulate millions of WWW users who care about standards and interoperability.

WebKit blog entry

Woot! Presto passes Acid3!

I'm excited about this, I was expecting WebKit to be the first rendering engine to pass Acid3, it happened to be Presto, Opera successfully passed the test 1 day ahead of WebKit, but great news nonetheless for all of us WWW users who care about web standards and interoperability.

Check the blog entry at Opera Desktop Team, here.

ReactOS explorer, for power users and 1337s

I've decided to mess around with Windows, I'm not really fond of the default Windows explorer (explorer.exe), so I've decided to download ReactOS explorer and try it out. ReactOS explorer is the default explorer for ReactOS.

I went ahead and took the easy way by downloading the binary (explorer.exe) instead of downloading and compiling the source code myself. Then I renamed Windows explorer, and copied and pasted ReactOS explorer. Windows started giving me error messages about how an integral part of the system was changed and that I need to insert Windows XP SP2 CD and repair the system, I ignored it, other than the error message nothing changed. I had to restart Windows for ReactOS explorer to take over and BOOM everything changed!

The changes were:

- The start menu was replace by a more similar to Windows 9x start menu.

- Multiple desktops

- Icons look changed

- Windows explorer was replaced by a hierarchal and more 1337 explorer.

Obviously some features are still missing, ReactOS explorer is still incomplete, among the missing features I've noticed:

- Backward and forward buttons don't work

- Language options don't show on the taskbar

- No taskbar and Startmenu setting

- Keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+X, and SHIFT+DELETE don't work

This is, as I understand, a one man's work, and other than the few missing features, it works perfectly and very very stable, didn't crash on me once, since I've started using it.

The best bit however it shows you how some 'essential' Windows components aren't essential at all, just like how Microsoft is forcing IE on everyone by bundling it and calling it an essential component of Windows, no it isn't and neither is Windows explorer!

IE Tab is Evil!

IE Tab is the worst Firefox addon ever, it needs IE to render pages, with it you make Firefox nothing but a shell for Internet Exploder!

Every hit to a website from IE Tab in Firefox is considered as a hit from MSIE, no wonder IE's share is never falling even when more people are using Firefox!

IE Tab doesn't help Firefox, it doesn't! It doesn't encourage lazy programmers to design their pages to render probably on Firefox, you might as well just use IE, and save yourself the trouble of installing Firefox only to install IE Tab!

In WebKit we Trust!

WebKit started out as a fork by Apple off of KDE's KHTML. Now WebKit is the worlds most advanced rendering engine, the community developing WebKit might be closely related to Apple, but Google, Nokia, and Trolltech (the people behind the Qt framework used in KDE) are also contributing to WebKit and integrating it into their current and future products.

WebKit is the best rendering engine of this decade and will continue to be for the next decade.  Nokia is using it for its Series 60 browser, and Google for its Android platform, and it will be be used in Konqueror 4.1 and the future release of GNOME's Epiphany, or so I've heard. So it is obvious that WebKit will become the de facto (nearlly) rendering engine.

WebKit is another example of the importance of GPL and LGPL, open source innovation and how community and corporations cooperation can bring the best of the best to millions of users.

Take that evil Microsoft with your evil IE and Trident rendering engine.

What in the Word!

Idiots around the world using Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Windows are at the risk of having their machines exploited. Serves them right! Microsoft sounds bug alarm, confirms Windows-Word attacks.

"According to Symantec Corp., however, the attacks Microsoft described used malicious Word 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007 documents, which in turn call up the vulnerable Jet .dll."

People should just stop being sheep and use OpenOffice.org, it is free, open source and cross-platform.

Wine approaching 1.0

It's been 15 years in the making, and now Wine 1.0 is just around the corner. WineHQ released a list of Wine1.0 tasks that need to be done before it is released. Right down the list bug# 8439, regarding a Visual Studio 2003 installation failure, the same behavoir I experienced with Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. Hopefully, fixing bug# 8439 would also fix the installation failure I experienced with Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, as it is usual that different apps fail due to a certain API or DLL not implemented properly. Unfortunately for me, this app is the only app that keep me going back to Windows, for a variety of reasons I find myself having to program in Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, Mono doesn't cut it, mainly because it uses a different window library (GTK+) than the one used by Visual C#(WinForms).

