André's Blog (English)

Unable to get list of printer drivers

2012-01-25T16:06:00.001+01:00

When trying to set up my BeagleBoard as a CUPS server, I ran into a problem. When trying to add the printer, I got the message

Unable to get list of printer drivers: Unknown

When googeling for this probem, I ran into various forums reporting this problem, but I haven't found a solution. So, here it is:

Looking at /var/log/cups/error_log I noticed:

...
W [25/Jan/2012:13:39:43 +0100] [CGI] Missing NickName and ModelName in /usr/share/cups/model/foomatic-db-ppds/Epson/eplp830c.ppd.gz!
W [25/Jan/2012:13:39:43 +0100] [CGI] Missing NickName and ModelName in /usr/share/cups/model/foomatic-db-ppds/Epson/eplp980c.ppd.gz!
W [25/Jan/2012:13:39:43 +0100] [CGI] Missing NickName and ModelName in /usr/share/cups/model/foomatic-db-ppds/Epson
...

It seems there is something wrong with the foomatic drivers, removing the foomatic drivers made a list of drivers appear. Since the hplip driver depends on foomatic-db and foomatic-db-engine, the hplip driver cannot be used, so I am using the gutenprint drivers instead, and this made CUPS working fine.

This problem applied to ArchLinuxARM for the Beagleboard, which is armv7l.
I have verified this solution to apply to the x86_64 version of ArchLinux as well.

ArchLinux on the BeagleBoard

2012-01-23T18:30:00.000+01:00

So... I have been playing around with my BeagleBoard again. Yes.... I got an exam tomorrow, but I got so bored while studying I had to do something else.

Well... I undusted the thing yesterday, and continued today. And of course, this didn't go completely without trouble. A few issues I ran into yesterday, well... this little puppy is rather picky about the partitioning of it's SDCARD.

So... my BeagleBoard.... last time, I ran the ARM port of Debian, which is compiled for armv4t, meaning... it's not very fast. One time I started installing Ubuntu but never finished it. To be honest, Ubuntu isn't my favourite distro.

Since ArchLinux has an ARM port nowadays too, and the BeagleBoard belongs to the supported models, I decided to give it a try. Take a look at http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/beagleboard

Like I mentioned, the puppy is picky about the contents of the SDCARD. I was aware of the MLO to be the first file copied to the FAT paritition, but it appears even pickier then that. The instructions on the ArchLinuxARM site didn't get it working. Other sites mention it should be a FAT32 in stead of a FAT16 partition... well... just that isn't enough either...

I've downloaded the files mentioned on the ArchLinuxARM site, and in the BeagleBoard bootloader tarball I found a script for preparing the SDCARD. But even this script was giving me trouble. I am not really sure what went wrong, but the script made the parititons correctly but failed at formatting them. Even manually trying to format them failed. I had to eject the SDCARD from my laptop, and insert it again, before I was able to make the file systems. However, after copying the files from the bootloader tarball, I got some more response from the BeagleBoard.

However, there was still some content in the NAND from my previous unfinished attempt to run Ubuntu, which tried to boot, but failed. The BeagleBoard didn't respond to the serial console, just output, not accepting input. But appearently this is related to my desktop machine, as it works fine with a USB serial port on my laptop.

So after instructing u-boot to erase the NAND, the boot loader ran the boot script stored on the SDCARD.

So, now I mention the boot script. Well... it had to be compiled with mkimage, which I had to compile from the u-boot sources.

So.... there we go..... booting ArchLinux on my BeagleBoard. As I mentioned last year, I was experiencing USB issues... which I initially blaimed as a kernel issue, as this was suggested by various sites in the days. That's why I also wanted to try Ubuntu.... but later turned out this was caused by a noisy 1.7 Volt line, confusing the USB controller. As suggested by a site, I have mentioned earlier in this blog, I mounted an extra capacitor....

Time to see the results, right? Well.... connecting a bus powered USB hub to OTG port... REBOOT!!! the duck!!! well... the OTG port isn't able to deliver enough power, so that could be the issue. Connecting Self powered hub to the normal USB port... well... it worked for a bit and went down. And I really mean a bit. Like... it got initialised during boot, all devices found, but even before the boot process was finished it died again. Seems like the problems gotten worse in stead of better... Well... I am not sure if the suggested capacity is correct... I mean... 10 µF... I think it should rather have been something like 10 nF. Oh well.... when connecting the self-powered hub to the OTG port, results seem much better... USB has been functioning properly for a while now.

But another thing that is still giving me issues, I don't get it to play back sound. Some sites mention ALSA is broken and I should use OSS, but there is OSS but there appears to be ALSA. Even though it appears to be playing back, I hear no sound. Besides... I had to add myself to the audio group else I had to access to the device.

Well... the system is running... that's what I can tell you.... Perhaps I will be able to use it as mp3 player later on, we'll see about that.

Video... well... this port is an optimised build, which includes hard floating point, and that binary blob of a driver us compiled using soft floating point, which makes it incompatible. Hooray for binary blobs.... so that means no hardware acceleration for video.

I never made that VGA adaptor for the BeagleBoard, so I have no clue if it will work. In theory it should work... I mean... a simple D-A converter, how hard can it be? As the digital signals are, well, just the same as VGA signals, just not converted. Well... this is not completely true, as I might have to adjust the timing a little bit, but that shouldn't be too hard either.... but yeah.... installing ArchLinux on a BeagleBoard shouldn't be that hard either, and look at all the little issues that appeared.

The DVI issue remains the same, the native resolution of my only monitor with DVI in is not supported at a refresh rate high enough for my monitor to accept. The BeagleBoard can only output it at 57 Hz, and my monitor is rather strict about this, and it won't accept anything below 60. But I've discussed that issue before.

Well... and all my other monitors are CRT, so using them would require the VGA adapter as I suggested above, and discussed before in this blog.

On the other news... last tuesday during the SHoBo, I was asked if I were interessed in a Raspberri Pi. This is an ARM machine for only £22. I mean.... a machine capable of runnng GNU Linux for only £22. Sounds like a good deal to me. It's video accelerator is capable of decoding H.264 in Full HD 1080p. I mean... the BeagleBoard can only output 720p. Allthough I am afraid the drivers will be again a binary blob. I mean... it is a Broadcom SoC after all... Compared to the BeagleBoard.... This Broadcom is only an ARMv6, while the TI on the Beagle is an ARMv7. But... what will this mean in practice.... well... it's not even sure when the RP will start shipping, but the plans were to order some at Stack.

The new years blog post

2012-01-02T00:21:00.000+01:00

The year 2011 has come to an end, and 2012 is about to begin. Time to look back at the past year. What has 2011 meant to me? It has been a positive year, I have been feeling much better then I did in 2010. I realise I skipped my review of 2010 last year, simply because I wasn't feeling well enough to write it.

I have to thank Joshua Phelps for what he meant to me in 2010. He was a light in the darkness, a sign there are still good people in this world, in a time I gave up on humanity. We've helped each other a lot.... 13 may 2010... that was the day I confessed my feelings for him. Yeah... we were madly in love with each other, but we never had a relationship. Josh and me, the way I used to describe us, no relationship, just love, pure love. And even though situations have changed, Josh is still one of my best friends. True love never ends.

The people you meet on the path of life, some of them walk with you just a little while, some just show you a direction to go, and then their task is complete, others stay with you all your life. Some people are with you for years, and only then it becomes clear why.

In may I wrote three posts in my blog called “Trust, freedom and Love”, in which I talked about what love means to me, and perhaps these posts explain what I meant by no relationship, just love.

Another series of posts in my blog in the past year was “Life”. Note, this is not about my life, but about life means in a broader view. Perhaps I could also mention a topic I wrote a few posts about in 2010, vegetarians, which comes down to asking the question if the life of an animal has more value then the life of a plant. I wish to respect plant and animal life equally, and therefore I am not a vegetarian. (but I do eat vegetarian food frequently)

I am mentioning vegetarians again, since in 2011 I have made new friend and acquaintances who are vegetarian, and so that's why I am mentioning the topic again.

Spring 2011... the revolution began in the Arabic world. It was soon called the Arabic Spring, and various alternative news sources predicted an European Summer. Summer came, and nothing happened. But when it ended, the Occupy Wall Street started. And soon the Occupy movement speak through the world.

And so the Occupy movement arrived in my country. The 15th of October I went to the Hague, where I went to the demonstration with Bianca. It was amazing. It was like the moment I had been waiting for all my life. Some childhood memories came back too, as a kid on the primary school, I knew I would be part of the, what I used to call, the resistance.

That afternoon in the Hague, when the group of protesters was at “het plein” (The Hague's main Square)... we were lying on the square in a group hug. People we never met before, just like that. Amazing. Things like that give me back hope. Hope for humanity. Things like love still exist. And new friends... yeah... I am glad to have met Maikel there.

One week later, Occupy Amsterdam. Oh, it felt like magic again. But whenever I am in Amsterdam, that city, it has a certain feeling. But... sitting in that tent, looking through the door, seeing people hoops dancing, behind them, tents... behind the tents, high building, and then the lights of the fair. That combination, it was like magic. It has been an honour to be there. To be part of it.

In my own City, Eindhoven. The Occupy movement hadn't arrived yet. I started poking around on the Internet, but since I don't come from this city, I didn't know many people around here who would be interested in starting an occupation. But soon people started gathering on facebook, and the first meeting was planned.... and the 5th of november, Occupy Eindhoven was a fact. I am offering Occupy Eindhoven some space on my server to host the website and email. I have been interviewed by a local tv station (Oproep Brabant) and I am mentioned in the local newspaper (Eindhovens Dagblad)

I must say, Occupy Eindhoven feels different. It's not that magical as Amsterdam. Perhaps because it's smaller? Perhaps because I am more involved, while in Amsterdam I was a visitor. But I also must say I've made some awesome friends, also here in Eindhoven.

Occupy Eindhoven started at the Clausplein. We got an extention for our permit once, but then we were forced to move to a different location. Oh, I miss the Clausplein. It was like my home. Yeah.... in the first weeks I slept there. But now on the new location, I am not present as often as I used to on the old location. Of couse, studying is taking up more time now, but still...

And now, my message, my message for Occupy, my message for the new year, and the future in general. It's my believe people have forgotten to care about each other. People care about possessions, about power and money. But what really matters is people. Love is the key to a better feature. To truly care about each other, to give to those in need, and expect nothing in return. Nothing but love and kindness. You never know when the roles will be reversed.

To both The Hague and Amsterdam, I had a Free Hugs sign with me. On the afternoon before Christmas, I took part of the free hugs event here in Eindhoven. I was looking for a picture of me taken during the event, but I can't find it, unfortunately.

So, I wish you all lots of love, peace and happiness in 2012!

My dear blog readers, I love you all!

Christmas

2011-12-23T01:10:00.000+01:00

My dear friends, I realise it was been quite a while since I've posted anything in my blog. My apologises for not having entertained you for a few months. The past few months, there have been quite some changes, changes which I have primarily been talking about to close friends who were familiar with the situation, and perhaps also to keep it from people who wouldn't understand.

Anyways, that's not what this post is about, as the title already suggest, it's about Christmas, and people who know me for a longer time, can guess what I am about to say, right?

And perhaps, given the circumstances, this message will have even more meaning then it had any other year before.

Anyways, as some of you might already know, I am not religious, and I have little affection with Christianity, even though I have been raised in a Christian environment, so apart from religion, what is Christmas about? Or, rather, what should it be about?

It's my believe people way too much value in the food they eat during Christmas dinner, too much value about the presents under the Christmas tree. No, my dear friends, what Christmas should be about, what people should be caring about is each other. To be together with your family or close friends. To care about each other. That's what Christmas should be about. About love and peace.

Merry Christmas my dear friends.

Also a Happy Yule. It's Yule today after all ;)

*hugs* I love you all.

(And I should start preparing my "review of the year post" as well)

The server

2011-10-07T20:22:00.000+02:00

Well... as I mentioned before, a while back I has some issues with my dedicated server, that it kept rebooting. Well... it stopped doing so, and was running stable for a while, right? In the meantime, I hadn't heard a word from OVH, not a single word. So yesterday night, when I was at stack I decided to log in, and transfer a few files. I was going to ask for some backup storage space to make a full backup of that server and re-install it, just to exclude software related issues. Keep in mind 13 December 2010, the server rebooted twice at night, for no apparent reason. I had contacted OVH about this and they said it wasn't their doing.

Well... so yesterday night, I was logging in. I hadn't noticed it rebooted anymore, and I thought it was stable. Good, so I ssh to the server, and it prompts me to enter my password, right? That's what you expect to happen. So I enter my password, and nothing happens anymore. The server was down again. What the fuck. I think here we go again.... but the server didn't come back up.... tried to connect to it a few times yesterday night.

So, today, I check my email. And what does it say...

U heeft zojuist Ingeschreven voor een dedicated server bij OVH en wij danken u voor het vertrouwen dat u in ons stelt.
U vind bijgevoegd de verbindingsinstellingen voor uw server

"Thank you for signing up" what the fuck. So... it seems they just installed a blank image on there. All my data is GONE. foetsie! weg! moved to /dev/null

First, they don't give a reasonable reply to my support question, and then they just WIPE the server. I don't call this a good customer service, or is that just me?

Social Networks

2011-09-26T18:44:00.000+02:00

Social networks take a huge part of the online activities of many people nowadays. They have envolved over the years.

Back in 2000, a site cu2.nl launched. A first generation social network. Basically, you made a profile, and you had to enter your profile text with plain html code. Very basic, and one of the problems with this site, in my experience, was, users adding browser-specific html. Please note, this was early 2000's and Internet Explorer was in it's 5.x series...

Later, MySpace rose to be the popular site in my country. Using myspace, users customised their profiles with css code, and, for some reason beyond me, creating unreadable profiles with text in the same colour as their background image.

Again, local to my country, Hyves became popular. This site also offers the possibility to customise a profile, creating the same unreadable profile problem, however, it offered a button to switch to default colours, reducing the profile a bit.

And now, facebook is gaining popularity. The advantages of facebook is that it doesn't offer these customisable colour schemas and stuff like that.

Facebook has changed over the years, and continues to change. Facebook has been criticised for it's privacy policy. I must say, the options to specifically share content with certain users has improved lately.

I will admit, I have had these ideas before facebook had them, and planned to implement them to my own BlaatSchaap website.

I wish to combine some aspect of the current MySpace and Facebook. The MySpace v2 layout, allows the users to add content blocks to their profiles. I wish to create a profile with those content blocks, for which per block, a langauge and a access list is assigned. This way, only the allowed users who can read the language the content is in will bee it. Well... this has been implemented in the pre-alpha blaatschaap live.

However, another thing on the area of social networks has recently gained my attention. Diaspora. Diaspora is an open source, decentralised, social network. (https://joindiaspora.com/) The main pod isn't taking registrations yet, but there are many community run pods open for registrations.

The layout is basically facebook. Photo albums are not supported yet, and access lists seem only to be allow lists, and there are no block lists. There is one field for a profile text, much like facebook. Like I have pointed out, I would like multiple fields in there, in my own site.

Well... diaspora is a decentralised network, which means it communicates with other sites running diaspora, but possibly also other websites if they can communicate using the same protocol. Which means, it might be possible to develop a BlaatSchaap site that can be integrated into the diaspora network.

After my server problems, I have decided I might do a clean install. I have considered installing Diaspora on it instead. But... my ideas for sharing content, and the way I manage it's access, are a little more complicated then what diaspora implements now (or facebook had a few years ago). I haven't yet looked at the communication protocol for diaspora pods, and I don't know what impact this protocol has to my suggested features. I should also investigate how I can manage the access of content by external users.

But... in the end... it's not (only) the site that makes a social network to a success, but it's users. Nowadays, many of my online friends use Facebook. That's why I am mostly on that social network. It's about the people, not about the site.

The BlaatSchaap community is too small, to make the site great. Perhaps integrating it with the Diaspora network might improve it a bit. But Diaspora is new and small too.... but all the diaspora sites on different hosts integrate into one big network, just like XMPP (Jabber) runs on many servers, but you can send instant messages across the different servers.

Anyways... these were just some thought on social networks. I realise I haven't mentioned Google+. I have noticed some people disabling their Facebook accounts, moving to Google+. Well... Google isn't famous for their privacy policy either, so if that's your reason it doesn't make sense whatsoever. To those people who are concerned about their private information to advertisement companies should consider using a diaspora pod.

Server

2011-09-24T16:04:00.000+02:00

It seems my server has been up for three days now. Not that I have seen any mail from OVH, nothing. Well... it's running. So I *can* update the DNS to point at the old server again.

However, it might be wise to perform a clean installation of that server? And at least make a backup for now. I should look at the possibilities of an automated backup to a different server too.

Perhaps I should spend some time coding/scripting again? But what direction to go? Some of my ideas, which I had planned to implement, to make something different from existing sites, are being implemented by the sites like facebook. so... what direction to go? And should I even continue the current project, or start something completely new? And if so, what should it be?

Windows 8... continues

2011-09-20T20:24:00.000+02:00

So... I've installed Windows 8 Developer Preview on my desktop machine. And, like usual for Windows installation programs, it overwrote my MBR with it's own code, overwriting my Acronis OS Loader code. Unfortunately I don't have the installation CD by hand, but I remembered it wrote it's reinstall.com to an SD card. So, Windows 8 still offers to create an MS-DOS boot diskette when selecting the format option on a diskette. So, there we go, activate the boot loader again.

Windows 8 Developer Preview didn't complain about being installed on a drive not being the primary master, and it booted itself fine with it's own bootloader. What it fails at is, listing otehr operating systems, even Windows operating systems, (there were 4 of them on the primary master) Well.... it seems Windows 8 Developer Preview has put it's complete bootloader in the MBR, and none in the boot sector of it's partition, causing the OS Selector to fail at booting it. Well.... at least... that's my "diagnose" for now. I guess I will have to play around with booting from the cd in rescue mode, get a command line and force it to write it's boot code to the correct partition.

