Hugo’s blog

While I was trying to have my Mac talk to the Internet over Bluetooth using my Treo 650, I experienced what I’ll call a Grayed Screen Of Death:

The reboot showed a nice kernel trace, that I sent to Apple.

It looks like Apple has copied Windows’s BSOD.

Ca y est, je suis finalement arrivé à configurer mon Mac pour utiliser mon Treo 650 via Bluetooth comme accès Internet avec Orange France. Ça a été beaucoup moins automatique qu’avec mon SonyEricsson T610, mais en suivant les excellentes instructions de captnswing.net et en utilisant orange comme APN, nom d’utilisateur et mot de passe, ça marche !

J’ai finalement réussi à utiliser le multiposte TV de Free derrière mon routeur Netgear WGR614v6.

J’ai découvert deux leçons que je n’ai pas trouvé dans les diverses FAQs que j’ai consultées :

• Pour recevoir les flux derrière le routeur, il faut désactiver le firewall SPI.
• Si on utilise vlc avec le patch de crazyfred, lorsqu’on choisit le port n comme port RTSP, il faut ouvrir les port n et n-1 en direction de la machine.

Ayant lu et entendu pas mal d’histoires sur les délais de Free pour connecter un nouvel abonné, j’avais prévu large, 6 semaines, pour changer de FAI.

Vu la rapidité à laquelle cette opération s’est passée, je me sens obligé de relater mon expérience positive : on entend plus habituellement les expériences négatives, ce qui donne une vision faussée de la réalité.

• Mercredi : je m’inscris en début d’après-midi en dégroupage total, et passe de ce fait à l’étape 1.
• Jeudi : je suis à l’étape 2, qui m’indique La mise en place des équipements nécessaires à l’ouverture du service FreeBox est en cours d’installation (DSLAM). Dès que l’installation sera effective le dégroupage de votre ligne sera lancé. Merci pour votre patience.
• Vendredi : je passe à l’étape 3, mon inscription est validée par France Télécom.
• Lundi : je suis à l’étape 4, attendant la contruction de ma ligne par France Télécom.
• Mardi : je reçois ma FreeBox, puis perds ma ligne téléphonique dans la journée. Je suis toujours à l’étape 4, mais de toute évidence, France Télécom a fait le nécessaire.
• Mercredi midi : ma FreeBox est connectée au réseau Free, puis je passe à l’étape 7.

Tout a donc été fait en 7 jours sans le moindre problème, ni avec Free, ni avec France Télécom. Et la qualité de la connexion Free est excellente.

I have Java 5 installed on my Mac, but I couldn’t figure out how to use it.

Trying to figure out what /usr/bin/java is, I got:

hugo@Oompa-Loompa ~% ls -l /usr/bin/java
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  57B Nov 23 13:03 /usr/bin/java@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Commands/java

hugo@Oompa-Loompa /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Commands% ./java -version
java version "1.4.2_09"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_09-232)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2-54, mixed mode)

hugo@Oompa-Loompa ~% ls -l /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework
total 56
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  27B Nov 23 13:03 Classes@ -> Versions/CurrentJDK/Classes
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  28B Nov 23 13:03 Commands@ -> Versions/CurrentJDK/Commands
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  24B Nov 24 00:08 Headers@ -> Versions/Current/Headers
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  24B Nov 23 13:03 Home@ -> Versions/CurrentJDK/Home
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  23B Nov 23 15:49 JavaVM@ -> Versions/Current/JavaVM
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  29B Nov 23 13:03 Libraries@ -> Versions/CurrentJDK/Libraries
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel  26B Nov 23 15:49 Resources@ -> Versions/Current/Resources
drwxr-xr-x   13 root  wheel  442B Feb 16 18:24 Versions/

hugo@Oompa-Loompa ~% ls -l /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel   5B Nov 23 15:49 1.3@ -> 1.3.1
drwxr-xr-x   8 root  wheel  272B Jun  9  2005 1.3.1/
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel   5B Nov 23 13:03 1.4@ -> 1.4.2
drwxr-xr-x   8 root  wheel  272B Jun  9  2005 1.4.2/
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel   5B Nov 23 15:49 1.5@ -> 1.5.0
drwxr-xr-x   8 root  wheel  272B Nov 23 15:49 1.5.0/
drwxr-xr-x   6 root  wheel  204B Feb 15 08:05 A/
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel   1B Nov 23 15:49 Current@ -> A
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel   5B Nov 23 13:03 CurrentJDK@ -> 1.4.2

A here is therefore version 1.4.2_09, and I wanted to use 1.5.
So I ended up doing something ugly:

hugo@Oompa-Loompa /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions% sudo mv Current Current.DIST
hugo@Oompa-Loompa /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions% sudo mv CurrentJDK CurrentJDK.DIST
hugo@Oompa-Loompa /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions% sudo ln -s 1.5 Current
hugo@Oompa-Loompa /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions% sudo ln -s 1.5 CurrentJDK

And behold:

hugo@Oompa-Loompa ~% java -version
java version "1.5.0_05"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_05-83)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_05-48, mixed mode, sharing)

I can already hear Mac people scream.

This is what happens when you let a Unix geek play with a Mac. I bet there was a better way to do that, but who knows how. I’ll have to watch out for things breaking in the Java world now.