Another major let down with Wine 1.0, is MS Office 2007, there is no indication of whether it will be able to install and run or not. I myself use OpenOffice.org and has been for quite sometime, but there are plenty of people that find themselves needing MS Office. They are working night and day trying to get 97 - 2003 to work under Wine, but these are old releases and give an image that Wine is falling behind.

I know that this isn't the case and in reality Wine is keeping up with all changes and updates in the Windows API. Then again, maybe someone like me should keep quiet and be thankful that such a project exists and has gone a long way in providing flawless support for Windows apps.

No to OOXML!

Standardizing OOXML, will encourage a lot of people to use it. That is OK if it weren't for major defects in the standard. Here are 20 good reasons to disapprove OOXML.

Worse Microsoft has the habit of including submarine patents in various standards, as it is the case with C# and .Net, Microsoft sued Mono for implementing the standard, because it breaches a number of Microsoft patents included in the standard. With OOXML, other office suites risk the chance of either being sued, forced to pay royalty fees, or not implementing OOXML in a compatible way with Microsoft Office. Standardizing OOXML, serves one purpose, locking people into Microsoft Office.

Sign the petition

Internet Explorer is EVIL!

I hate IE, as in really really hate. Nothing IE can ever do, will make me use it. Well maybe passing Acid3, but Microsoft has no intention of doing that.

Anyway I came across this website dedicated to Internet Exploder hate, I thought I'd share. Click here.

What is Acid3?

Ever encountered a web page that didn't render probably, or required a specific browser (aka Internet Exploder), such a scenario shouldn't of been the case if software companies sticked to open standards, there are a set of standards internationally estabilished of what a web page should be like.

The CSS, or Cascadaing Style Sheets standard was first introduced by Håkon Wium Lie during has work at W3C in 1994. So we are talking about a relatively old standard, obviously the standard has gone through major revisions CSS2 and CSS3. This standard was meant to ease up the life of web developers and deliver a unifrom web experience everywhere.

Yet, a well known company, doesn't really care about web standards. They showed no interest in implementing the web standards required to pass Acid3. I hope they burn in hell forever and ever till the end of time for complicating the lives of web developers and the surfers.

Another well known company is working night and day, through a community lead effort, improving its web browser and rendering engine to be as compliant as possible. That browser also happens to be the fastest browser on Earth!

Acid3 in simple terms is a test set by the Web Standards Project, to test how much of the standards does the browser implements.

So what browser are using, how well does it handle dynamic web pages? How does it handle JavaScript and DOM, does your browser comply to web standards agreed on by everyone except the criminals at Redmond?

Find out by taking the test, click here.

Wikipedia risks being bought by 'donations'?!

It seems that one donator has donated 1.35 million dollars, which dwarfs any other donation the non-profit charitable organization that run Wikipedia has ever received. Some in the mass media are now questioning the motives behind it. Some are even falsely claiming the possibility that Wikipedia might be rewritten to serve this donor's interests! That's not gonna happen!

The reason this amount of money was donated, is the same reason I would have donated this much money if I had the money to spare! Wikipedia, like many other open source initiatives, are contributing to our society in a way like no other. People now are getting access to unlimited 'free' knowledge. Wikipedia helped a lot of us and it certainly helped me in my studies and general information in a lot of topics. I, as so does Wikipedia, admit that not all articles in Wikipedia are perfect, some of them are questionable and usually they end up edited to bring it up to encyclopedia-article quality, or removed if they article is serves no purpose or poorly cited.

If Wikipedia is at risk of being bought and its mission altered, it wont be in possession of the articles posted as the articles protected by the GNU General Public License. Plus as a tax-exempt charitable foundation it is against US-law for anyone to invest in it, you can donate, but you can't expect anything in return!