Windows 8 behaves like it's the only Operating System on the machine, completely ignoring even previous versions of the Windows Operating System... and being booted by a third party OS manager, which is required when trying to set up a multi boot since it didn't offer this option itself, also fails.

un défaut sur votre serveur

2011-09-20T20:11:00.001+02:00

The blaatschaap server has been down since yesterday 22:30.I have been a quite stupid system admin, who in stead of shutting down his laptop, shut down his server. A not so smart action. Anyhow. At first this issue seemed to have caused a downtime of just half an hour, the time it took to go home, logged in to the web interface and booted up the server.

However, during the night, the server had been rebooting a couple of times, and it seems to be stuck in a continuous reboot loop for some reason. The configuration hasn't changed or anything, just a reboot, and now it's acting up like crazy. I have contacted the server company about this issue.

Now, please keep in mind, a few months ago, one night, the server was rebooted for no apparent reason, and back then I contacted the server company and they claimed they didn't do it either.

Anyhow... A temporary server has been set up, thanks to my friend Pieter. I spend two hours configuring some basic stuff. For now, at least I will be capable of receiving emails on my blaatschaap.be email address, and there is an IRC server running again on irc.blaatschaap.be

More Windows 8...

2011-09-18T14:50:00.000+02:00

So, I have also installed the Windows 8 Developer Preview on my desktop machine. This is an AMD Athlon64 3000+, so I've installed the 64 bit version.

On this version the Metro version of Internet Explorer does start when I click it. Does it only work on the 64 bit version, or is something else wrong?

Well... some more testing is required on the Desktop version of this OS.

Windows 8 Developer Preview

2011-09-18T13:23:00.000+02:00

Say hello to Windows 8 Developer Preview. I've installed it to my netbook (MSI Wind U100) last night. Yes, literally night... I think it was somewhere between two and three. lol

First having some problems, unrelated to windows. It seems, my external dvd drive refused to read the discs burned with my laptops internal dvd drive.

After fixing that problem... the installation dvd booted fine. I have installed the 32 bit version, since this model of the Atom CPU doesn't support
64 bit. So... the installation program is quite similar to the Windows 7 installation, so I won't spend much on that.

The first boot, took some time, saying things like building registery and preparing. Well... after some waiting... it was finished. So first thing to happen is asking for a computer name, and wifi setup. It worked immediately, so the driver for my wifi card was included on the installation media. Nice. After my connection worked, it asked for a Passport account, or... it's called different nowadays, isn't it? A Live account? Anyways, the thing you use to log in to MSN Messenger, (which nowadays is called Windows Live Messenger, isn't it?) Whatever! Renaming the beast doesn't make it a different animal! To me, it's still MSN Messenger and a Passport account. Enough details. So... what it means, my windows login password is that of my passport account, and it also shows the name and photo I've used for my passport account on screen.

So, it shows the new start menu. So this is the Metro interface everyone is talking about? Well... First thing I tried was the control panel. So it lists a few options, and at the bottom it says for more setting use the desktop control panel, which refers to the control panel as it's available on Windows 7.

This is where I shut my computer down yesterday, as it was getting late. Like I said, it was 3 or so, when I went to bed.

So, today I've booted the netbook... and it booted up really quick. This new boot process has been discussed on osnews a while ago. But I must point out, my WiFi connection wasn't working. It showed as connected to wifi but no internet connection. I had to re-enable the wifi for it to work. I suppose some drivers haven't been adjusted to the new boot process yet. But for being a developer preview, this was to be expected.

Anyways, a closer look at the control panel, shows, I can now enable and disable the support of 16 bit applications. With Microsoft pushing 64 bit versions, which do not support 16 bit applications at all (due cpu architecture) and by making the support of 16 bit applications in the 32 bit version of Windows 8 optional, I think this will be the end of the 16 bit windows application.

Something more interesting to observe is a look at the Device Manager, which shows that there is no driver installed for my video card. Yet, do I have the fancy GUI. This is something that has bothered me in Windows Vista/7, you know, how they handle older, pre-directx9, vga cards. I am no gamer, and I don't see the point of buying a new graphics card just to see some fancy gui effects in my OS.

Well.... the metro start menu. It seems, only the control panel and the desktop button do something. all the other buttons, including the metro version of internet explorer, don't seem to do anything at all. Well... it's a preview after all... but I had expected to see something from the metro internet explorer.

Speaking of which... the desktop internet explorer 10 seems to be using the internet explorer dialect of the javascript xml handling. Still... the dialect. Microsoft seems to be heading towards HTML5, right? Wouldn't it be nice they'd do certain things the same as the rest of the world? Ok, I admit this is a pre-html5 issue, being around since, well... the rise of AJAX. But still...

FreeBSD... continued (and some NetBSD/OpenBSD)

2011-07-26T14:43:00.000+02:00

So.. like the other BSD's I needed to configure my xorg.conf file to enable the correct resolution. Well... what's next, play some sound. No sound card found. It seems I have to manually add the driver in the /boot/loader.conf file. So after adding driver to the configuration and rebooting, it works fine.

Well... some other things... which I did yesterday. My external hard disks... (which are ext3 formatted). On my FreeBSD, they appeared as icons on my xfce4 desktop. Double clicking it gave me an error. It seems, I had to add permissions to /usr/local/etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf, and now it works right away. Cool!

I haven't got this working yet on the other BSDs. On the other BSD's I can mount the manually of course. Please note on NetBSD the device is /dev/sdXe (e=0,1 etc) and on OpenBSD it is /dev/sdXi to mount the first parition on the external HD.

I think there was no dbus on NetBSD, (trying all three, but I don't think I am mixing them up) but there was hald. But hald complains not being able to start since dbus is not running. And therefore the automatic mounting will not work.

I suppose this requires some more playing around with. For example to get TV-out working. I guess I'll have to poke the xorg.conf for this again, and look at the driver to use.

Please note the video card in this system is a NVidia GForce 4 MX 440. To "modern standards" this is old. But the point is, for FreeBSD, NVidia provides a driver. For the other systems not. The Geforce4 in this machine is the NV17 core, which is supported by the nouveau driver, but looking at the supported systems section of the nouveau drivers reveals they only support Linux and FreeBSD, which are also supported by the NVidia drivers, so apart from being open source, this doesn't add support for systems not supported by NVidia.

According to the man page of nv (FreeBSD), this driver supports my card, so it's not using vesa I assume. I should check what the other BSDs support as well. Anyways on FreeBSD this nv driver manpage doesn't show anything about TV-out, but I guess I could use the nvidia or nouveau driver, at least on FreeBSD.

Bow for me, I am root.

2011-07-24T21:39:00.000+02:00

So... I have this, I guess, about two year old Android phone. A T-Mobile G1, which is in fact a rebranded HTC Dream. So... for this phone there are no upgrades available since Android 1.6. And I must say, after I upgraded to 1.6, the GPS functionality of this phone stopped working. It was really after the 1.5 to 1.6 upgrade.

Well... looking at the upgrade guides, which tell me to root the device, tell my I must downgrade to exploit the bug in 1.0. Yeah.... the 1.0 version which was on there when I bought it. But googling a bit around got me this http://software2tech.com/tag/download-universal-androot/ which gave me root without having to reset everything.

You see... the guides on http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/HTC_Dream:_Rooting tell me to backup *before* rooting, using apps which require root. So not that handy, isn't it? Anyhow... so I got the root with that app...

Following the guide mentioned above... a new recovery rom is required. the amon ra is recommended for my phone, however the flash tool is missing. Perhaps it was only found in the ancient 1.0 rom? Well... I tried the other, not recommended one, and it installed fine.

The radio version of my phone was the radio version mentioned, so I don't think I needed to upgrade it. I remember my phone prompting to upgrade this thing some time. However I did it anyways... tried to install the DangerSPL right away but it failed. rebooted the phone. it booted fine but the clock went back to 2009.

Trying to enter the recovery again to attempt to install this SPL thing again... but nothing seems to happen this time... just the icon remains on the screen, the menu doesn't appear like it did previous time... I cannot continue without this danger thing, as it needs to repartition the flash to be able to flash larger images, so I can upgrade my Android version.

Why would I need a new phone, I can upgrade my old phone. Well... It doesn't agree with me yet... but it will bow for me, I am root, after all!

FreeBSD

2011-07-24T21:28:00.000+02:00

So, I am continuing my *BSD series, on my old Pentium 3.... cramping three operating systems on a 20 GB hard disk... well... not that much space, and in the partition for a *BSD OS, there are disk slices... so I have a ~ 6 GiB space that I must devide in slices again. There I made a little mistake earlier, not giving enough space to the root slice on NetBSD.

Well... today it's the turn to FreeBSD to be installed. The installer in menu driven. First it offers a IBM style disk paritioning tool, and after that a slice editor. Since I had already created the IBM style partitions for all OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD beforehand using sysresccd, a linux live cd with rescue stuff like partition editors and so.

When I entered the slice editor, I already saw some configuration. Some slice sizes were defined, but not their mount points/file systems. These were different values then the auto configure values it gave me when I choose this option. I wonder where did these values come from? I am not sure.

After copying the files it asks some questions, to enable ssh server, ftp, nfs, and so on. After this it offers some options to install software from the ports collection. I have looked for my window manager xfce4, but it didn't appear in the list of window managers. However I observed separate entries for gnome and kde in the list, not under the window managers. Anyways, I choose to install the X server and drivers. Please note it is still installing from the installation DVD, not from internet sources, so this might explain the small software list in that ports collection.

After copying the files, it offers the option to add users to the system. This is again menu driven, including the entering of the password. The setting of the root password is a normal passwd change password action.

Now the system is installed and booted, let's install some software,
in the FreeBSD manual, it says the pkg_add program supports the -r
parameter where it automatically sets the correct ftp server. So I
don't have to set it like I did on NetBSD and OpenBSD. I suppose I
should check if NetBSD and OpenBSD support this option too, but I
guess not as I haven't seen it mentioned.

As referenced on the pkg_mgr site, the OpenBSD package tool, the
FreeBSD program sysinstall, which also did the installation of
the system is responsible for package management with a menu.

So far, FreeBSD.... rooting my android is the next topic.

More NetBSD

2011-07-18T17:45:00.003+02:00

After installing some software I realised I made the partition kinda small. I reinstalled the system. Now the metapackage works fine. Perhaps it was due the too small disk size. I've experienced weird problems with Linux systems on low disk space as well...

So... let's try this shit again

So X with xfce4 running fine. Even though I had to do the same
manual configuration for the X to enable the 1024 resolution,
but that's due the monitor not supporting DDC. However, the
xfce4 tool to change the resolution works fine on NetBSD.

On OpenBSD there was a Chromium build in the repository.
Since it's missing on NetBSD, I am using midori instead.
It's also a WebKit based browser so it shouldn't make
that much of a difference anyways.

NetBSD

2011-07-18T16:13:00.000+02:00

Yeah... I kept adding/editing previous post.
Even though OpenBSD and NetBSD have a simular
packages system. the OpenBSD one is much
friendlier, and installing software worked
like a charm. On NetBSD however, it's a pain
in the ass...

Like I mentioned, just setting the PKG_PATH
is enough to get both working, but the tools
pkg_mgr vs pkg_select, a huge difference.
First is seemed pkg_select *required* a local
copy of the packages database (which is supposed
to be updated through CVS). After some research
it seems this is not required, but in FTP mode
it's slow as thick shit.

There appear some meta-packages available in
the NetBSD repository, but trying to install
them results in an error message regarding the
file format being invalid. Really... this
does not make a good impression, I'm sorry.

And the thing I've mentioned already in 2008.
DUting package installation, it outputs a list
of files it writes, but also some messages
regarding some settings that should be adjusted
manually.... and it just scrolls away as the
next package installs.... this is still not
changed.... kinda annoying, isn't it?

Well... finally it appears to be installing
something... using the *manually downloaded*
bootstrap for the pkgsrc system, which worked
"out-of-the-box" for OpenBSD, and I still don't
know how to do a search for a package that works
on this OS.

Installing NetBSD

2011-07-18T14:38:00.003+02:00

Like I mentioned yesterday, today I am continuing
to play around with operating systems. I am now
installing NetBSD. The paritition and slicing
tool feels friendlier then the OpenBSD one. I
can simply enter the sizes I want them to be,
unlike the OpenBSD tool asking to enter CHS
values manually. That was just horrible...

From this perspective NetBSD clearly wins,
on the other hand, there are other things
OpenBSD clearly wins. For example user
accounts. OpenBSD gave the option to
create user accounts during installation,
which NetBSD (and also ArchLinux) did not.

NetBSD asks what password cipher to use,
something OpenBSD did not. Perhaps this
is a point for NetBSD again.

I know I am comparing different operating
systems, but, this is not really the OS
itself but the installer, and the choices
offered during the installation procedure,
which are, from my perspective, not that
much related to the OS itself, as creating
users, offering to set up a (minimal) X
instalaltion, and such things, shouldn't
differ (much) on various *NIX OS'es.

So, not having a user added automatically,
I have to add my user manually. Which works
basically the same on any *NIX OS, but living
on a *BSD OS, I should add my user to the wheel
group in order to be able to su.

So far so good.... software is next... and
the same package management is in use as it
was under the OpenBSD. pkg_add and the likes.

So far, I say OpenBSD wins... for
making the user account during setup,
configuring the X during setup, configuring
network during startup. (ok I have to add the
network to the services to startup, but apart
from that, the configuration was done)

However, NetBSD scored some points for the
parition/slices tool during setup, the choice
of the password cipher, and basically a decent
looking installer. The installer didn't ask as
much as I wished for, but what it actually did,
seemed to me to be in a more decent manner then
the OpenBSD installer.

Edit/Update:

I removed some part as it was incorrect,
but after some investigation there was still
a point of truth in there. So, the pkg_add
just setting up the path and such makes it
run after all.... I just overlooked a small
thing that make me wonder if I had to download
the package database to the local machine
in order to be able to use the packages
at all... well... just setting the
enviorement variable is enough to install
something, but there is no pkg_mgr in here,
The pkg_mgr site mentioned to have it's roots
in pkg_select, which is available in NetBSD.

Another thing is the quering seems to be
different, op OpenBSD I just did a
pkg_info -Q whatever
but in NetBSD it seems to require another
variable of which I am not sure yet what
is should be.

2011-07-17T21:17:00.001+02:00

So, yesterday I've arrived at my family's place.
Here I still have two computers left.
A 1600 Mhz Pentium 4 (Willamette), and a 866 Mhz Pentium 3 (Coppermine)

I should be ashamed to inform you the Pentium 4 only has a
Windows XP and a Windows 7 installation.... I should be
deeply ashamed...

So... I've installed ArchLinux on my Pentium 4. This is a more
advanced Linux distro. But I am using it at my computer in
Eindhoven for a while now, and I am happy with it.

Well configuring this thing.... basic installation is really basic,
you've got to install and configure everything. But there is a
decent packet manager, so that's not a problem. Just one
little thing I forgot, is to get the ssh deamon running.

You have to allow access to it in the /etc/hosts.allow to get it
working. I forgot this step.... apart from that, installation
of this thing works without problems.

Now note the machine has a GeForce 4 video card, which means
you need an old nvidia driver, the 96 series which are no
longer working with currect kernel releases. But X works fine
with the nouveau driver, so there is no problem.

Anyways.... apart from Arch... I noticed there is a new
alpha version of HaikuOS available. However, on both
machines, this alpha 3 version of HaikuOS randomly
freezes. Having the same problem on two machines, I
think I've excluded a problem with the machine itself,
since with other OS'es the machines run fine and with
HaikuOS they both have the problem.

Now, let's play with some other Operating Systems. I have
ArchLinux now, here and in Eindhoven... let's try something
else. The BSD family of operating systems. I think last time
I've been playing around with those was 2008. So it's a while
ago. I've installed OpenBSD now on my Pentium 3 machine.

The partitioning tool, I must say, I've made the partitions
with sysresccd with gparted. The OpenBSD installer isn't that
friendly with paritions. I remember other members of the BSD
family had a better tool for that. Anyways.... partitions were
made, and I told the installer to install in the OpenBSD part
of the disk.

Well... before it did that, it asked me for root password and
username and password for the normal user to log in, and some
other questions included if I were planning to use X.

So, it installed the OS, complete with a working X server and XDM.
The installed window manager is Fvwm.

Let's install some software. Yet another package manager. What's it
officially called? Packages. pkg_info pkg_add pkg_delete and the
likes.... well... let's see if I can get a xfce4 window manager
instead, and install some additional software too.

Well... I said X started, right? But it started in 800x600
resolution. The monitor doesn't support DDC, so it cannot
be auto detected. Now I got xfce running, and replaced
xdm by gdm by the way, I tried to start the xfce monitor
setting to change resolution. Just to be told the video
driver doesn't support video outputs. I guess I have to
poke the X settings manually...

By entering some horizontal and vertical frequencies,
I have managed to get the monitor in the desired
resolution. But I think this is enough playing for today.
Tomorrow another day, also FreeBSD and NetBSD will be
my next toys.

Uploading a video to YouTube

2011-06-15T16:38:00.000+02:00

I have mentioned this issue before, but sadly, it was on Facebook comments. Try to find a status post with comments you've made a long time ago. Facebook currently doesn't implement a reasonable way to search your own ancient statusses and comments.

So, I had to re-create the procedure. It's not staight forwards, and it seems more people are suffering from this issue. So I've decided to put it here on my blog.

So, I want to record a video with my webcam. For this purpose I use Cheese Webcam Studio. Now the problem is, the first part of the video contains some audio problems, causing the file to go out of sync. A way to fix it is to skip the first 30 seconds of a recording.

Using ffmpeg you can do this by

ffmpeg -acodec copy -vcodec copy -ss 30 -i input.ogv output.ogv

We just copy the video and audio stream to a new file, and skip the first 30 seconds. Playing it locally using mplayer now correctly displays the video.