Ever since I upgraded to Firefox 1.5 on my Linux desktop, I had been experiencing crashes daily. As my browser has now been happily running for more than 2 days in a row, it looks like I found the culprit, and I thought I’d share the information here in case others are pulling their hair out.

So here’s what I did: I disabled TargetAlert, and Firefox is now very stable, and also faster.

A couple of weeks after having announced the DMC-FZ7, Panasonic announces today the DMC-TZ1.

Before, I had roughly classified my options into two categories: small camera which fits in my pocket versus big camera with lots of manual settings and a nice zoom.

This one combines both: small size, and 10x optical zoom. It is not clear if it has a lot of manual settings though; for example, it doesn’t seem to be featuring manual focus.

The DMC-FZ7 is the next generation for the DMC-FZ5 which had great reviews, so I’m reasonably confident it will have good reviews. It seems that the open question here is: how will the DMC-TZ1 rate?

They’ll both be shipping in March so it looks like I have a few more weeks to wait before taking a decision.

About 6 months ago, I switched from Linux to OS X on my laptop. I had the feeling of betraying the Linux and open-source community when doing that, but I have to say that I’m pretty happy about the change.

With my PowerBook, things work, without me doing anything:

• If I close the lid, the machine suspends, and when I open it, it’s back.
• If I turn on my airport, it finds the networks very nicely, I click and I’m connected.
• If I plug a USB device in, it usually is immediately usable (e.g. a printer, or a pen tablet).
• If I need to print on the network, I’ll easily find the printer from the print window, click OK, and will be on my way to get your printed sheets.
• If I need some extra piece of open-source software, DarwinPorts usually has it for me.
• It never crashes and I never reboot other than for OS upgrades (and QuickTime upgrades, actually, for some reason).

When I compare this with how long it took me to have my built-in wireless working in my Compaq, ACPI sleep and software suspend which were randomly working at each new version of the kernel, I really can say that my Mac has made my life easier.

And because it’s a Unix machine, it took me only a couple of days to feel at ease with it, and I still read my mail with Mutt and OfflineIMAP, etc.

I’m sure people will say that if you choose the right laptop, things work out of the box, and that Gnome and KDE do all this. The truth is that, in my experience, it’s true to a certain point, but there’s always a point where you need to go and patch your kernel, look for some exotic driver for your modem. I never had a laptop with all its features working under Linux before at least a year of use, which is frustrating when you have a cool new laptop.
Of course, not everything is perfect:

• Palm’s Palm Desktop is actually not as good as JPilot, and I haven’t gotten through the pain to setting jpilot and pilot-link up.
• While it took me about 2 minutes at the back of a cab to be connected to the Internet over Bluetooth using my Sony-Ericsson T610 phone, I still haven’t managed to connect using my Treo 650, despite spending at least a couple of hours on it. I’m frustrated, as now, I’m really expecting things to just work.
• FVWM let me do whatever I wanted, and the OS X interface doesn’t: for example, focusing on a window brings it to the front, but I unhappily got used to that.
• The machine is slow compared to a PC laptop, but I think that the Intel-based Mac laptops will change that.
• DarwinPorts is cool, but is not as cool as Debian’s apt-get, and things have to be compiled from source. Fink uses Debian’s apt-get and binary packages, but is way out of date (e.g. their version of Mutt is 1.3.25).
• I had problems with the hardware after 1.5 months of use.

All in all, though, I’m happy about the switch. I saved a lot of time as things work out of the box. The PowerBook is not perfect, but it does its job pretty well for my use. And I’m of course still running Linux on my desktop which works like a charm.

Je suis allé voir avec L’Emmerdeur de Françis Veber ce soir, avec Richard Berry et Patrick Timsit.

J’ai finalement un avis mitigé. C’était du Veber, mais la pièce avait de bonne grosses ficelles, avec des situations et des recettes reprises d’autres pièces et films de Veber (quiproquo similaire à ceux du Dîner de Cons, etc.). On sourit, on rigole parfois, mais j’ai trouvé que la pièce, sans être mauvaise, manquait d’originalité.

Au niveau des acteurs, Berry y est bon, mais je le trouve peu adapté au role de tueur à gage. Sa voix n’est pas assez grave et sévère, et il n’a pas la carure de quelqu’un qui peut balancer une personne au travers d’une chambre d’hôtel. Richard Berry n’a pas la tête d’un méchant. Ou alors seulement dans Ah Si J’Étais Riche pour y vendre des shampooings.
Timsit, lui, fait un François Pignon crédible. Reste ses fou rires au milieu de son acte, à trois reprises. Forcés ou non, ça a un effet peu professionel.

Au final, un moment agréable, mais rien d’extra-ordinaire. Je me suis rendu compte en rentrant que c’était un remake d’un film de Molinaro, avec Jacques Brel et Lino Ventura, que j’ai d’ailleurs vu. L’image de Lino Ventura en tueur me conforte dans mon idée d’erreur de casting avec Berry.

I just received an interesting spam which managed to go around all my spam filters. It starts with:

This email is:    [ ] actionable   [x] fyi        [ ] social
Response needed:  [X] yes          [ ] up to you  [ ] no
Time-sensitive:   [ ] immediate    [X] soon       [ ] none

It’s nice for them to classify it as fyi. I’ll pass on replying to it though. And I’m dealing with it in a time-sensitive manner as advised: I’m deleting it and making my filters learn about it right now. Thank you.