Obviously, Wikipedia being bought and its mission altered is a highly-unlikely scenario but if it did happen, we know that all the wealth wont be lost and the effort wasn't wasted.

Original news article: Why would someone toss $1.35m at Wikipedia?

Quad Core iMacs, coming soon!

Intel is preparing a shrunk Quad core processors for notebook computers. Obviously this is targeted to the high end notebook market, and I'm questioning the feasibility of it, not in terms if it can be done, but I'm questioning power consumption and heating issues, there has been plenty of  stories recently about notebook computers catching fire, an extra two processors wont cool things off at all. I don't see them as suitable to notebooks, too many possible problems, and power users will continue to use a desktop to do serious computations not a laptop. In general most users are better off with a faster single or dual core than a more expensive and slower quad core, unless your work involves a lot of simulation and graphics rendering.

This brings me to the topic of the Quad iMac, as it is known the iMac uses notebook class electronics in an integrated all-in-one desktop form factor, and now that it is official, Quads are coming to notebooks, we can only wait. Hopefully Apple would sort out the cooling issues, some extra vents and fans wont hurt, because I've been waiting for a Quad core iMac for a long time.

The 4th 'console', from Taiwan?

Acer is planning to release a 'console', J.T. Wang CEO & Chairman of Acer was quoted talking about the current state of the console market, describing it as closed and proprietary, and that they see an opportunity in an open system based on PC technology. What J.T. fails to realize is that consoles are sold at a loss for quite sometime during their existence, and the loss is subsidized through software sales. If Acer is going to follow the open model, how open will they go? will they have any word on what software goes into it? Who will develop for them?

Will it be a Windows box in another form factor? As conveyed by being 'based on PC technology', if so, then they'll have no control over the software! Or do they mean by 'PC technology' an x86-64 processor based console, kind of like the original XBox.

Or will it be another MSX or 3DO? The two consoles were supposed to be 'open design' outsourced to hardware companies to manufacture. Both were a failure! But I don't think that's what Acer is going for, they are after all a hardware manufacturer.

Things should be getting interesting in the console market, there were previous rumors about EA and even Apple, considering entering the console world.

Complete Obidence, that's all what we ask for..

The people on top have one thing on their mind, that is how to remain on top and keep those who are below them forever below them. They've been using religion, morality, law and regulations, they've also used fear, fear of what is different, fear of death, fear of terrorism, to keep people inline and manipulate them.

Usually it is them freaks on the left of the aisle, but Christian Conservatives are just as bad, from a different direction. Liberals will use issues like political correctness and climate change to control people, religious people (regardless of the religion) will use religion to dictate what you can say/do or can't say/do.

Recently grabbed my attention a story about a student that was suspended for ... buying Skittles! Imagine that! Buying skittles can get you suspended and out of the honor society! Skittles for Emacs' sake! We are not talking about a bomb, or anything that is remotely dangerous! What is even more absurd the punishment he got! Now the kid will grow up, fearing anything he might do would be against the regulations, so much for freedom.

As we all know New Haven is where a lot of them 'educated' white liberals are supposed to live. It is odd how most of them Liberals attack religion, accusing it of being a means to controlling people, yet they go and come up with new way to control people. Candy?! that is more pathetic than Climate change!

Honestly, the story didn't come to me as a surprise, the kid 'broke' a rule, a rule that existed for the sole purpose of controlling students, ripping them away of their childhood, and turning them into carbon copies of mindless citizens with no soul or character of their own. Kids are supposed to question authority, respect is not deserved but earned. Most parents, teachers and other authorities don't deserve respect, and everything they do should be subject to questioning. But the people in authority don't want that, they want obedience, they want people who will do everything they are told and keep away from what is supposed to be 'wrong and illegal' without questioning the merits of such law and whether there are any logic behind them!

A global phenomenon, banks in bed with Microsoft

What is it with banks and Internet Explorer?