Now, uploading it to youtube will fail. It seems, YouTube doesn't correctly handle the Theora codec in an Ogg-container. The solution to this is copying the video to a Matroska container instead. So we get

ffmpeg -acodec copy -vcodec copy -ss 30 -i input.ogv output.mkv

Now, playing it locally with mplayer shows the aspect ratio is messed up. So, trying to ass the aspect ratio

ffmpeg -acodec copy -vcodec copy -ss 30 -aspect 4:3 -i input.ogv output.mkv

But this had NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER. It seems, ffmpeg is sensitive to the order of the parameters, and only accepts the -aspect parameter as last parameter, just before the output filename. So

ffmpeg -acodec copy -vcodec copy -ss 30 -i input.ogv -aspect 4:3 output.mkv

will do the trick and produce a video file that's correctly synchronised, and 'compatible' with YouTube.

What's this?

2011-05-31T11:40:00.000+02:00

My laptop started acting weird. All net tabs in Chromium immediately crashed. So, I tried to start midori instead, but nothing happened. Trying to start it from a terminal, which happened to be open, gave some weird errors. It couldn't even load the executable.

It seems, the hard disk went offline. (Windows would just have BSOD'd, Linux keeps running even without harddisk)

Looking at dmesg. I couldn't |tail is, this would give a "bus error", due the hard disk problem. So I had to get the entire log.... but I couldn't save it to a file without running hard disk. Scrolling in the terminal window also stopped working, so I could only get the last few lines in the log, which were these lines

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Unhandled error code
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 17 9f 9c 36 00 00 08 00
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 396336182
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Unhandled error code
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 1b 17 24 e1 00 00 08 00
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 454501601
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Unhandled error code
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 1b 17 24 e1 00 00 08 00
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 454501601

Now... what does this mean? Something wrong with the hard disk? the controller? or is this a bug in the kernel?

Besides, my battery is really starting to get bad. I don't get it. One day it says ninety-something % capacity, and then a few days later is was fourty-something. and now it's down to 36%. Why *suddenly*? Does it enter self-destruct mode after warranty expires?

Trust, Freedom and Love (part 3)

2011-05-30T19:10:00.002+02:00

You might ask the question What is love?

That were the last words from my previous post.I've been talking above love for two posts, but what am I talking about?

This post will be from a personal point of view, okay? Let me take you back into the past. Imagine me, a little over five years ago.Depressed me. Asking, What is love?, my answer would be. Someone who can make me feel better, no matter how bad I feel.
Little over 5 years ago that was Julia.
Little over a yeas ago that was Joshua.

They were there for me when I needed someone, but is that enough to be called love?.
Nah... there are more people who supported me when I was feeling down, but only someone I love could make me feel better.

What am I doing? I was supposed to write about love, and now I am talking about depression? Uhm... yes, I am. But my point is, love can be so strong that it can make me forget how bad I felt. Just talking is enough...

So... where was I? Oh, right, I was talking about love. I want to make the person I love happy... that's an answer.

Make them happy, make me happy. Yes, that's what love is about, about happiness.

I want the person I love to be happy, right? Love is about making him happy. So, wouldn't
it be logical to say, he should be loved by more people then just me? More people trying
to make him happy. I want him to be happy.

Seems very simple, right?

Also I would like to link to Joshua's blog about love.

Still... I don't feel like I have answered the question. I have given some things about love,
about when you love someone, but what is this love? What do I love about a person?

Well, one could argue if looks be an answer. Perhaps it would play a role deciding if you
would start talking to a person. But just good looks aren't enough.

What makes the difference, your attitude to me, do you respect me, accept me the way I am?
But also, your thoughts and ideas. How close are they to mine? Your personality. I love and have loved different people, different personalities. Very different, indeed,
but their attitude towards me is important, accepting me for who I am.

To love and to be loved. Someone who cares about me, who cheers me up when I am sad. When someone I love is sad I want to make him happy again. Perhaps I want to be close to them even more when I know they are sad.

Comforting someone I love, crying on my shoulder... to me... I don't want you to be sad, but if I am the one you come to for comfort, if you trust me to show me your weak spot, that would mean a lot to me. Perhaps, someone I love crying on my shoulder is more intimate then having sex? I don't want you to be sad, of course. But when you are I want to be the one to comfort you.

Why am I starting to talk about sadness again? To make the person I love happy is the most important when they are not. That's why... because I want to make a difference in their lives.

Trust, Freedom and Love (part 2)

2011-05-24T11:17:00.000+02:00

I am not quite happy yet with my last post.
As I think, it doesn't really capture my ideas
yet.

First of all, it can be read as such, as if it
were written from my personal point of view.
"What's wrong with that?", you might ask.
Well... there is nothing wrong with expressing
my personal point of view, but why would I
put that here on my blog. If this was supposed
to be something between me and Joshua, it would
be sent to him in an email or other private means
of communication.

What I am trying to do is, to present an idea,
a concept. An alternative way of human interaction,
an alternative way of life. Re-designing the society,
the world. Well... just a suggstion, an idea.

Another thing to notice about my previous post,
well... another thing I would like to point out
about my previous post, it's due a concept missing
in the English langauge, (and every other language I
speak too) which makes it difficult to express a
part of my ideas. If you look at my previous post,
you see me using the word he to refer to
the person I love. If it were a personal post
it wouldn't be a problem to do that, but if I
were to write the general idea... The English
language misses a gender-neutral word to refer to
a person. I could write he/she, but that would
just draw attention to the gender, in stead of ignoring
it. And to continue the question I have asked in
an earlier post, how does language influence our
thinking?, I suggest that gender discrimination
is a result of this lack of a gender-neutral word to
refer to a person. Those words, he and she,
it creates a way of thinking that discriminates...
since there is no word in the language that gives
an alternative not to do so....

(note: it might be possible with more complex grammatical
constructions, but not with a single word, and that is
the point I am trying to make)

So.. what I am trying to say, in the model I am describing
in previous post, I wish to express how persons relate
to each other. In this model, I do not wish to let gender
play any role. To say it simple, in this model, the 'default
orientation' would be bisexual. The reason is to treat
everyone equal, regardless the gender.

Okay, you might say, that's not what the world is like.
And yes, that's true. But is it? Aren't we all raised
with the idea heterosexuality is the default? That this
is how we are expected to behave? How big is this influence
on what we actually turn out to be? There are people
who suggest that everyone is actually bisexual, but
we've learned to be heterosexual. Assuming this is true,
then the suggested model would make sense, right?

Apart from that, you might ask the question What is love?

Trust, Freedom and Love

2011-05-21T23:20:00.001+02:00

About trust, freedom and love...
what do those words mean to me?
What does it mean?

I have been writing about freedom a few times. And freedom is a concept that's very important to me. Freedom of speech, Freedom of everything.

But, like I have tried to explain before, freedom doesn't exist by itself. freedom is not universal. and you don't just have freedom, but it is given to you by others.

Now, from my point of view, how should freedom and love relate? Especially the person I love should be free. I do not wish to restrict his freedom in any way. No promises, no obligations, nothing but freedom. This might sound scary, and that's why trust is important.

I don't want the person I love to stay in my life because I want him to. I don't want him to stay because I need him. The only reason he should stay is because he wants to stay, because he needs me. It should all be, because he wants so. The 'security' of promises should be replaced by trust. That way, his presence in my life, him saying he loves me, gets true meaning. It gives love true meaning. He is free to disappear without a trace, but I trust him he will stay. Because he loves me like I love him. I have to trust that will never change.

But perhaps I am not going far enough yet. More freedom, because I trust him. I have asked a question before, in earlier posts in this blog, why is a person only supposed to love one person? I suggested it's more of a cultural thing then anything else. Therefore, I say I should give him the freedom to 'see other people'. He can love someone else too. I trust him. I trust I won't lose him if he does. Well, under the condition the other person shares this vision of course. The worst thing that could happen is being forced to choose between two people you love(*). I don't want to put the person I love in that position, therefore he should be free.

Perhaps, an interesting side-effect might be, what if... the person I love and me both develop feelings for the same person?

(*) I have been in such a position. This was in a time I didn't have this view yet. I developed feelings for two people... and feeling like I had to choose was tearing me apart. I wanted them both. Therefore I say, it is possible to have strong feelings for two people at the same time. So that's why I am mentioning this.

Love... giving everything you have and expecting nothing in return.

The new terrorism...

2011-05-21T13:54:00.000+02:00

I don't completely live under a rock. The news Bin Laden has been killed has also reached my world. Also, referring to my previous posts about life... people celebrating his death? Can killing a human being be a good thing? Apparently so...

Who is good? Who is evil? It will depend on the point of view of the person speaking. And history book are written by, guess who, those who won the war? What if.... what if Hitler won the war? What would be written in history books if that was the case? What would it say about the United Kingdom, or the United Stated, or Russia? It's all relative....

But this time I didn't want to discuss Bin Laden or Hitler, but rather their consequences on society. Well... Hitler.... the European Union is a direct result of the war... so much said. But these were event from before I was born... and it's not what I am concerned about right now.

So... let's discuss Bin Laden... or rather... 9/11 (weird american notation... always confuses us europeans.... "huh, what about 9 november?")
I mean... what happened after? New security laws, measurement, by the governments, to ensure the people's safety. And the people accepted. It was for their protection after all. Measurements, they would never have accepted, if nothing happened. But, scaring them apparently is enough to make then give up their freedom, their rights. What good is your freedom when you're dead? right?

But how far do these measurements go? The USA can check the bank accounts of all EU civilians. WTF??? Why must the USA know how much money I have? And how I spend it? And when I want to travel to the USA? These ESTA forms? All these questions I have to answer before I am allowed to enter the country? And, as some of my relatives who have been there told me, also an interrogation when you arrive. Like a criminal.... yes, dear USA, are we all criminals?

Well.. Bin Laden has been killed? Can we stop all this bullshit now? Please? Of course that is not going to happen. I just think Bin Laden was killed because the word terrorism didn't scare people anymore. They got used to it...

So... the governments need another tool, another reason for people to accept new laws and measurements that restrict peoples privacy and rights. Censorship in the USA? Yes, sites that are taken down, because they, for example, infringe copyright. Aaaah.... copyright.... being used for the purpose it was once invented: censorship!

Still, this approach gets a lot of resistance.... so what else to do? Well... a closer look at some news for the past time might reveal the answer. Along with something from the historic archives. Imagine what the world was like.... in 1990? (thinks... 1990? perhaps that was the year I've been to the USA, not sure) Well... look at this What do you think? Do you think something like that would be acceptable anno 2011?

Oh... in 2011... people will start screaming CHILD PORN!!!! well... not that extreme, I suppose, but still... I think the people's opinion of what's acceptable has been changed. Why? And were the people influenced on purpose to change their opinions?

I am not the first one to say this: Child porn is 'the new terrorism'. The new thing to make people give up their rights. New laws to block child porn from the internet have been proposed in the recent past. People like me will scream CENSORSHIP! But the masses don't seem to notice the dangers of such laws.... like in France... where sites can be blocked, without a Judges approval. I am glad our government voted against such law. Also, I am glad with my ISP, XS4ALL, who will always object and make their points when a law that might restricting people's freedom and rights is proposed.

Also, the proposal to outlaw encryption , and to make the general public buy it, they say they've arrested some guy with a huge collection of encrypted child pornography. And so they say, to prevent child pornography, encryption should be illegal. Really? Let's make cars illegal, since they can be used to kill people.

The end of the world?

2011-05-20T21:42:00.000+02:00

People on facebook are spreading rumours about the end of the world. It also seems, these rumours are mostly originating from the Unites States. I honestly don't think the world will end soon. I think this rock is going to be around for another couple of million years. But even if it ended today, it doesn't matter. There is nothing I can do about it, so worrying about it would be a waste of time, of which, if the world is about to end, I do not have much left. Live every day like it was the last. If I am to die tonight, I want to die happy and without regrets. The past is gone, and will never come back. The future is uncertain, no one knows what lies ahead. Here and now, this is what you have. Enjoy every minute, every second.

These are the words I posted earlier on facebook. I said, I would post some stuff on my blog about this. Well.... I better do it now before it's too late. Three and a half hours left, right? lol

When I was younger, I was afraid to die. Dying was my worst fear. I was afraid to go to sleep and never wake up again. My worst fear, to die...

This was the way I felt when December 2005 hit me. December 2005... the most depressing time in my life. Suddenly there, just like that. Actually, I am not even sure why I suddenly was depressed. I have mentioned a reason, yes, but I don't know if that was really the reason. Maybe it was just part of the change, from the old me (pre-summer-2005) and the new me.

But I am getting way off-topic now. I was talking about, me, being afraid to die, right? Ok. Those of you, who were around in those days will remember what happened next. I found a soul, lost like me. That's how I survived this though period of my life. I had someone to protect, I was needed. Someone needed me, someone who I would protect.... and if I would die, I couldn't do that anymore.

Those of you who were with me during that time (or bothered to read my ancient blog posts) of course know, this love wouldn't last forever... I can start writing some things about love here, but I was planning another post for that. The topic of today is the end of the world, or rather, how, in the past, I've been afraid to die.

Yet... what does this mean... to me... me back in 2006... At first it's like... I had saved her... and she me... what would have happened if... history would have taken a different course. Listen, if you're reading this, I have no hard feelings, I'm glad we're still friends today, what I am about to say is what I felt back then, not now, ok? I also felt like... she let me down when she didn't need me anymore... I felt used... And it was then, remeber, 2006, still thinking I was bi, then my next relation should be a guy... and in the months after that, I started to realise that thinking about girls would actually turn me off. I still wonder, am I gay because I made that decision? Ok, I'm going off-topic again...

The point is.... I did make a difference... back then... December 2005... a long time ago...

And later.... beginning 2008 was kinda a disaster... being played with my heart... not an experience I wish to recommend. I had lost my trust...

My life today... well... I love Joshua. I don't think that's a secret anymore. I think it was February or March 2010, when we started talking... That one poem, that really touched my heart. Describing exactly how I felt, still a result of 2008, yes... But Josh... I will protect him with my life. Yeah... we've helped each other though some hard times. Interesting to see, perhaps, to see, how love started with depression, in both cases?

But my point is... I know now, I have influenced people, helped them, cared for them, saved them... I have made a difference. I know, if I would drop dead right now, I will not be forgotten. I know, even if I would drop dead right now, I would still live on in your memories. I would not die after all. My ideas still live on. So... I don't have to be afraid to die anymore... but I still have the desire to protect those I love. To share my ideas, my thoughts. To try to make this world a better place. I can't save the world, but I want those who I call my friends to be happy.

So, less then two and a half our left in this day. I've been writing on this for over an hour? Enough of this end-of-the-world-crap. When I wake up tomorrow, I expect the word to be on the other side of my front door. The world is a pretty reliable thing. It's always on the other side of my front door, and never failed to be there before, so I don't expect that to change tomorrow.

Life (part 3)

2011-05-19T14:26:00.000+02:00

In the concluding paragraph in part 2, I said
"technology doesn't have a mind of it's own"

But what exactly does it mean? What does
it mean? Perhaps this should also go into the range
of posts concerning 'freedom' as well?

Are you free to do what your want?
Is a dog free to do what it wants? or, yes, here
the little bastard is again, is the mosquito free to
do what it wants? Does the little bastard even
want to bite you? Or doesn't it have a choice
to bite you?

As far as I can tell, the mosquito is purely driven
by instinct. It doesn't have a mind, it doesn't want
anything. It just acts on instinct.

And, concerning technology, if it were alive, as I
argued in previous post, it would be on the level
of the mosquito, something that purely acts on instinct.

Or perhaps even a lower level? What about a bacteria?
Does a bacteria have an instinct? Or does it just consume
nutrients and multiply? Does a bacteria just repeat "eat and
multiply" until there is nothing left to eat, and just die.

Maybe it's more interesting to look at what's above the
level of a mosquito then what's below.

Now? Wait a moment? What is this level what I am talking about?
And is this level the thing, that, in part 1, makes the difference
if it's ok to kill. However, we still have the mouse here.

Speaking about the mouse, it does have a higher level then
the mosquito. It can do things beyond basic instinct. You
can teach your pet mouse to do tricks.... but you can't
teach a mosquito to do the same, can you? Yet I wouldn't
say a mouse is intelligent yet. Neither a dog or a cat, or
any other pet for that matter. Even though they can
act beyond basic instinct, it takes more then that to be
intelligent.

So... what does make you different from that mouse?
Since you can teach the mouse to do tricks, the ability
to learn is not what makes you different. Then, what is
it, that what makes the difference. I think it's the ability
to understand. Not just learning the 'what', but the 'why'.

Life (part 2)

2011-05-19T13:58:00.000+02:00

My brain is thinking, and even though I have not
reached a conclusion at the end of "part 1", I have
decided to start a "part 2" as it, even though it is
going to the same category "life", it will be from
a different perspective.

What is a life? is one of the questions I've asked
in previous post, and I would like to look into that
subject in this post.

When we look at wikipedia, it presents us this list

Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis.
Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.

I am aware there are alternative definitions. But
looking at these definitions, one could argue that
a single (human) cell is not alive, when it's
separated from the body. And how would we think
about organ donation? Is a donor organ alive? As
it's not part of a life-form, and, on itself,
"cannot survive" (if it were alive), or, maybe better said,
doesn't have the properties on the list presented above.

Now, I am going to invite the mosquito, discussed in previous
post again. I want to look at one property of the reproduction
cycle of this little bastard. The insect bites and sucks blood. It
required the blood for it's reproduction.

Why am I telling you this. My point here is, the reproduction cycle
depends blood. Blood which is available in other lifeforms. So,
even though this isn't a problem with the defined above, I would
like to point out this fact, as it might play a role later.

I guess you've heard about a story, seen a movie, read a book, in
which computers take over the world. Some say, once computers
get too intelligent, when we're created an artificial intelligence, smart
enough to think for themselves, they might take over the world.

I think they did, a long time ago. Technology is alive. No, the
computer on your desk, but technology as a whole.

Well... let's look at reproduction.... no, your computer isn't
going to get a bunch of little computers, no, that is not going
to happen. But, I said, look at technology as a whole. All the
chips in your computer... or any other electronic device.
Where do they come from? Well??? Technology! right?
And even though those machines that build the chips for
you computer are operated by humans.... a mosquito also
needs other lifeforms to reproduce, right?

Did I just say, the machine is operated by humans, well, I
think that answers the question response to stimuli with
a yes.

Let's look at Adaptation and growth. Well... is
technology doing this? I say it does. Even though,
technology is invented by humans, and it only does so
because humans make it do so. Technological "progress"
has been a constant, and it seems to "grow" at increasing
rate, adapt to new desires from it's creators, the humans.

Metabolism might be a trickier one. Technology doesn't eat,
does it? Well... the definition is created to define organic life.
If I want to include technology as a whole into the definition
of life, I might have to play a little with the definition. But a
power plant does a conversion of energy (coals, etc. into electricity)
which is used to power many kinds of technology.

Organisation, again, the definition speaks about organic life here,
and the concept cell might be seen as a parallel to your computer,
cellphone, dvd-player, etc. I asked before, is a single cell alive?
Or is it only considered alive in context of the lifeform? If the
second is the case, I would say, every piece of technology is
like a cell in the organism of technology.

Homeostasis .... regulation of the internal environment.
But what is the internal environment of technology?
Maybe we need to be a little more specific to explain
this? Maybe we shouldn't consider technology as a
single organism, but as a class of organisms to show
this? On a 'cell-level' I can say, the power supply of
my (insert random electronic device) regulates the
voltage to a certain level. I can say it's a switching
power supply, and it will switch faster or slower
depending on the load, in order to maintain the
same voltage level.

And in this whole story, I haven't even mentioned
the internet. A network of millions of computers,
connected together. Routers determining the
route of a packet to travel, and if that route is
blocked, autonomously decide for an alternative
route. Routing protocols, in which routers inform
each other of who they can speak to. et cetera.

Now, has technology taken over the world???
Then answer me this question. What if all technology
would say "no" and stop working. Of course,
technology, as it is today, doesn't have a mind
of it's own, and can't decide it doesn't feel like
servicing humans anymore. But what if... what
if all technology would stop working. We depend
on technology, and therefore, it controls us, and so
it has taken over the world, a long time ago...

Life (part 1)

2011-05-19T12:50:00.000+02:00

My mind is racing at full speed these days,
thinking about all kinds of stuff. This is an
attempt to capture one of these thoughts
before my mind runs off again, something
which it tends to do all the time.

What is a life? What does it mean to be
alive? What's the value of a life?

When you see a fly in your home, will you
kill it? Or a mosquito? I think many people
would, right?

I don't think I have to argue a fly and a
mosquito are alive, right? But then, my friends,
why is it okay to kill them?

If one would kill a dog or a cat, I think many
of you would protest, right? So, why is it different?
Because... of their size? In that case, I would like to
point out that many of you would consider it normal
to eat beef, pork of chicken, so, that's not the thing.

Because they are kept as pets, perhaps? But what
makes an animal a pet? Some people keep mice as
a pet while other people kill them in a mouse trap.
So... is it if their presence was intended? In that case,
I want you to think about a stray dog, a dog, on the
streets, with no owner. It wouldn't be ok to kill it,
would it? But why? What makes the difference?

Or even, what about humans? Oh, sure you are in
deep trouble when you kill a human, but there seems
to be no problem when you kill a mosquito. So, the
act of killing a living being... what distinguishes the
acceptable from the unacceptable?

Extending the range of the act of killing, being hygienic,
which comes down to killing bacteria, is even considered
a desired thing to do. And yet, we're still talking about
killing, about ending a life, which can be either good or bad.
But why?

Freedom

2011-05-11T10:41:00.000+02:00

I've blogged on this subject a while back,
and I have some more thoughts about
the subject I wish to share.

Opposed to what I said last time, where I
came to a contradiction, when I suggested
that freedom is to do whatever you want,
as this would allow you to restrict others
freedom if you want to.

As, that part of freedom, the interaction
with others is what gave rise to the
contradiction, I would suggest the solution
to be in there as well. Now, I suggest
freedom is allowing others to do what
they want.

So, this means, you need others to be
free. Freedom is something given to you.

Now, I was thinking about how you limit
your own freedom. Well you do so by
caring about what people think about you.
By behaving a certain way in order to be
'accepted' rather then doing what you
really desire to do.

2011-05-09T12:12:00.000+02:00

I bought a video player at the flea market.
Even though I have one, my video player only supports mono playback,
and doesn't support the LP speed.

In 2002, I recorded the wedding of our crown price Willem Alexender
and Máxima. As the broadcast on TV was longer then 4 hours, it
wouldn't fit normally on a tape, so I recorded it on the LP speed,
using my uncle's video recorder.

So, in order to play it, I needed one that does support the LP speed.
So, I bought this recorder at the flea market.

Since I've been at my family's place this weekend, I took the tape
with me, and I decided to try to play it.

And it played back fine, even though the quality was a little low,
so I thought, I need to run a head cleaning tape through the VCR.

After watching a few minutes, rewinded the tape. Suddenly,
after rewinding, the take was ejected, but the tape somehow
got stuck.

After unplugging the VCR I opened it

There you see where it got stuck

Eeps.... doesn't look like a healthy take anymore!

Back in the box for now...

Well.... it's just the introduction part that got damaged... nothing about the event itself yet...

Hmmm.... is there a way to straighten up a crumpled tape?

Lesson learned: use an unimportant tape to test a used VCR.

"Zin" --- to people learning Dutch.

2011-05-04T11:47:00.000+02:00

Some of my foreign friends on Facebook are

learning/speaking some Dutch. I think this

post might be interesting for them.

I was thinking about the Dutch word "zin".

What does it mean? Well..... it can mean multiple things...

"Dit is een zin" would be translated to "This is a sentence".

But if I would say "Ik heb geen zin" it would mean "I don't feel like it"

"Het heeft geen zin" on the other hand means "It's in vain"

"De zin van het leven" translates to "The meaning of life"

A screen for X

2011-04-27T19:52:00.004+02:00

If you are a linux/unix user, I guess you're familiar
with the program screen. A program that lets you
run text-based apps in a virtual screen, and you can
attach and distach from this virtual screen without
disturbing the program. An excellent program to run
your applications on a server somewhere on the
internet, and you can use it from where ever you
want.

But.... what about graphical applications.... that's
a different problem. There are programs like NX,
but that runs a complete desktop in a window,
in stead of just a window.

Well.... I came across a program that might offer
a solution. It's called xpra ("X Persistent Remote Applications")
It can be found at http://code.google.com/p/partiwm/wiki/xpra

Unfortunately it seems to be abandoned, since the
latest version is from November 2009. There seem
to be some bugs related to keyboard layouts with
'dead-keys', which is kinda annoying since I usually
use such a lay-out.

There seem also to be some issues related to the
status of the control/alt/shift keys.

I am testing this on a local setup now, but I am
thinking about doing some tests over the internet
later.

Installing the dependencies on Mandriva:

urpmi libxdamage-devel ocaml-lablgtk2-devel python-pyrex x11-server-xvfb libx11_6-devel libxtst6-devel libxcomposite1-devel python-gobject-devel pygtk2.0-devel

Installing the dependencies on ArchLinux:

pacman -S  libx11  libxtst libxcomposite libxdamage pygobject pygtk xorg-server-xvfb pyrex

Another note about running on ArchLinux: You have to open
the build script and change python to python2 (it ocuurs two times!)
Since ArchLinux is so modern it defaults to python3.

Are our thoughts limited?

2011-04-26T22:14:00.000+02:00

Well.... the question... are our thoughts limited?
But... by what, you might ask? In which extent
are we capable of thinking about things we do
not have words for.

If this is the case, then the next question arises,
is what we are capable of thinking about
limited by the language we speak. Are there
things a German speaking person can think
about and a French speaking person not?
(Languages in this example chosen at random)

Speaking a language is much easier then translating
between languages. Words in one language may not
have an equivalent in an other language, or with a
slightly different meaning. Sometimes translating
between languages means losing information.

For example, the Swedish word "farmor" translates
to "grandmother", but the Swedish word "mormor"
does too. "farmor" means your father's mother, and
"mormor" means your mother's mother. But in some
languages, like English, German or Dutch, there is
only one word referring to both.

Another example, the word "siblings", in German
"Geschwister", has no equivalent word in Dutch.
Or the dutch word "neef" which could translate to
both cousin and nephew.

These things make translating between those languages
difficult, but could it also mean, there are more complex
concepts of which there is no word in some languages,
and what would it mean for someone speaking those
languages. Would it limit their capability of thinking
about those languages?

Another question is, even if there are words for the
same concepts in two languages, what influence does
the language have on what people think about the concept?

Freedom

2011-04-26T22:00:00.000+02:00

Freedom... what does it mean.... does such a thing even exist?

Doing whatever you want? Going where ever you want?

Well... let's say, I want to go to the moon. Can I?
I guess not.... but does that mean I am not free?
Nah... It's just not possible to go to the moon like that.
Neither on earth can I go where ever I want, I cannot
just walk into any people's house just like that,
but that also has not so much to do with freedom.

No, the problem with freedom has not that much
to do with going somewhere, but more with doing.

Let's say, both you and me are free to do whatever
we want, right? If I am free to do whatever I want,
let's suppose I want to lock you up... I am free to
do whatever I want, so I would be free to lock
you up..... but then you wouldn't be free any more
to do whatever you want, would you?

And so, freedom, defined by doing whatever you
want is in conflict with it's own definition...

So.... what does freedom mean? Is there such a thing?
Perhaps freedom should be considered in context only?

What does it mean???

History class: Microsoft Xenix

2011-03-30T21:23:00.000+02:00

A while ago, I found this site http://vetusware.com/ with abandonware.
Bits and bytes, forgotten, lost in history. Among the files on this site,
there is Xenix. A UNIX-os, back in the days, by Microsoft.

Long forgotten times, times, when computers were still interesting
(and I was still wearing diapers)

Afin.... monday, this Xenix OS was broad up in a conversation
at Stack, and so, I decided to try to get the damn thing working.

Not as easy as it looks like, to get the Xenix version for the 8086
working. Even though, modern x86 hardware is supposed to be
compatible with the original IBM-PC, none of the emulators seems
to understand what to do when I feed it the disk images.

One of the reasons, perhaps, is the fact the floppy images are
360k images, and the emulators only understand 1,44 MB images.

I have tried virtualbox, qemu, bochs and PCem, without luck.
PCem, well... it's a windows app, but it runs in wine. PCem
seems to emulate older, real hardware, or tries to. It supports
various machines, and BIOS files from the original hardware.

It also includes AMI 386 and AMI 486 with BIOS files....
Oh... memories... seeing the AMIBIOS again, the way it
used to look on my first computer.... but booting Xenix....
no, that's too much to ask....

Some note to make, as it seems, the boot loaders do
load in some of these emulators, but the boot loader
seems unable to load the kernel. The kernel file is
available on the floppy image

To mount such an image, use

mount N1 test -o loop -t sysv

For one part, I suspect these old images possibly do not
respect the boot signature, and therefore mark the image
as non-bootable. And for the part the boot-loader does
work, I suspect the emulation of the floppy controller is
not completely accurate, as in, possible timing issues.
But this is just a wild guess....

Anyways.... I have found an emulator that passes this
point, and boots the kernel correctly. The emulator that
works is an emulator specific for the IBM PC 5150,
and that seems to do the trick.... but now.... I have to
find out how to swap the disk image to insert the 2nd
disk when Xenix asks for it.

More BeagleBoard

2011-03-21T13:43:00.000+01:00

Well.... I posted about the VGA adaptor for the BeagleBoard.
I've looked around on this site and found this

http://www.linusakesson.net/hardware/beagleboard/ehci.php

And yes, problems regarding USB stability, that's the reason
I haven't been using my BeagleBoard as intended.

Even though I assumed this was a kernel issue, as this was
suggested by various sites discussing the installation process.

BeagleBoard and VGA monitor?

2011-03-17T21:49:00.006+01:00

My BeagleBoard is still catching dust,
somewhere in a dark corner. I never used it,
which is kinda sad, isn't it.

Well, it only has a digital video output,
so I cannot connect a normal vga (crt) monitor to it.
(Of which I have a few in the basement)

So, I've obtained a used flat screen with DVI-D
input, back in the days I still worked at Unilogic,
and they were replacing their monitors.

Unfortunately, it's had 5:4 aspect ratio, and it's
native resolution is 1280x1024, which is not
supported by the BeagleBoard. Well, it is supported,
but with a refresh-rate of 50Hz, which is not supported
by the monitor.

Well... I am using this monitor at my desktop nowadays...
But meh.... those modern flat monitors with non-standard
(non 4:3) aspect ratios, and things like a 'native resolution'.

A normal CRT monitor would be much simpler... they
usually have the same aspect ratio, and the image doesn't
get distorted when running at a lower then maximal resolution.

But.... there is no VGA output on the BeagleBoard...
so... I was googling again.... and I found a Hawkboard.
Another ARM board, and it has a VGA-out.
Looking at it's schema, I saw it used a THS8135 to
provide in VGA output. So, I started googling if
there was a converter for the BeagleBoard using this
chip.... but in stead I came accros this
http://www.linusakesson.net/hardware/beagleboard/vga.php

Very simple circuit... this should do the trick. Why should
it be complicated?

So, why are HDMI(DVI-D) to VGA converters to expensive?
This circcuit that I've found is just a few resistors and two transistors.
So, this circuit should costs about 4 euros!!! Why are those converters
a few hunderd euros? (Okay, thet are connected to the DVI-D port,
and this circuit goes to the LCD interface....)

So, I guess I should get some resistors, transistors and a soldering iron,
much cheaper then a hdmi to vga converter or a new monitor...

My lunch

2011-02-28T14:26:00.000+01:00

We need:
Bread
Butter
Eggs
and a shot glass.

No.... I am not drinking this early. lol
Take the shot glass, and place it in the middle of the bread.

Now, make a hole in the bread

Take a pan and melt some butter. (for the best result, use real butter)
Put the bread in the pan, and add the egg.
Make the yolk go in the hole.

Let it fry a while and flip it around

Add some pepper and salt, and serve.

Installing ipe on Mandriva Linux

2011-02-24T12:08:00.000+01:00

I am following a course Data Structures as part of the pre-master
programme at university. During this course, there are homework
assignments that should preferably done in LaTeX. Now, making
drawings in LaTeX can be a pain in the a$$.

One of my instructors recommended using the program ipe to
do this. As this program is not available as a package in the
Mandriva repository, I have to compile it from source.

The instructions on the website assume a debian based system,
but Mandriva is a redhat bases system. So, the first step,
dependencies. As the package naming scheme on rpm based
systems differs from deb based systems, this is the first thing
to look at.

The install.txt file mentions:

   sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libqt4-dev
   sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libcairo2-dev
   sudo apt-get install liblua5.1-0-dev gsfonts

First of all, I don't like to use sudo, I prefer to use su. As I like to
have a different password for root stuff then for user stuff.
So, I will execute the commands from a root shell.

   urpmi zlib1-devel libqt4-devel
   urpmi libfreetype6-devel libcairo-devel
   urpmi liblua-devel

The different naming scheme includes the prefix -devel in stead of -dev,
which isn't that hard. But for example, the debian scheme has a libcairo2
while the redhat equivalence is libcairo. The gsfonts package... well...
it's a package that contains certain 'type 1' fonts. As there is no package
with simular names available, this might get a little more tricky to find the
corresponding package. But the readme file gives a list of file names that
should be included, but unfortunately, these file names give no results either.

Another line in the readme file gives me a clue:

   Identical fonts may also be in subdirectories of
   "/usr/share/texmf/fonts/type1/urw" or
   "/usr/share/texmf-texlive/fonts/type1/urw

There exists a package named 'texlive-texmf-fonts' so, I guess,
that will be the one I need. So, this will be

urpmi texlive-texmf-fonts

So far for the dependencies. Let's compile the program!
Really? No!

The first problem to appear is, a program named, moc-qt4 is not
found. Well... the solution to this problem is to make a symlink
to /usr/lib/qt4/bin/moc.

Well... trying again.... still no success... it's raining messages
about undefined references. Which means, the Makefile doesn't break
on errors correctly, as it should.

Settings the terminal to unlimited scrollback reveals the following error,
somewhere at top

Package lua5.1 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `lua5.1.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'lua5.1' found

Weird.... I *did* install the lua devel package, right? Perhaps it's
the wrong version? Well... lua -v says it's 5.1.4, so that should be
right. Different makes in the pkg_config databases.... that's new
for me, as pkg_config should exists undependable from the packaging
system, as it will also include software compiled from source.

Well... how to solve this. Open the config.mak file and replace
lua5.1 with lua. Now, finally, the program seems to compile.

make install seems to work fine as well,

...but the next step from the readme file:

sudo cp ../fontmaps/gsfonts-fontmap.xml \
/usr/local/share/ipe/7.x.y/fontmap.xml
sudo ldconfig

What??? having to copy a file after running make install???
Isn't make install supposed to install all files???

Also, it seems that make clean is broken

All I can say, this is a bad makefile. Making certain assumptions
about the target system, which is basically a bad idea.

Seeing how much trouble it is to get it to work, this is bad,
not just for this specific program, but for open source software
in general, as this is what gives open source software the reputation
of being difficult to install.

autoconf/automake is used to compile many open source software
programs. Yes, it has also it's disadvantages, like being slow,
and one sees it checking for irrelevant things, like checking for
a fortran compiler when we're going to compile a C program, but,
nevertheless, autoconf/automake would have prevented the kind
of problems which I experienced when trying to compile the
program, (except the names of the packages, of course)

ANd I've noticed, 'make clean' is also broken.

Well... the software is installed, right? Let's run it....
Uhm... NO!

ipe: error while loading shared libraries: libipeqtcanvas.so.7.0.14: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

great..... f*cking great... Did I mention I have to run ldconfig MANUALLY?
right.... adding the /usr/local/lib to the ld configuration. Now it *finally* starts.

Now, this program better be f*cking great since I've spend a lot of time
to get it working.

Why I don't "celebrate" Valentine's Day.

2011-02-14T12:46:00.004+01:00

Why I don't celebrate Valentine's Day.