You can't get into a bank's website without requiring the browser to be IE. It is a global phenomenon, I checked a bunch of banks around the world, and the phenomenon is documented. For example in this article at linux.com and Uncyclopedia's official guide to choosing a browser. Yes, banks being in bed with Microsoft is a topic of satire and angst. How hard is it to design a website that would work with all standard browsers! The CSS and CSS2 standards exist for a reason, all major browsers adopted them, except for ... , you guessed who!

IE8 should be a step at the right direction, with Microsoft finally starting to adopt web standards, IE8 now passes Acid2, the same test Safari passed in 2005, now there is Acid3 which no browser passes yet, but I expect Safari to be the first browser to pass it as it was with Acid2, the future will show us how serious Microsoft is about Open standards. Maybe one day there will be no more IE-only website, one can hope.

PC-BSD update: Finally got to R/W NTFS

Yay! Now that is more like it! ^_^

In my last blog entry I complained about only being able to read NTFS partitions without being able to write to them. I tried to redeem that by downloading and installing NTFS-3G which was supposed to do the job. For some reason though, that didn't work, I was doing something wrong.
Just a while ago, I've decided to give it another try, came across an article about a similar problem to mine. It turns out I was passing the wrong parameters to NTFS-3G!

What I should of been using was:
ntfs-3g /dev/adxsx /YYYY

Note you must first install NTFS-3G.

In my case for all four:
ntfs-3g /dev/ad0s1 /NTFS1
ntfs-3g /dev/ad0s5 /NTFS2
// logical partitions start @ 5
ntfs-3g /dev/ad1s1 /NTFS3
ntfs-3g /dev/ad2s1 /NTFS4

I was using mount with options -t ntfs-3g as appose to -t ntfs which is read-only but that wasn't working. The following is what I was using and didn't work:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/adxsx /media/YYYY

So now that the issue is resolved and I can R/W NTFS. I can get back to getting more in depth with PC-BSD. Tune in for more.

Apple fanboism, or why I've joined the cult

A little bit of history about myself, I've been a MS-DOS/Windows user for as long as I remember, and been using various GNU/Linux distros since 2001. I never took Apple or Macs seriously, yet didn't hate them and secretly loved them but never considered getting one, not until I realized how much Microsoft over promised and under delivered with Vista. So I've decided to give Macs a try, did the obvious and bought myself a MacBook. The MacBook came shipped with Leopard, iLife 08 and a various number of utilities chief among them XCode, a full featured development environment.

If I can describe Mac OS X in the least number of words, I'd say it is the most advanced and the best OS I've ever come across. After buying the MacBook and spending time with Mac OS X, I asked myself the obvious why did I wait so long to switch. Everything is done in a better, more logical and more efficient way. For example, most applications, are installed by simply downloading the DMG (Disk Image) and dragging the program to anywhere on your HD. There is no installation process, no registry and no dependencies. For the few that require an installation process, it is a no fuzz and no headache process.

It is hard to put it in convincing words for the Apple-haters, why I love the Mac? Could it be because it is so simple to use, everything just works. Or could it be, that it is a powerful development platform, with a full fledged UNIX kernel underneath. Could it be for how easy it is to deal with images, video and audio. Maybe because of how easy it is to get connected. It's all of that and more, and I haven't gotten to the best bit yet, their hardware. Mac OS X as all people know can be legally installed on Macs only, and some people for some reason can never justify this, they consider Apple hardware to be overpriced. Macs are not overpriced, Apple doesn't design cheap low end computers, all Macs are high end machines, with the best of the best in terms of precision engineering and materials. Check any running Mac and you'll be amazed by how quiet it is, you can't even hear it running. The materials they use for the casing, are of the highest quality, have high resistance to heating and keep all the noise inside. In the case of MacBooks it is all of the above plus being extremely thin, MacBooks are thinner and lighter than any comparable laptop while still having a full size keyboard and a high quality widescreen display. Plus Mac hardware is the only way to get their software and what amazing software it is.

To sum up why I've become an Apple fanboi, their software and hardware is the best and worth every single penny.

Limited to one square of toilet paper? Use a bidet!