First of all, I wasn't raised with it. This "holiday". It has only been
'introduced' in this country in the mid 90's, by the means of
companies advertising.

This brings me directly to the reason I don't celebrate this day, since
it's purpose, the reason why it was introduced here, was only, for
the companies to make money. And to exploit love for profit...
I don't want to be part of that.

Just look at the amount of emails from various websites I've
received the past days with this day in the topic. It's all
about profit

If you want to celebrate this day, I urge you not to *BUY* presents,
in stead, I suggest to give a hand made present. I believe, giving
something you put effort in to make it, is worth much more then
something you've only spend money on.

Another phenomenon this day seems to create are the people
who say they hate it because they are single. What this group
of people represents, goes beyond the meaning of this day,
but it reflects something in out society. I'm not sure how to
explain this in English. But it comes down that this holiday
creates the idea you HAVE to have a boyfriend or girlfriend.
It's the idea that society puts this pressure on individuals, they
have to perform, they have to confirm certain exceptions.

First post of the year.

2011-02-09T12:03:00.000+01:00

First post of the year. I know, It's February
already, but better late then never, right?

So, what's going on? Not that much, really.
Second week of classes again, after the exam
period. I've failed my databases exam, but,
with a 4 for my partial exam, it was kinda
to be expected, I guess.

I've passed statistics with an 8 and Logic and
set theory with a 7. So, my other subjects
are going well. The only subject I'm still
waiting for is Philosophy of Science.
The result should be there soon, I mean,
this *is* the 2nd week of classes!

Anyways, I have passed enough bachelor
subjects in my pre-master, so I am taking
master classes now, and also data structures,
(which is a bachelor subject, still a compulsory
pre-master subject)

And also this semester, I am taking a philosophy
class. "Philosophy and Causality". I must say,
taking philosophy classes have a positive effect
on me. I feel much better now I am taking these
classes.

So... philosophy of science, last semester, is the
first time I was taking a philosophy class, so I
am still kinda new to the area, but, I like it.

Kerst, Christmas, Jul, Noël.... I wish...

2010-12-24T22:19:00.002+01:00

Christmas... yeah, it's that time of the year again.

What I wish for Christmas? I didn't ask for any presents.
Some stupid present can't make me happy. Christmas
has become just some commercial event.

What I wish for Christmas, is for everyone to be happy.
I know, there are too many people out there, who are
not happy. Lonely, depressed. And especially these days,
when the rest of the world seems to be happy, with their
loved ones, it's even harder.

My little wish, it doesn't change the world, but still...
I wish, I wish, for everyone to be happy. I wish that
if you're lonely you'll find someone to love.

Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Merry Christmas
God Jul

First week of classes

2010-11-12T11:51:00.000+01:00

It's friday. The first week of classes after the exam period
has almost finished. I'm still waiting for the results though,
so I don't know yet if I passed my exams. So, now, I've
started taking the statistics classes again. Another subject
I didn't pass last time. Also, this class, Bob is taking it
too. I'm glad to have a subject together with him again.
And I like to be explaining questions, you know.

So, now, I am waiting to see if I passed linear algebra
and basic math. This is the 2nd time I took those
exams. I really hope I passed them, because if not,
I will only have once chance left to pass them. Ugh!

Logic and Databases, those exams were just intermediate
exams. Not everything is lost yet if I didn't pass those,
but I will have to get better grades on the final exams.
So, it would be best if I passed those as well, but
the time for the databases exam was short, and the
logic exam was tougher then the older exams,
even though the teacher denies this, it seems many
other students agree with me.

But this quartile, it's not only retakes of subjects I
failed half a year ago, I'm also taking a new subject.
Philisophy of Science. I had the first class yesterday.
I like the subject so far. Much better then those boring
math subject. Maybe Philosophy suits me better then
Science after all. Maybe.... maybe.... but yeah... isn't
it what I have mentioned before? And the reason why
I did study computer science courses? Oh well...

A day with OpenIndiana

2010-11-10T20:09:00.000+01:00

I must say, I think this Operating System
is slow as shit. I am used to ArchLinux,
that is responsive on my machine. But
OpenIndiana is slow, even when I compare
it to that Microsoft OS.

Another problem I showed up was running
low on Swap space. During installation, I was
only asked for one partition. Since this is a
Solaris OS, it created slices within this
partition.

It turned out, it was using only a swap
of 512 MB, while my system has 1024 MB
of physical memory available.

A quick google told me, resizing the swap
can be done on the fly.
http://blogs.corenetworks.es/2009/08/how-to-dynamically-increase-zfs-swap-space/
This solved the out of memory problems
I was experiencing in the packet manager.

Still, the OS responses slowly, and the
pre-compiled software availability is
rather low (compared to an Linux distro)

Some more software is available from
http://www.blastwave.org/ but it seems
there is outdated software in on there.
For example vlc version 0.8.6f, which
appearently has problem with the playback
of the MPEG4 codec. It's not the video
output since videos using the h264 codec
have correct playback.

I was thinking about compiling the current
version of VLC for my OpenIndiana, but I' m
note sure, this Operating System feels so
unresponsive that it's no fun anymore.

Hello from OpenIndiana

2010-11-10T12:26:00.000+01:00

Hello from OpenIndiana. I am going to type
my post about my experiences with OpenIndiana
again. Yesterday I managed to crash my system,
and appearently Blogger.com's auto safe function
doesn't function on the Opera browser. So. I'm
typing my post again using Firefox, just to be
on the safe side ;)

So, yesterday, I discovered there was still an
unpartitionised hard disk sitting in my computer.
I totally forgot I installed that thing a couple of
months ago. Soooo.... free disk space!!!! What
do do with it?? Install another Operating System!!!

The Operating System of choise was OpenIndiana
(http://openindiana.org/) I've noticed a bug in the
installation program. The installation program
seemed frozen while it was scanning for disks.
I noticed the floppy drive led was on, so I assumed
it was scanning that drive for disks. I guess I was
right, since as soon as I inserted a floppy, the
intstallation program continued. Installation took
up about an hour.

After booting my freshly installed OpenIndiana
and logging in. I had a nice gnome desktop on
my screen. Firefox and Thunderbird were
preinstalled, so, let' s surf the web. Soon firefox
popped up a message about missing flash plugin.
It tried to install the plugin automatically, but failed.
So, manual installation. There is an official Adobe
Flash plugin for Solaris, so downloading that one,
it turned out, it was an archive containing the plain
.so plugin file. No package. Copying the file to the
firefox plugin directory and Flash worked.

Next thing to do, my data. As I've discussed before,
my external hard disks use the ext3 file system.
It seems there is no 'out-of-the-box' support for
it, and there is no driver in the repository. A quick
google found me this page:
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+ext3/Quick+howto
and it worked great.

Well.... we've got firefox, let's try a different browser.
Surfing to www.opera.com and heading to the
downloads section. It displays a message Solaris
is no longer supported, and version 10.11 is the
latest available version. Okay, it's not new,10.63
is the current version, and version 11 alpha is
already availble, but still... let's download the thing.
It seems, Opera did create a package of the program.
Installing went without a problem. The only thing
to mention is, it didn't install itself in the menu,
I had to create the entry manually.

Okay.... what else? I still have some partitions
on my internal hard disk using the ntfs file system.
So, looking for ntfs-3g. Again, not in the repository.
A quick google found me this
http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=97726
and, me, just reading half of the first post, headed
over to http://www.sunfreepacks.com/ and downloaded
the fuse and ntfs-3g packages and installed them.
Installation went fine, but on attempting to
mount an ntfs partition, the system froze.
(This is the point where I lost my post yesterday.)

Reading a bit down on the page, it seems, the
system crash problem has occured by other
users as well, and it seems, I should use a
the fuse version from
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+fuse/Installation
instead.

But now, removing the 'bad' version of fuse?
It doesn't want to leave my system.

pkgrm SUNWlibfuse SUNWfusefs

The following package is currently installed:
SUNWlibfuse FUSE library and utilites
(i386) 2.7.1 (2b58364d0997)

Do you want to remove this package? [y,n,?,q] y

## Removing installed package instance
(A previous attempt may have been unsuccessful.)

This package contains scripts which will be executed with super-user
permission during the process of removing this package.

Do you want to continue with the removal of this package [y,n,?,q] y
## Verifying package dependencies in global zone
## Processing package information.
## Executing preremove script.
## Removing pathnames in class
## Updating system information.

Removal of partially failed.

There is 1 more package to be removed.

Do you want to continue with package removal? [y,n,?,q] y

The following package is currently installed:
SUNWfusefs FUSE kernel module
(i386) 94e1bb59cf91

Do you want to remove this package? [y,n,?,q] y

## Removing installed package instance
(A previous attempt may have been unsuccessful.)

This package contains scripts which will be executed with super-user
permission during the process of removing this package.

Do you want to continue with the removal of this package [y,n,?,q] y
## Verifying package dependencies in global zone
WARNING:
The package depends on the package
currently being removed.
Dependency checking failed.

Do you want to continue with the removal of this package [y,n,?,q] y
## Processing package information.
## Executing preremove script.
Driver (fuse) not installed.
pkgrm: ERROR: preremove script did not complete successfully

Removal of failed.

Oh great, it cannot remove fuse because it's
not installed? Well then, install that other
version? no?

# pkgadd -d SUNWfusefs

The following packages are available:
1 SUNWfusefs FUSE kernel module
(i86pc) Dev Release 12/03/2009

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]:

Processing package instance from

FUSE kernel module(i86pc) Dev Release 12/03/2009

Current administration requires that a unique instance of the
package be created. However, the maximum number of
instances of the package which may be supported at one time on the
same system has already been met.

No changes were made to the system.

So, the seccond version doesn't want to install
because the first, crashy, version doesn't want
to leave the system.

My ASUS Laptop

2010-11-08T16:39:00.000+01:00

Remember my old Asus Laptop?
That thing, with it's defects:
broken dvd drive and broken usb ports.

This laptop was running a server here
at my place, until I took it down a few
months ago, when the system got exploited,
(....due me not installing updates..... stupid me...)

(The machine's networking interface was working
fine, so it's still fine for a server.)

I haven't looked into getting the thing running
again after that event. I tried to backup it's data
before, using an USB-IDE adapter, but it seems,
my adapter isn't working correctly either.

A while ago, I moved some of my old computer
equipment to my place in Eindhoven. That equipment
contained a machine that used a 2,5" disk with an
adapter for regular IDE cable (and a bracket...)

So.... now I've hooked up the laptop's HD to my
desktop machine, and I am creating an image of that
HD.

After that's done, I might want to look into preparing
that disk to be placed back in the laptop. So, I might
want to prepare that disk for OS installation.

As I mentioned, the machine has USB problems. It seems,
doesn't work most of the times, but sometimes it does. I
guess that's how I was able to install it last time... but now,
when I try to boot a live cd, it seems, the BIOS can see the
USB DVD Drive, but the OS reports USB errors while
trying to enumerating the device.

--no title--

2010-11-04T15:11:00.000+01:00

As you've noticed from my posts the past weeks,
I've been busy developing a new site.

I've almost, well... not almost, I've been working
on this like possessed. I've obsessive coding on this,
like starting even during breakfast.
It would have been wiser to spend my time on
studying, but I was obsessed with my project.

I knew this wasn't a good this, obsessed like I
was, but for the moment, working on the
project, seeing the results, that's something
that makes me feel good. But I know I would
have to 'pay the prize' later. I knew, when I
get into that obsessive coding stage for too
long, it would backfire on me. I knew it would
make me feel worse then before, I knew it
would make me feel even lonelier then before.

Loneliness is something that's been haunting me
all my life. Well... maybe... since 2005. It's not
that I wasn't alone before 2005, but I've changed,
somewhen in 2005. Before 2005 it didn't bother
me, but since 2005 it does. I hate this feeling.
Being lonely.

I feel like there are only few people I can relate
to. I only know a few people who, I think, feel and
think like me. People who I actually enjoy talking to.
People who I enjoy listening to. People who can
make me feel better, people who can take this
loneliness away for a while. Unfortunately, none
of these people lives near me. And I haven't been
albe to talk to them in a while.

I wish I knew more people like that. I wish they
would live here in the same city as I do. I wish
I didn't feel this lonely. I want to be happy.
Is that too much to ask?

BlaatSchaap

2010-10-31T17:54:00.000+01:00

Today, I've done a little browser compatibility test:

Opera version 10.63 or higher is required:
older versions don't implement the
onHashChange event.
The site will work fine with Opera 11 Alpha too.

Firefox 3.6 or higher is required.

older versions don't implement the
onHashChange event.
The site doesn't work well with early 4 betas,
but with the latest beta 4.0b6 and the nightly
builds, the site will render fine.

Chrome 6.0 will render the site fine.
Chrome 7.0 will have an issue with
the image error handling code. It's
behaviour seems like a bug to me,
since when I do a traceback, the
object still exists in the in-browser
.onerror code, but as soon at my
ImageError() function is called,
it's suddenly undefined. And as this
code worked with Chrome 6,
and other tested browsers like
Firefox and Opera.

As announced before, Internet Explorer
is officially unsupported. That doesn't
mean I haven't tried

function translate_to_msie_dialect(){
  var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script");
  var l = s.length;
  var i;
  for ( i = 0 ; i < l ; i ++ ) {
   var src = s[i].text;
   s[i].text = src.replace(/.textContent/g, ".text");
  }
}

This code turns standard javascript into microsoft's dialect,
well, as for as the .text vs .textContent concerns.

This works on Internet Explorer 8. Self modifying code
seems to be allowed in the Microsoft browser. When I
try it the other way around, and try to translate a
Microsoft-dialect script to Standard JavaScript, it fails.

Oh well... now.... let me get to the problem with this
script: it only works for in-line javascript, so code
that sits inside <script> tags, and not code
that sits in files, like my code does. Looking at
the HTMLScriptObject documentation, (at the Microsoft
site, I need to know about their version now) I seem
only to be able to access the text within the scripts
and the url to the source file.

I mean, I could run a translation script on the server.
But you see, my problem with that is, some browsers
might support an 'Identify as Internet Explorer'
option. And when that's activated, I might be serving
scripts in Microsoft Dialect to a browser that only
understands Standard JavaScript. So, my thought was,
don't check on the user agent, but check on the dialect.
As in, try to parse a simple XML string, and see which
method gives me the desired value, and if necessary,
apply the translation.

Internet Explorer ... uhm... Exploder off course!

2010-10-29T22:23:00.000+02:00

As I stated before,
"Internet Explorer is officially unsupported at my website",
as this browser, made by some company named Microsoft,
does't comply to the W3C standards, one must develop
the site twice, once for standard complaint browsers and
once for microsoft browsers (and since it differs a lot
between versions of it's browser, maybe even more)

As I've noticed with the BlaatSchaap site, Internet
Explorer has improved a little, and is since version 8
capable of *rendering* the html/css correctly. WOW!

I mean.... Internet Explorer 6 and 7. When I tell it to
draw two boxes, two divs, with a border, with the same
heigth, next to each other, they will turn op with
a different heigth, and it even differs between
version 6 and 7. I've had these issues when I
had this separated Radio BlaatSchaap site where
Eileen insisted on Internet Explorer support. As it
was just a static site, it was not that much trouble.
But still.... seeing what Internet Explorer managed
to put on the screen.....

Well.... now.... version 8. I am surprised it seems to
support XMLHttpRequest correctly. WOW! As in
older versions it seems, one must work with
*shiver* ActiveX stuff. A nightmare!

But, as expected, the site crashed immediately.
It was reporting errors about not being able to
obtain the language strings from the server.
So, I immediately suspected the XMLHttpRequest.
But that one turned out to behave as expected,
no, the problem seems to be in the processing
of the received XML data.

var xmldoc = http.responseXML;
var xmlstrings = xmldoc.getElementsByTagName("strings")[0];
for(i=0; i < xmlstrings.getElementsByTagName("string").length; i++){
var xmlstring = xmlstrings.getElementsByTagName("string")[i];
var objstring = new Object();
alert(xmlstring.getElementsByTagName("lang")[0].textContent)
objstring["lang"] = xmlstring.getElementsByTagName("lang")[0].textContent;
objstring["type"] = xmlstring.getElementsByTagName("type")[0].textContent;
objstring["text"] = xmlstring.getElementsByTagName("text")[0].textContent;
objstring["locked"] = xmlstring.getElementsByTagName("locked")[0].textContent;
strings.push(objstring);
}

This script appears to work on all modern browsers
except Internet Explorer. (Internet Explorer should be
concidered a modern browser when one looks at it's
release date.)

Hopefully it gets better next version. But I will write my
website according to the W3C standards. If some
American company decides to invent their own 'standards',
then that is not my problem. My site is standards complaint,
if your browser is not, don't blaim be.

Oh yes, some people will say, but those n00bs don't
know better, and will use what's pre-installed. Well,
exactly that *is* the problem why that damn piece
of junk is so popular. And it's also why the EU
government forced Microsoft so implement a browser
selection program into their Operating System,
I think it's called 'Windows'

Oh.... enough ranting about Microsoft now... back
to randing about Internet Exploders crappy JavaScript
implementation. So, for some reason, it doesn't execute
the script above according to what it's told to do.

After debugging a bit, it seems to go wrong at the
last step. .textContent is *NOT* supported
by Internet Explorer. After googeling a bit I found
http://www.hiteshagrawal.com/javascript/javascript-parsing-xml-in-javascript

text
Returns the text content assigned to the tag elements. This property cannot be used for reading attribute content. Also this property can only be used for Microsoft Browsers
Syntax:
xml_object.current_pointing_node.text

textContent
Returns the text content assigned to the tag elements. This property cannot be used for reading attribute content. Also this property can only be used for Mozilla, Firefox, Opera Browsers
Syntax:
xml_object.current_pointing_node.textContent

So, appearently in Microsoft JScript it's called text and
in standard 'rest-of-the-world' JavaScript it's called
textContent. Do you get my problem with Microsoft?
Do you get what I mean with non-standard-complaint?

Yes, I have been complaining about Firefox before,
but that's still different, because, the other browsers
were supporting an extra feature, but didn't implement
a feature completely different, and with a little tweak,
the code ran in all standards-complant browsers.

With this Microsoft Browser, I will litterly need to do a
if (microsoft) then {......text} else {.....textContent}

*and* I will need to make this change *everywhere*
where I am parsing XML data. And since I'm developing
a site that is fully AJAX driven, XML parsing in JavaScript,
this will be a pain in the ass to make it Microsoft-compatible,
and will increase the size of the scripts as well, and so
increase the load times of the site as well.

So, I stick to my statement I've made years ago:
Microsoft Browsers are not supported my site.

One more try, Audio tag, Cross Domain XMLHttpRequests

2010-10-28T20:16:00.000+02:00

So, the audio tag, I did give them another try, I didn't
change my html/js codes, but I've updated my firefox.
Chrome is still the same version.

Now, like a miracle, they decided to play music,
even though they refused to do so yesterday.

So, Opera, Firefox and Chrome are capable of
playing IceCast2 streams using the Audio tag
after all.

Yet, it's not perfect. Chrome's tab crashed after
an x amount of time. It did so every time I let it
play the stream. Firefox doesn't show any crash
message, but simply stops playing after an x
amount of time. So even though they passed
the first test, it seems, Opera is still the only
browser with acceptable support for streaming
music.

Next: XMLHttpRequests, their security is rather
script. A request MUST go to the same protocol,
same domain, same port. Since the IceCast2 server
is server it's current song xml data on a different
port then the webserver, the request will fail.

Flash has a solution to allow connections do a
different port. You need to set up a server
listening on port 843. Since this port is below 1024,
you must have root access to the server to set it up.
See the link below for more information:
http://www.adobeursurvey.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/socket_policy_files.html

In the past, I've been looking, wihtout success, for a
simular feature in JavaScript. Yesterday, I've discovered
JavaScript requires a different approach. The server
you are requesting must set a header that tells JavaScript
it's allowed to proceed with it's request.
See the links below for more information:
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/HTTP_access_control
http://www.w3.org/TR/cors/

I should take a closer look at the IceCast2 configuration
if it's possible to insert a header, or else I can modify it's
source code to include that header. I've been doing
some IceCast2 source patching before since there was
a bug in it's ShoutCast compatibility code. I think I've
mentioned it before in my blog. I think it was something
like it was sending one newline in stead of two.

WTF??

2010-10-28T19:55:00.001+02:00

Appearently, Blogger didn't post the full
text I typed for some reason....

I will have to rewrite everything again.

Some additions to the audio tag story
and about cross domain scripting.
tag allows streaming
radio in both firefox and chrome too.

So, opera, chrome and firefox will handle the
radio stream correctly now. So, it might still
be usable after all. The caching problem might
be fixed by patching IceCast2's http response
headers. I was thinking about patching them
anyways, as I've been looking into some
headers related to the XMLHttpRequest
javascript object.

As, for security reasons, cross site scripting is
not allowed. The XMLHttpRequest is very
strict about his. Must be same domain and port.
Same server different port, or a subdomain is not
allowed. I have been looking at this before,
without success. Even a redirect by HTTP
header doesn't get around this

When using flash, one must run an application at
the server that listens on port 843.
( see http://www.adobeursurvey.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/socket_policy_files.html )
Due it listens on a port below 1024, one must
have root access to the webserver to set this up.

I have been looking for a simular thing for
JavaScirpt without success, but I found our
JavaScript takes a totally different approach.

I've found out about this by looking at Chrome's
JavaScript console. It turnes our, the receiving
HTTP server is supposed to set a certain header
to tell JavaScript it's allowed to do a cross site
XMLHttpRequest. See:
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Server-Side_Access_Control
http://www.w3.org/TR/cors/

Javascript and Languages

2010-10-28T18:58:00.002+02:00

I've been scripting all day again. Improved some
error handling for example, when I catch an error
I will first try to display it using the 'soft' dialog
produced by JavaScript, and only if it fails, do a fallback
to JavaScripts alert();

There is some more errror handling to be implemented.
Since I've used a 'template' to implement the XMLHttpRequests,
I currently only do a readyState=4 && status=200 check.
I should add a check for different statuses, to see if the
server is reporting some kind of error. And some more error
handling issues.

But another problem I am running into, the old site,
where all scripting happens on the server, it was no
problem determining the users preferred languages.
There values are available in the HTTP Request header
"Accept-Language". I found a nice PHP script, that handles
it more efficient then the current script.
( http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/use-accept-language-header )
But now, I want to do it using JavaScript. I have been
googling around a bit, and with little success. It seems
the only thing I can detect is the users browser langauge.
I might use that in stead, but, the Accept-Language header
represents the settings the user had made about the
language he wants to see, and in which order. It will
most likely consist of multiple languages (for non-Americans)

I mean, I can always 'fall-back' to English, but I would like
the site to be displayed in the native language if supported.

So, I might do, rather inefficient, have a PHP script return
these values back to the browser for parsing. I mean, I am
doing Client-side scripting now,

or I might look at the browsers language. But imagine a
user using an icelandic browser, with configured

Accept-Langauge : is, nb; q=0.9, nn; q=0.8, sv; q=0.7 en; q=0.6

Sp, according to this Accept-Language string, the site
should check if Icelandic content is available, if not then
Norwegian Bokmål, if not then Norwegian Nynorsk,
if not then Swedish, if not then English.

This information is not available when I just look at
the browser langauge, which means, I see Icelandic,
I know I don't have a translation, I fall back to English,
while the user has configured he would like Norwegian
Bokmål as first alternative.

Or, even imagine a user who's browser langauge is not
his first langauge in his Accept-Language list?

ReBlogging, BlaatSchaap Style

2010-10-28T01:56:00.000+02:00

Just some thoughts... BlaatSchaap... and it's
planned 'reblog' feature. Since I've been suspended
from Tumblr, this feature has moved up in the feature
priority list.

I am thinking about two kinds of reblogs. A regular reblog,
which will be accessible through the regular access sceme.
(public, frinds only, or specific friendlists)

Still... doing this creates the situation of having a
'facebook' and a 'tumblr' on one site. There is a
reason there is an 'unwritten rule' not to link your
Tumblr on Facebook. For this reason, I am thinking
about an anonymous public accessable reblog.

Well... how will it work... on FaceBook, we have
this 'like' feature. I am thinking about, on BlaatSchaap,
'liking' a photo will add it to a reblog.
See it like an album of 'liked' photos across the site.

Well.. what about external images, as you can
enter an url on Tumblr to add to your tumblrblog.

So, I am thinking about downloading them to the
server and keeping the original URL as source
on the server.

Even more, support for RSS feeds might be added
as well, as I've mentioned before... well... the idea
is to display the content of the RSS feeds you've
subscribed to and then you can click the photos
you wish to add to your reblog. Basically the same
as following someone on Tumblr itself.

The thing I'll have to think about, is reblogging
between anonymous and regular reblogs, as
with a regular blog, I will just display the username,
but for an anonymous blog, I will display the blogname.
I am thinking what will happen when a user changes
the type between regular and anonymous.

Using the HTML5 Audio tag to play an IceCast2 stream.

2010-10-28T01:24:00.003+02:00

As I am rebuilding the BlaatSchaap site, I want to keep it
up to modern standards. So, I am using HTML5 for it.
If you look at it's DOCTYPE you will notice it is HTML5.

You might also know that I have run a radio station in the
past.

I think I have been experimenting with this in the past
and ran into issues too.

The problem, the HTML5 audio tag is very suitable for
playing audio files, but it fails for audio streams.

Chrome connects to the IceCast server correctly, and when
I tell it to display controls, it claims to be playing, but no audio
is produced.

Firefox 3.6 fails totally and will only display a 'loading' symbol
when the controls are enabled.
Firefox 4.0 beta8 nightly build will behave like Chrome, and
be playing 'on screen' without producing sound.

The only browser that appears to be successful playing the
IceCast2 stream is Opera. For this test I've used the
release version 10.63. Even though it plays, there are some
issues related to the fact that the javascript API for the audio
tag assumes it handles files, with a fixed size, rather then an
endless stream.

The first issue is, there is no stop() function. Only play() and
pause(). This results in, it will continue streaming when one
'pauses' the playback. This is to be expected when one
pauses the playback rather then stops it. One solution to
this issue is to write and delete the audio tag from Javascript.

HTML:

<div id="player" style="display:block; height:100px; width:300px; border: 1px dashed red; ">
test
</div>

JavaScript:

function Play(){
document.getElementById("player").innerHTML='playing<audio autoplay><source src="http://www.blaatschaap.be:8200/stream.ogg" type="audio/ogg; codecs=vorbis"><source src="http://www.blaatschaap.be:8200/stream.mp3" ></audio>';
}

function Stop(){
document.getElementById("player").innerHTML="stopped";

}

By deleting the audio tag this way, it will stop the connection to the server too. But there is still an issue. The stream is still buffered. When once starts the stream again, by rewriting the audio tag into the html document, it will start playing the buffer it had been playing before, and so, plays a few seconds of old content before it resumes the current live stream.

It seems the audio tag is not suitable to play radio streams. So far, the only reliable way to play radio streams, semi-platform independant, is using a Java based ogg player: Jorbis (http://www.jcraft.com/jorbis/) which I have been using on my site before. But still.... it depends on Java being installed.

BlaatSchaap 'live' planned features

2010-10-27T22:04:00.000+02:00

BlaatSchaap 'live'

I've been blogging quite a bit about my experiences
while working on it. Let's see.... what has been done,
what is still on the todo list:

Translation tool:

in-line translator works so far
add voting feature
not 'in-line' translator
option to delete a translation by the original translator

Other features to be implemented

Views for photo albums
Views for video albums
Photo uploading
Video uploading
Video converting
Friends list manager
Access list manager
Automated backups
Profile editor
Account editor
'Wall' implementation (possible 'port' of the oldbeta implementation)
New photo script enforcing the new access schema
Forums
Notifications
Messaging support
Sending email notifications

Possible features to implement:

OpenID login
OpenID provider
OpenSocial Application Support (container)
Blog (Regular text blog)
ReBlog (Tumblr style) (with possible anonymous function)
Facebook connect login
Email hosting (username@blaatschaap.be)
BlaatNET (Communication Server)

'facebook-style' chatbar
XMPP
IRC

Am I missing something?

Tumblr

2010-10-27T18:37:00.000+02:00

Appearently my Tumblr account has been suspended.
I assume this is because of reblogging copyrighted
material, since I recently started reblogging images
with a site logo on them. In the past I used to ignore
those, and I think it would have been better if I hadn't
changed my mind about them.
A number of the people I used to follow on Tumblr
has been suspended as well. I will continue to follow
some of the people still alive on Tumblr using
the RSS feed Tumblr offers.

Apart from that, I am planning to add Tumblr-like
functionality to BlaatSchaap 'live' anyways. I had
been thinking about this before, and I was planning
to add an 'export to Tumblr' feature. (if possible,
I haven't looked into their API yet) I guess, no
exporting anymore ;) Importing should still be
possible through RSS feed. But this will be a
general RSS feed feature, not Tumblr specific.

Firefox and SVG Images

2010-10-27T18:31:00.001+02:00

So, I've mentioned Firefox and SVG Problems.
From the information I've read it should be fixed
in 4.0b7. I am running a nightly build of beta 8.
In this nightly build, you can use the img tag to
load an svg image, but it doesn't auto resize if a
fixed size is written in the svg file. A problem I've
encountered before in my SVG tests.

So, what to do: Open the SVG file and look for
something that looks like

width="500.00000px"
height="500.00000px"

and replace it with

viewBox="0 0 500 500"

Then firefox 4.0b8 will resize the image to the
size you've specified in the img tag.

Of course we don't expect all firefox users to
run the latest beta, so, how will be to a fallback
to png?

I added a little javascript, which works for Firefox 4.0b6.
I will still have to test it for the latest regular build, but
I assume it will work too.

I am using this little JavaScript function

function SVGPNGImage(img){
    var src= img.src;
    src= src.replace(".svg", ".png");
    img.onerror=undefined;
    img.src = src;
}

And the HTML will be like

<img height="50" id="imglogo" onerror="SVGPNGImage(imglogo);" src="/images/sheep.svg" width="50" />

In this example we assume we have both

/images/sheep.svg
/images/sheep.png

on our server.

Translations and SVG support

2010-10-25T17:36:00.001+02:00

BlaatSchaap members might already know this,
but I am working on an in-site translation tool.

If you want to help translating, please do so ;)

Well... I've been working on the site, and I am making
progress. I have now a 'menu' in JavaScript/CSS.

I thought it was time to throw in some graphics.
I've looked in the http://www.openclipart.org/
Open (Public Domain) clipart to find some
graphics. (The current BS logo comes from there
as well)

Since we have modern browers nowadays, I decided
to try to use the SVG format, as served on that site.

It works fine in Opera and Chrome, but Firefox is a bitch.
Both Opera and Chrome will accept the img tag for an
image in the svg format.

Firefox does not, and will only accept it through a object tag.
The object tag has it's problems, transparency is not respected
and the onClick() events are not fired.
And more problems, like it doesn't scale lime I can so in
the img tag. When I try that I will get scrollbars.
Turned out I needed make some patches in the
svg file itself to allow it to be scaled.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=276431
(looks like it will be solved next firefox 4 beta?)
(a bug reported in 2004?)

MySQL

2010-10-22T15:28:00.001+02:00

I should be studying. I have a databases exam
on monday, but in stead, I am scripting again.
Like I said before, it's the wrong time for
my inspiration to kick in, but it did. lol.

Since I've learned some SQL during class I've
never seen before, I decided to use it. As, for
what I am trying to do, I needed something like
I've learned in class.

Welcome to reality: It doesn't work in MySQL.
What good is it to be tought something that
doesn't work like that in the Real World™?

Okay, MySQL is not the only database software
out there, but it's one of the major SQL implementations
out there, isn't it?

I am talking about the EXCEPT operator
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_operations_(SQL)#EXCEPT_operator )
which is not supported by MySQL
( http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=1309 )

The example on Wikipedia doesn't exactly need
the except operator, could be written by just
changing the where clause.

The problem I am running into, makes it hard
to rewrite without the except operator.

As I am rewriting the site, the internal database
structure changed as well. I am trying to write
a script that imports data from the old database
to the new database.

The affected part is the rights management system.
The old site has only an access list for private photos.
This is stored per-photo. A simple table with three colums
(id, photo, user) where photo is the photo id and user is
the user id. Plain and simple.

The new rights management system will be more complex.
The idea is to create groups of friends, and assign one or
more of there friendsgroups as authorised to access the
item. (As it will not be limited to photos anymore in the
new design)

Now, the conversion. I look at each private photo, and
take it's ID. I look this ID up in the table I described above,
and retrieve the user IDs of this photo.

Now, I want to check if there exsist a friend list
containing these people AND NOONE ELSE.

select `list` from `friendlist` where `friend`='14' or `friend`='41' except (select * from `friendlist` where not `friend`='14' and not `friend`='41')";

This would be the query to do so, except for the fact
that MySQL doesn't support EXCEPT.

JavaScript

2010-10-20T16:45:00.000+02:00

Like I've mentioned before, I am working on a new version

of the BlaatSchaap Website. This is supposed to be a 'live'

website. Loading content dynamic without refreshing á la AJAX.

So, depending on what page the user is looking at, I

include different JavaScript source files, using the method found on

http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/javascript/script17_include_js_from_js.htm

On page load, this method works correctly, but since I want to

be able change the content of the site from JavaScript only

after the initial site is loaded, I want to include more script

based on user events.

That's when the trouble appears. When I try to use this method,

after the initial page load, the document.write function, used

in this method causes my whole document to disappear.

I've only started using this method, after my initial attempts to

just write the code to a div caused in no result, the code wasn't

being parsed. It seems the code is only parsed when I use the

document.write function.

Living my life.

2010-10-14T11:39:00.000+02:00

How to be successful in life?
What does that even mean?
Making your own choices, and live with
the results, whatever they might be.
Maybe that's what it means?

In February, I started studying at the
Eindhoven University of Technology.
I've moved out, living on my own since
March. My choices. My own choices.
I have more freedom now, not living
with my family now. I am free to do
what I want. But that also means I am
free to screw up now. With that, I mean,
if something goes wrong, it was my fault,
no one else to blaim. But it also means,
if something goes wrong, it's my problem,
I don't have to justify it to anyone, just myself.

Let's see.... I started studying in February.
Now, I am taking the basic math and linear
algebra and logic courses again. I failed for those
tests half a year ago. I will also have to take the
statistics a course again, which I also failed.

At the beginning of this year, I wasn't very stable.
That might explain why I didn't pass all my tests.
Let me say, I even worse before I started studying,
and nowadays I am feeling much better. But what
was going on, earlier this year?

Like I said, I wasn't being very stable, and, like I
mentioned before in my other blogposts, there was
Joshua. I was in love with him, and he made me happy.

But, what was the problem then? I was too dependant.
I depended on him to be happy. It was like, I could only
be happy when I was talking to him, and so, I spend all
my time talking to him, neglecting my homework. And so
I failed my tests.

But like I said, my problem, not yours! I will take the test
again, and succeed this time. That's the plan! And I am
not giving up that plan, because, like I said, I am here,
here in Eindhoven, only because it was my choice.

This is my life, my choices, and I am not allowing anyone
to stop me from doing what I choose to do. And even if I
will fail, then it's only because of the choices I made.

And I might have explained why I failed the first time, but
also, that was my choice, I didn't have to do that.

Even if I will fail university, I will still be successful in life,
because, it was all because of my choices, and what resulted
from them, and not because I let you made that choice for me.

P.S. I might blog some more soon ;) I might have some
inspiration by some conversations I had recently.

Another post, I am spamming allright?

2010-10-13T22:03:00.000+02:00

Yeah, another post, I am spamming, allright?
I can think about a few more things I wish to
write down. Well.... like I mentioned in my
previous post, I was supposed to do my AJAX
stuff during summer vacation, but I didn't.
No movitation, no inspiration.

Well... the reason behind the lack of
motivation, well... I was just emotionally
not feeling like doing something like that.