A lot of legislators around the Good Ol' USA, are for the oddest of reasons trying to control how much toilet paper we use, as if the government has solved all our problems and that's all what is left for them to argue about. As if they have nothing better to do but dictate (and thus it is becoming a dictatorship) how we as Americans are supposed to wipe after taking a dump!

I propose a better solution, yes regulate us to one square, not a real bother to me. But make it necessary that every toilet has a bidet next to it. I'm a bidet fan, I find using toilet paper a bit too challenging, I always end up using half a roll and still not sure if I wiped myself clean, but with the Bidet Law I proposed, I can wash my bottom, and then use one square of toilet paper to dry my bottom. And if there weren't no toilet paper, it wont hurt if you didn't dry your bottom, it'll dry eventually. Everyone is a winner, the legislators who brought up the whole issue and the American people.

What is Free Software?

A lot of people confuse Free Software with for no charge software. That is a grave problem in English. The word Free can convey two meanings not directly related. Free (as in for no charge) and Free (as in Freedom). A software that you get for no charge isn't necessarily free, as in wont provide you with the essential freedoms and wont necessarily respect your freedom.

Free Software can be free and can be for a certain royalty, nothing wrong with either of them. 

What Free Software is about are the 4 essential freedoms:

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The Free Software Definition

NTFS troubles with PC-BSD

Yesterday I installed PC-BSD, the process was easy breezy, but had to mount the NTFS drives manually (all 4 of them). Today, I've notice that I'm only allowed to read their contents and not write or modify them.

Figured I'll install NTFS-3G and get it done with, the installation process went smoothly, yet somehow I'm still unable to write to NTFS partitions.

I'm sure it is a mistake on my behalf, as NTFS-3G does work and I've installed it before on Mac OS X, and provided me with full NTFS R/W support.

I'll dedicate some time to it later, but I'd just like to mention that if PC-BSD wants to become a serious desktop OS, NTFS R/W support should be made available by default. That's the only downside until now.

PC-BSD, one of the world's most overlooked OSes

GNU/Linux distros such as Ubuntu, are well know and popular among l33t computer users that prefer something more robust and open source rather than Windows or Mac OS X. I myself been through loads of various GNU/Linux distros, some were a nightmare to deal with, others were relatively easy but with their flaws, like Ubuntu.

Today I can claim that I officially abandoned Ubuntu, since I've just installed PC-BSD. The installation process went smoothly, didn't require from me figuring out anything it was very easy and straightforward and only took 15 minutes for the whole system to be set up and ready, versus an hour for Ubuntu. Even better, Programs are simply installed by downloading the PBI executable file and double clicking on it for it to be installed, through an easy installation wizard, just like Windows. Unlike various GNU/Linux distros where you have to use a package manager or do it through the terminal. Only flaw I've noticed was that NTFS partitions weren't mounted automatically, had to manually mount them myself. Also there seems to be a less applications available for it (in binary format) in compare to GNU/Linux, but you can always install from source.

What drove me away from Ubuntu was its instability. Couple of weeks ago, and for some unknown reason, Ubuntu suddenly stopped allowing any resolutions higher than 800x600, tried reinstalling the graphics card driver, but to no avail. Gladly, PC-BSD automatically recognized my driver and allowed me to set the resolution to the maximum allowed by my Plug&Play screen, 1600x1200. I'm one of those people who can't live with less.

To learn more about PC-BSD, visit PC-BSD.org also check the PBI directory for popular PBI executables, you might also find some PBIs for your favorite programs elsewhere. As I did with VLC, which isn't available at the PBI directory.

PC-BSD comes with KDE as the default Windows manager, I've never been a fan of KDE and probably never will be. I'd rather have GNOME as the default and that what I'll look into. Until then I'll have to live with KDE.

I'll post screenshots later, and keep you updated with more. For now sadly, I'll be working on Visual Studio 2005 on Windows XP. Hopefully once DotGNU 1.0 is out, I wont find myself confined to the Windows environment, using Visual Studio never been my choice, but that is what the project members decided on, and are work is expected to run on Windows.