I guess.... I wasn't feeling that well the
first half of this year. Not complaining though,
I've mentioned this before, I don't want to use
the word depressed, since, compared to
December 2005, it was nothing.

Then, how did I get through the first
half of this year? Well, I guess, most of
the people who read this already know
the answer to that... was Joshua.

Man, I was really in love with him, and then,
from one day to the next, he started acting
like never anything happened between us.

It wasn't going well between us for a while.
It started when summer vacation started, and
that also explains why no coding happened
during summer, since I was feeling sick because
I missed Josh so much. Yet another time my
heart was broken. Another love disappeared
into nothingness. Is that all that ever happens to me?

I think I will tell more in another blogpost, because
there are still many things, on various related
subjects I want to tell.

But Josh.... the thing that bothers me most is the way
it ended. He just started acting like nothing ever
happened, even though, just days before, he was
saying things like he would always be there for me,
yada yada, then, he disappeared, and then,
when he returned, he was acting, well,
like nothing ever happened. But the worst thing is,
when I asked him about it, he refused to answer.

Yet, to the point where I am now.... do I wish I
never knew him? The answer is... I wouldn't
want to change anything that happened,
I was having a tough time, and he helped me through.
He even made me happy, if only for a short while,
he did.

And besides that, because of Joshua, I've made some
new friends on facebook. People I wouldn't know
without him, so, in the end, I wouldn't even want to
change anything to what happened. The people I
know because of him, and an old friends I started
talking to again, because of him.

And when I think about it....it's all a chain of events,
everything started, that afternoon, at college, that
afternoon, when I decided not to go home get, but
sit in the canteen and surf a bit on the internet....
An action, seeming to insignificant, but it seems,
that decision had a huge impact on my life.

AJAX. BSCP

2010-10-13T20:35:00.000+02:00

Okay, people started complaining I should blog some more,
so, here it goes.

I've finally started something that I planned to do during summer
vacation. But until recently, I was lacking inspiration and motivation.

But, what I planned to do, and what I started to do, is take a look
at JavaScript and more specifically, AJAX.

I've never used the language before, but well... it's just another
language. The basics of coding are the same anyways.

So, what I trying to do, is to bring the BlaatSchaap site to a new
level. Let's call it "BlaatSchaap Live". Basically, it means, let the
site do stuff that facebook does. Notifications if someone leaves
you a comment, without refreshing, and stuff like that.

When I started working on the current site, about two years
ago, I decided to do no JavaScript. Everything would be
server rendered, to make the site depend on the browser
as least as possible. In practice, it turned out, old browsers
wouldn't render the site correctly anyways.
*casts a dirty look at internet explorer* Yeah, Internet Explorer,
older then version 8, renders CSS in a.... rather weird way.
This is something I experienced with the Radio BlaatSchaap
site back in the days. Two divs next to each other, with the
same height specified in the CSS would render with a
different height.

Well... enough about that. *casts another dirty look at MSIE*
That browser is officially 'unsupported' at my website anyways.

So, AJAX, JavaScript and PHP it is. So, I am rewriting everything.
Both server side and client side. I am working on a more modular
design too. I am thinking about writing a server rendered version too,
within the same new modular design, I am trying to separate functionality
from rendering code.

In the old design, it was all-in-ons. Every functionality module just added
it's output (HTML code) into a variable, that get's echo'd in the end.
In the new design, everything gets stored as XML in a variable.
In AJAX mode, XML renderer, the XML code gets simply echo'd
again.

If I decide to create a server rendered version of the site, this XML
gets processed again and so the content will be generated. This
may seem a little double work, encoding and decoding XML again,
but this way I can generate my content more flexible.

Current BlaatSchaap mobile support is also minimal. And the rendering
of the mobile part is also determined in the functional modules, another
reason to implement the new design.

There are also some other things about the current BlaatSchaap site that
must be changed, but I've decided to change them while rewriting, since
everything will be re-designed to fit in the new modular structure.
I am talking about redesigning the messaging system, adding photo album
support rather then just photo uploads.

A new feature I already started working on in the old model, and that
most likely won't appear live in the old design, is a 'facebook-like' wall
support. The current WIP implementation already supports posting
external photos to your wall, with on server image caching.
Well... this feature will have to be ported to the new structure.

I might even restart some other BSCP's (BlaatSchaap Coding Projects)
that have been frozen for the past years.

*pokes Nuky* I might even consider BlaatNET ;) I even have my
plans for that :P

Another project, that has been sitting in the freezer for years
is BlaatScrobbler. This project was frozen because I had some
Mutex problems, on Windows, that is. and as you might know,
Windows is not my favourite OS, and that includes coding for it.
Interprocesscommunication, you know. I have my shared memory
working, but I need to signal my application when it can read data
from the shared memory, but that damn mutex refused to wait...

Yeah, that was another coding project from long ago.
So much to do..... so much I should have done the past
years. But now, now I finally have found my motivation,
I have more important stuff to do, like studying for my exams.
Damn math!

Converting NTFS to ext3

2010-10-13T20:05:00.000+02:00

When you google for information about converting NTFS to ext2/3/4,
you will find many pages saying it's impossible.
Actually, it's possible, and rather simple to perform this conversion.

The command to perform this conversion is "anyconvertfs",
which is part of the "anyfs-tools" package.

[root@blaatkonijn andre]# anyconvertfs /dev/sdd1 ext3

Converting of "/dev/sdd1" from fuseblk to ext3
New filesystem label: ""
Old filesystem blocksize: 4096
Blocksize for new filesystem: 4096
Mount point: "/tmp/anyconvertfs2910/mountpoint"
Mount options: "rw"
Temporary directory: "/tmp/anyconvertfs2910"
Inode table: "/tmp/anyconvertfs2910/inodetable"
First step which destroy old filesystem: 5
Rescue List: "/tmp/anyconvertfs2910/rescue.list"
Rescue Directory: "/tmp/anyconvertfs2910/rescue"
Please, attentively check information above,
and then press Enter

Step 1. Building inode table (with build_it).
build_it 0.85.1c (19 Jun 2010)
creating inode table: 99.84% (18383/18413) done
Done

Step 1a. Rescue (copy) files not aligned with block boundaries.
Done

Step 2. Noops (check if enough space) reblock anyfs (with reblock).
Good. Filesystem already has 4096 blocksize
Skip

Step 3. Reblock anyfs (with reblock).
Skip

Step 4. Noops (check if enough space) build new filesystem (with "build_e2fs").
build_e2fs 0.85.1c (19 Jun 2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
61063168 inodes, 122096000 blocks
6104800 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
3727 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000

Starting search of info blocks at system blocks
Search user info at system blocks: 99.99% (122084808/122096000) done
Releasing blocks of system info successful
Starting building ext2fs filesystem
building inodes: 100.00% (135772/135776) done
Creating journal (32768 blocks):
Done

Step 5. Build new filesystem (with "build_e2fs").
Sleep 7 seconds... It's your last chance to save the old filesystem.
Press Ctrl+C to cancel converting.
7...6...5...4...3...2...1...0...
build_e2fs 0.85.1c (19 Jun 2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
61063168 inodes, 122096000 blocks
6104800 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
3727 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000

Starting search of info blocks at system blocks
Search user info at system blocks: 99.99% (122084808/122096000) done
Releasing blocks of system info successful
Writing inode tables: 99.97% (3726/3727) done
Starting building ext2fs filesystem
building inodes: 100.00% (135772/135776) done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 32 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
Done

Step 5a. Move rescued files to new filesystem.
Done
Inode table was saved. See "/tmp/anyconvertfs2910/inodetable".
rmdir: failed to remove `/tmp/anyconvertfs2910': Directory not empty
Successful

Greeting from Munich

2010-08-26T12:33:00.000+02:00

Sooo.... as my facebook friends might
already know through my status updates,
I am at my dad's place, in Point, a town
near Munich.

So, I arrived here last sunday, and I will
leave next sunday, since my classes start
again on monday.

So, monday we (My dad, Yolande and me) went
to the botanic garden (Botanischer Garten)
and Nymphenburg castle. I have uploaded
photos to Facebook and MyOpera. I guess
I'll upload them to Hyves as well.

I've made some more photos in Munich
yesterday, but I will upload them later.

I am using my dads laptop now. He's using
an UMTS modem, since there is no fixed
line possible where he lives.

I can't use my own internet now, since I
am already through my roaming data limit.
Yeah, that new european law that limits the
maximal costs for roaming data traffic kicked
in.

SSL

2010-08-02T19:20:00.000+02:00

So, it seems I can get a free valid signed SSL certificate
from https://www.startssl.com/

It should be working now on https://www.blaatschaap.be
No more nagging about self-signed certificate and so.

Well... now... my little problem the startssl.com site caused.
As it uses a personal SSL certificate for logging in. As I
signed up to this site using Chrome on Linux, it installed
this certificate into Chrome. Bad bad Chrome, it didn't
ask for my permission!
But that's not the problem yet.... the problem is backupping it.

Chrome for Linux doesn't appear to have a certificate
management tool build in. All it does it refer to this site
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxCertManagement

Well.... after looking around a bit I found
a GUI tool for managing Mozilla style certificate databases
https://fedorahosted.org/nss-gui/

And so, I have been able to back up the file, still I think
Google should integrate such a tool into their browser.

Nice to use open standards for storing your certificated,
I mean, it's a great decision. But having to use an external
tool to manage your certificates is not optimal.

Religion, Society...

2010-07-19T01:00:00.003+02:00

So... I wrote something about religion a while ago,
and I promised to write some more about the subject.

Right... so... let me take you back to a time when I
was a wiccan. I had a friend, who didn't accept my
religion, a friend who said I was being deceived by
the devil himself. A friend who asked me if I wasn't
affraid I wouldn't burn in hell for not believing in his
God.

Later, it turned out this friend was being brainwashed
by this sect. He managed to get out of this sect, but
then, he was talking to me, talking about returning there.
In that sect, he felt like he found a place where people
cared about him, a place where he had friends.

But when he was out, he was all alone again, alone
against he big bad world. And even though in that
sect he didn't have freedom. The music he liked to
listen, and the music he liked to make himself, was
being disapproved, for example. But still, he was
thinking about going back there...

What does this mean??? What does it mean???
Maybe it's not about believing in their God at all,
maybe it's just about belonging somewhere, to
belong to a group. To be accepted...
But in the end, to be accepted for someone you are not.

To belong somewhere, to be accepted, isn't that
what turned Christianity to it's success in it's early days.
Yes, there have been the days of the Inquisition where
non-believers were being punished, but before that?

The image of the devil was created after the Gods
of the old religions. So, after converting enough people,
peer pressure would persuide the ones not converted
yet, and even.... made them prepared to kill those
who didn't believe in their new God.

Also, I wonder, what was the world like, before
Christianity was forced upon the people. Things
like marriage were things done by the Church in
the early days. But what were relationships like
before Christianity? Christianity promoted
monogamous relationships, right? But were
they like that before Christianity?

Now, let me take a little detour to science fiction,
okay? Star Trek: Enterprise. On board of this
Enterprise, there is this Doctor Phlox, a Denobulan.
In the Star Trek: Enterprise series, there are a few
episodes in wich the Denobulan society, and their
polygamous relationships have a role.

The way I watch the Star Trek series, and observe
the different social structures of different species,
makes me think sometimes as a reflection of our
own. It makes me sometimes think they were
created to question our own.

Religion etc.

2010-07-05T13:58:00.001+02:00

People, It has been a long time since I posted
here in my blog. And I've promised to write
about this subject a long time ago. Well....
were do I start.

So, last Friday I had my last exam, so it's
summer vacation now. So, I've spend the
weekend at a friend's place. Well, actually,
we went to Amsterdam on Saturday.

In Amsterdam, we went also to
the Amsterdam Dungeon. A tour through
the dark past of the city. Yes, it's just a ride
for tourist, I realise that, but it's based on
historical facts. And the first scene in history
we get to see.... the Spanish Inquisition.
People being tortured and killed, in the love
of God.

Isn't that why, centuries ago, people fled
Europe, immigrated to the New World,
America, to be free in their religion?

Religion, yeah? That's what this post was
supposed to be about. Well. my original
plans contained two posts, one general
post and one personal post. Oh well...
it will be a long read, so yeah, where was I?

So, I've spend the weekend at my friend's
place (I am still there). So, yesterday morning
(yes, the 4th of July, but yeah, we're in the
Netherlands, we've different national days,
do you know any of them???) So, in the morning
I was talking to my friend, about my views about
religion, the world, etc.
Oh, it's nice talking to open minded people ;)

Of topic: Quote time: "The mind is like a
parachute, it only works when it's open"

My friend also told me about his vacation in Mexico,
and about the nature religions there. He said he
respects that kind of religions. Well, that's a point
where we agree ;). Nature religions often include
rituals and magic. And trust me, magic works.

Okay, now I've mentioned nature religions, I would
like to take you back to a part of my childhood.
(Oh, yes, it seems I am combining both my planned
general and personal post, so take your time reading this)

So, as I guess, some of you might already know, I was
baptised at the age of three, when my mother was dying.
When I was a kid I went to a Catholic Primary School,
simply, because it was the closest one to where I lived.
In the province where I grew up, they are rather common.

But even though it was a Catholic Primary School, it
was a tolerant one. The immigrants children, Muslims,
they were threaded just the same like everyone else.
And when we had 'religion class' they went to their
own class. Oh, yes, as you see, it's possible to be
tolerant, and even give Muslims class about their own
religion on a Catholic Primary School.

Yes, that's the place I grew up in my very young years.
I've heard about Catholic Primary Schools, where it was
compulsory to be baptised to be allowed to attend it.

So, yeah, I attended this Catholic Primary School, and so
I did my First Communion at the age of 6. I mean, back then
I already realised Christianity was a lot of bullshit, sorry
to say so, but it is. But yeah, I think to most 6-year-olds it
would just be a party, presents, and stuff, right?

Well, at primary school, I had, of course, history class too.
We had to learn about ancient european people, and also
their religion and their Gods and Goddesses. That history
class, it inspired me. But I was tought those religions were
gone. I was tought Christianity was forced upon the people,
and if you didn't agree you would be burned as witch. Yes,
they tought that at a Catholic School, keep that in mind.
I remember what the head master once told us, he said that
in his days you got beaten if you said you didn't believe.

I was attending this Catholic Primary School, so at the age
of 12, I did this 'Confirmation' (nl: Vormsel). I remember
some priest making a cross on my forehead with some kind
of... vaseline, I guess. Don't know how to describe it.

Okay, now we'll make a little time jump. There happened
some important things in my life in the time in between,
but since I'm talking about religion today, I'll skip that.
So, we're going to the year 2002. In that time, I was
attending a 'Senior Secondary Technical School'
(nl: MBO) (Leeuwenborgh Opleidingen)

So, I was attending this school, right? Back then, I didn't

have an internet connection at 'home' (I was already living

at my aunt and uncle's place for a few years in that time)

So, I used the schools computer room for my internet needs.

Afin, I know it isn't polite to look over someone's shoulder,

but I noticed someone looking at this website about witchcraft,

and I just looked to see what URL this person was visiting.

So, that was when I first read about Wicca. When I read about

it, I had a feeling like "This is what I have been looking for

all my life." And then I bought a book about Wicca.

"Heksen en Witte Magie" by "Lucy Summers"

This first book had a very open style. I mean, it's opinion,

how it told about Wicca, it was very open minded. It

presented Wicca in a way I would like to see a religion.

Later, on the internet, I found some 'purists' claiming that

only people who follow the specific 'traditions'

(nl: stromingen) (some things are hard for me to tell in

english, since these are subjects I usually don't discuss)

should be allowed to call themselves Wiccans. So,

since then, I preferred to use the word Pagan to

describe my 'religion'.

But later on in my life, due certain disappointments

in life, in certain people, I could say I've even lost that.

I went from Pagan to Agnost to Atheist. Maybe I could

way I am Spiritual, not Religious. Maybe... but the past

months, I might have been thinking about using the word

Pagan again? But yeah... my views aren't exactly the

typical Pagan view either.

If I would start talking about my views, I suppose I would

be flamed by both fundamentalist Christians as well by

fundamentalist Atheists! So, Religions.... the question,

'Do you believe in God(s/es(ses))?' Well... before

answering that question, I'll ask the question 'What

is God?' first. **Gets ready to be shot** In my point

of view, I would say, 'God' is the 'collective subconscious'

of all living things on the planet. Every living soul

together is God.

Well.... I guess that's it for now. I've written a long post,

and I will write some more, I promise. Now, shoot me,

Religious Fundamentalists! SHOOT ME!!!

Work?

2010-05-24T01:21:00.000+02:00

As you might now, before I started university,
I had a job at a software company. But I wasn't
happy at that place.

I think my work was boring and below my skill
level. Also, my colleagues were part of the
problem. It's not that they weren't nice people.
Please don't understand me wrong, they haven't
done anything wrong. It's just, they were so
different from me, their way of thinking, that
I just felt so left out. I didn't belong to that place.

As for my job, I think, the most important thing that
was wrong with it is that I could do anything creative.
I was just adjusting the interface to the new style,
making some templates for reports, and stuff. I mean
pretty boring.... and mind-numbing ,,, depressing.

When I was doing my thesis work in Sweden,
I mean, the stuff I did there, I had my freedom
to be creative, and to find my own solutions to
the task I had to do. I liked the atmosphere there.
Working on the OpenLabs project was fun, and I
can imagine working on a place like that.

Creativity... let's do this... together!

2010-05-21T18:53:00.000+02:00

So, I have mentioned before, I was
thinking about the story I started a
few years ago. I have also been thinking
about drawing stuff again...

May I take you back, again, to the time
I was coding the BlaatSchaap site, and
think about what it was supposed to
become. It was supposed to become a
place to share thoughts and creativity.

I was going to make a place to submit
art, written as well as graphic. Drawings,
paintings, stories, poems, everything.

Apart from that it was also a place
where we were planning to study
each others languages, and a lot more.

Great ideas, but I can't make them come
true alone. I need people who want to
co-operate on this. And the interest from
the BlaatSchaap community turned out
to be low.

And yes, even the person who liked those
ideas a lot, yes, Nuky, I mean you, let me
down on this. I guess, this is also the reason
I wanted new people to join BlaatSchaap.

But yeah... then... for me... I had this mind-numbing
job, making me feel exhausted and depressed...
but now I am at university, I want to try to be creative
again.... but I need some help! So people! Move your
asses!

Happyness... part 2

2010-05-20T20:44:00.002+02:00

I promised this blogspot on facebook,
yesterday afternoon.

This post is related to my previous post,
and it's about math. How are there
related? you might think.

Well... look at what a friend of mine
once said to me, about thinking. I guess
I need to keep thinking about other stuff.

I mean.... I suck at math. Why? Because in
my previous education, before university,
I hardly had any math. And you've seen the
results, I got a 3 for my math test.
(Grades are from 1 to 10, you need at least 6)

The thing is, the moment I understand it,
it becomes 'fun'. I mean... then it becomes
fun to solve more equations. I mean...
it feels good to be able to solve it.

Ya know.... same goes for the current
BlaatSchaap site. I made that site
after I finished college
(HBO, Fontys University of Applied Science)

I mean... making progess, seeing it to
start working... the satisfaction to have
created something.... feels good.

But then I had this job at this company.
All I did was some stupid copy-pasting,
really, mind-numbing work. That made
me tired and depressed, and the only
thing that kept me going was thinking
about going to University.

Well... here I am, at university, right?
Not saying my life is perfect here, but
this is a lot better then that job I had.

But just looking back, at the time I
coded the BlaatSchaap site. Just coding
all day isn't enough to keep me happy
either. I mean... it's only a part of it.
After coding for a while, I really need
some social contact too. Coding too
much at one time makes me feel very
lonely.

Having said this... maybe I should try
some activities again I once started,
but never continued. Lol. I once made
some drawings, they are on DeviantArt.

The thing is... only a few things I could
draw, and something else would just look
awfull... drawing the same every time
is boring.

Also, I was looking at some story I was
writing two years back. Thinking about
maybe continuing that.

Happyness...

2010-05-18T18:49:00.000+02:00

Ya know what? At the moment, I am happy. Let's hope
it stays that way for a while. As I wrote before, my life
is going up and down. But this is an 'up' moment.

Still... I am going to quote myself, something I've said
back in 2006, a dark time in my life. Back then, I said
"Sometimes it's better to be depressed together then
to be happy alone". Maybe today isn't that day, but
think about it. Do you realise what it means? If so,
then I guess you would understand why I just said that.

The word 'happy' means two things, for which, in
the Dutch language we have two different words.
"Gelukkig" en "blij". Maybe that's a clue to what
that quote means... one can be 'gelukkig' without
being 'blij'.

I would also like to quote a friend of mine, who once
said to me: "Being smart is a curse. Smart people think
fast, so they can think a lot. Too much thinking leads
to depression."

Ya know what my friends, I wish I could show you
the world through my eyes. I wish I could show how
I see the world.

More stuff

2010-05-16T11:44:00.000+02:00

This is a continuation about my post yesterday.

You know... in January 2008, I was surprised that
I felt relatively good after all this stuff with Nikolái.
In reality.... I am only starting to realise how much
impact this all had. Even today, fucking two and a
half years later....

Just some facts:

On my computer in Beek, there are some folders with his... I just can't delete them. I should, but I can't.
I still have all the letters he wrote to me. They are in the box where I keep my diary too.
Once in a while, I even google his nickname, trying to find him
The nickname I use on some sites nowadays.... 'GromBeestje' exsists because of him. I should get rid of it, and it's emoticon in my msn. Friends who have that thing, please delete it! thx!
Just look at my Last.FM stats... See the estonian music.... also because of him, but I must admit, it sounds good. Maybe that can stay. Also torchwood and doctor who. great brittish sci-fi series. But he recommended them.

But that's not all... I also wanted to talk about what he did to me... I know... I have been blogged about this before, but I don't think I did it in so much detail then I am about to do.

December 2007, that's when we met. He left me a message on my Last.FM Shoutbox. That is how everything started.... Soon, he was my boyfriend... he didn't live very far away, but he said he didn't want to meet in real life yet. It was a wonderful week... but then... On the first of January 2008, He dumped me on fucking new years day!!!! My heart was broken. But, that wasn't the end. Not even near the end! A few hours later, he sent a text message, he wanted me back, asking me to forgive him. I was happy again... but this... happened many times.... he dumped me many times, to ask me back couple of hours later. Do you have any idea what that does to someone like me? My heart was broken a million times, but I NEEDED him to be happy, some time after time, I forgave him, until I was a mess, he broke my mind, and I would do anything for him. Anything, including...something I don't even dare writing in my blog, something that's even too insane for insane me. And then he just said... that everyone has been a lie... that he was really a she.... and her last words were "Be happy we never met, I would have killed you!"

There was this time, I got really paranoid and started researching him on the internet, and found many inconsistencies in what he told me. I had it all worked out that he was lying, but when I confronted him with it, just a few words from him were enough to make me believe his lies again.

Now, two and a half years later... I see... I am still suffering because of that person.

Also, what does this tell about myself... it's too easy for someone I love to break me, and if I really love someone, no matter what, even if I know it's the stupidest thing I ever did, I am not giving up the person I love. See how that turned out last time I did so?

A personal blogpost

2010-05-15T21:14:00.000+02:00

A personal blogpost from me this time.
As you know, I was in Sweden doing my
internship from September 2008 till January 2009.
But did you ever realise why I went to Sweden
for my internship? I wanted to be far away from
home, to look for freedom. That's why I decided
for a foreign internship. The country, Sweden,
was because my teacher had contacts in Sweden.
I was thinking about Norway first, and go bother
Lars while I was there :P

Yeah, my time in Sweden was nice, and I would
have liked to be able to stay a little longer. But
yeah, the search for my freedom.... well...

Due some events that happened a few months
before I went to Sweden, January 2008, I
suppose it didn't work out as well as I wanted.
People who have been following my blog the
past years.... (and, sadly, I think only one
or two people have been following by blog for that
long... were did all my so-called friends go?)
know who I am talking about. Just at
the time when I was starting to trust people
again, the person, who was the reason I started
trusting people again stabbed me in the back.
Thanks you very much Nikolái. That wasn't even
'his' real name, in fact, he was a she. Hadn't I
been through enough shit already????

This whole Nikolái story made me realise how
vulnerable I was... and I lost my faith...

After I graduated in february 2009,
I worked at a software company
for a while. That was really a horrible time, that
I tell you. The thought about going to university,
february of this year was the only thing that kept
me going.

So, now, here I am, at university. I moved to
Eindhoven, and I am living and studying here
for the past months. Why am I here? Most
people go to university to study, to get
their degree. For me, it's more of a personal
matter. First of all.... it was an excuse to move
out, to live at my own place.... a search for
freedom again. And now I live here, I am looking
for myself. To find who I really am, and not the
person I was made to be. Yes, there has been
a lot of dark stuff in my past, but also things
that gave me strength. That's also something
I am hoping to find again.

My life has been a long and rough path, but
I am still here. Going on with my life, even
though I don't know where I am going. My
life nowadays, it's going up and down.

It's time to try to espace from my own
prison. To trust people again. There is
someone helping me doing so. You know
who you are ;) and I do trust you. I know
you won't let me down, because I know
you know what it means to me.

Thank you for reading this long post
till the end. *hugs* André

Stats....

2010-05-11T22:44:00.001+02:00

Looking at my blogs visitor stats...

It seems, the most popular subject is 'italian power outlets'...

Vegetarians, organic food...

2010-05-08T02:27:00.003+02:00

Just a few notes, after posting the article.

The 'western diet' contains more meat then the

optimal amount for a good health. What I am

trying to say, you don't have to eat meat every

day.

Also, I suggest eating organic food. But even

that might not always be organic. As, I think

it was about half a year ago, pesticides have

been found in organic raspberries in Sweden.

So... can you still believe it when something

is labeled organic? Still... it might be a good idea.

Back to the topic of vegetarians: I can think about

other reasons to be vegetarian, or at least, almost

vegetarian, other then feeling sorry for the

animals. Can you?

Vegetarians?

2010-05-06T21:31:00.002+02:00

The other day, I bought a lettuce. Ya know, sush a thing

with a clod of earth. It's roots still attached to it and so.

So, when I was cooking, I also prepared my lettuce.

Then I realised, "This thing is still alive, and I am

about to eat it!"

If vegetarians don't want to eat meat because they

feel sorry for the animals, then, my question is,

"Why is it okay to eat plants?" Is it because plants

don't scream when you kill them?

I have been asking this question to a couple of

people in the past weeks. One of the answers I got

is "Plants don't have nerves, so they don't feel pain."

I wonder, is this true? I mean, is it really true plants

don't feel pain? From the time I still watched TV,

I remember seeing some experiment with electrodes

attached to a tree. And when they hit the tree with

an axe, they got a reading on their measurement

devices. So, I beleive plants can feel pain.

So, what's really the difference between eating

animals and eating plants. They are both living

beings! Why would animals have more rights

then plants? Because plants are so different

from ourselves? Because they look passive?

A plant, it can't run, it can't resist. So, why

would that be okay, when eating animals is not?

30 april

2010-05-04T14:49:00.002+02:00

Sooo.... I have a good working RSS importer on facebook now.

Sooo.... I put a message on facebook

" 30 april, what' s up with that date ? "

and waited for replies. I was expecting three answers.

For Dutch people, it's "Koninginnedag" (Queensday).

It's the national day of the Netherlands. It's the

Queen's Mother's Birthday.

A few days before 30 april. I was talking to Anna,

who lives in Sweden, on Facebook. She mentioned,

in Sweden, 30 april is Valborgsmässoafton.

That are two events on this date. But noone replied

that to my Facebook question. There was an other

answer I was expecting, and that's the answer I

received on Facebook: Beltane.

(Spelling variations may exist, but this is the spelling

I found in my (dutch) books... but the english wikipedia

article also uses this spelling, so I use this spelling)

In the meantime, I also asked that question in the

BlaatSchaap Chatroom. Well... more or less... I posted

the link to facebook, and I was talking about it in the

chatroom. So, after I mentioned Koninginnedag and

Valborgsmässoafton, I mentioned Beltane.

Pieter replied like "Isn't that like that Swedish thing?"

Well... that exactly was exactly what I was looking for.

That question on facebook, was, more or less, a preparation

for this blogpost. Allthough, most of you people didn't

provide answers to my question.

Sooo.... what have we got? Beltane and Valborgsmässoafton:

What's their connection? I think this is a good time to stop

typing and wait for some people to give their thoughts about

the connection.

And people, I do expect comments on this one ;)

Facebook

2010-05-04T14:04:00.001+02:00

This is a test!

I am testing RSS Graffiti on Facebook.

I think it will work a lot better then the Social RSS app I used before

to import RSS feeds. Social RSS has a huge lag, (a week or so)

and it seems, I can set RSS Graffiti to check for updates every 30 minutes.

Native IPv6 Internet

2010-04-19T19:29:00.002+02:00

So, today, I picked up my new modem at 4launch.

They opened their shop at 3 PM, and so I arrived

at the closest busstop just before 3 and walked

to the shop. Soooo.... I got my modem! yaaay!

Back home, I flashed the beta IPv6 firmware,

entered my account info, and it connected.

Native IPv6 seemed to work, on the first look.

But, looking closer, it turned out that my DSL

connection was only running at 2 Mbit, while it

is supposed to be 4 Mbit. My line speed was

only half what it was supposed to be.

Then, I tried to register my DECT phone, since

the Fritz!Box 7270 also supports DECT. For

some reason, it doesn' t want to connect to

my Fritz!Box...

But, that's not all... after a while... my modem

rebooted itself... and not only once, it kept

rebooting randomly.

So, no native IPv6 for me yet.

Let's hope a firmware upgrade solves these

problems...

For now, back on my old modem and my old IPv6 tunnel.

Remote Dreambox

2010-04-13T10:33:00.001+02:00

So, a little story about my DreamBox. As you might know,

I recently moved to Eindhoven. My DreamBox DM-7000S

still sits in Beek, at my uncle and aunt's place. This linux based

sattelite receiver contains a hard disk and ethernet port ;) so,

it's connected to the internet. It's running the PLi image nowadays.

( http://www.pli-images.org/ ) I have used different images in the

past, but nowadays, it runs Pli. The Pli software also includes a

chttpd web server and a dropbear ssh server.

I have set up some port forwardings so I can access my box over

the internet ;)

So, on saturday, Doctor Who is aired on the BBC. I have programmed

the dreambox to record this. So, all I have to do is download it, right?

Well.. apearently not. The chttpd just went 404- File not found. The

f*cking file is there!!!! But after some trials, it turned out the chttpd

cannot serve large files. So, I have to split the files.

Remember, this is an embedded linux machine with busybox and so,

and it seems, the split command is not supported. So, I am splitting

the files using dd ;)

Splitting it into files, 1 GB is size:

dd if=Doctor_Who_-_10_04_10.ts of=1.ts count=1000 bs=1M
dd if=Doctor_Who_-_10_04_10.ts of=2.ts count=1000 bs=1M skip=1000
dd if=Doctor_Who_-_10_04_10.ts of=3.ts count=1000 bs=1M skip=2000

Well.... I hope it works. Lol. I am late. Broadcast was saturday. I started trying to download it last night, but I needed my sleep, so I am only downloading it now to my laptop here in Eindhoven.

Postfix, Courier, Auth....

2010-03-29T20:14:00.002+02:00

The damn summer time stole one hour of

my time, and the time I have I spend

procrastinating. I have been trying to get

postfix configured once again. This problem

I have with it, has existed ever since I

configured it, and I cannot figure out what

is going wrong.

You see, I am running my server on my

domain blaatschaap.be. Receiving mail

works fine, but sending doesn't. This isn't

really a problem, since I can use my ISP's

SMTP server for sending mail, so I haven't

bothered for a long time, untill today, since

there is more important stuff to do, I wasted

my time on that damn server again.

You see, I am running a Courier IMAP/POP3

server and a Postfix SMTP server. Usernames

and Passwords are stored in the database.

For receiving the mail (IMAP using Courier) this

doesn't cause any problem, but the authentication

in the SMTP part fails. I cannot login.

Various examples 1 2 make this seem a simple task,

but in reality: IT DOESN'T WORK AND I DO NOT
UNDERSTAND WHY, AND IT IS PISSING ME OFF!!!

and I **SHOULD** study math... or so.... but I am NOT,

bad bad meeee!!!

And since that summer time stole one hour of my time,

I should still start cooking some food!!! f00d!

University Student....

2010-02-01T21:37:00.002+01:00

Starting today, I am officially an University Student.

Had my first class today, and ya know what???

It feels good to sit in class again. I also got my new

laptop from the university. I had a little disagreement

with my laptop. At university, at the laptop desk, my

laptop was set-up with the university network. So

now I am using it at home, I tried to add my fingers

to the fingerscanner. It was complaining about some

security not enabled. It turned out, since I was trying

to add my fingers to an NT-domain account, I need to

connect to the university VPN first. Well, there was a

nice icon on my desktop, saying 'Connect to VPN'.

But trying to connect always failed.... It turned out,

I needed to use the Cisco VPN icon in the start menu

in stead.... well... then what is that icon doing on my

desktop.... so far for a pre-installed system. Well...

Lazarus was pre-installed. Nice... if you don't know

it, it's a FreePascal based RAD-IDE. I am developing

my BlaatScrobble Application in it anyways.

I am rambling again, am I. Anyways... so... today...

my first day at university and I got a new toy to

play with. A new laptop, that needs to be tamed.

Oooooh... I should stop writing this blaat now,

I got to do my homework ;)

BlaatSchaap Coding Projects

2010-01-11T21:17:00.002+01:00

Untill Christmas, I have worked on the

website and I put it online just before

Christmas. The front page, the forums

and the photos have been improved.

Check http://www.blaatschaap.be

As I have one free month before university

starts, I have been coding a bit the past days.

I have continued coding on the new BlaatBot

project. I suppose I have mentioned my plans

for this bot before. Completely modular. All

functionality loaded into libraries. As a result,

there is more overhead then in my older bots,

loading the libraries and parsing the data

between them, but in the end, it's supposed

to be more flexible. So far, I think I have the

interfacing done, I hope, I won't run into

missing stuff, but for now, I think I got

all protocol features I need supported.

So, now I am working on the first major

module, integration of the bot with the

website. So far, it can login and logout.

Well, more stuff will be added soon, but

I have done enough coding for today again.

Working on the bot integration, I will have

to add some more XML APIs to the website.

When the bot has enough features, I will

focus on the website again.... or... well..

maybe I should take a look at the libre.fm

client project first....

Anyways, that' s it for now, thanks for

reading, cya next time.

Hijacking accounts... some thoughts

2010-01-07T21:57:00.003+01:00

So, as you read in my previous post,

some of my accounts were hacked

last week. I recovered my access to

Facebook and Gmail, due the option

to recover your password.

I could not do this on my Last.FM and

SourceForge.net account, because the

attacker also changed my email address,

to make recovery impossible.

Since the attacked accounts shared the

same password, I changed passwords on

other sites that share the same password.

Some sites, like ning.com, did send me a

confirmation about the changed password.

I think this is a good option, to send a

confirmation about changes. I am thinking

to add this feature to BlaatSchaap.be as well

next update.

I am just thinking. If the website is 'hacked'

and someone gained access to the account,

but NOT to the email address, then this appears

to be good behaviour. But what happens if the

reverse happens. If someone hacked access

to the email address, uses the recovery option

to gain access to the website, and then changes

the password.

In that case, this offers no value. I suppose, I should

also store the IP address that requested the password

change, just to be sure.

Then, e-mail address changes. Some sites send a

confirmation mail to the old email addess if you

try to change your email address on the site. This

is good behaviour *if* the old email address is still

working. At one time, I had the problem, one of

my (webmail) email providers disappeared from the

internet (I used to have this andre@mailmij.nl email

address, untill BigFish, the company behind it, disapeared)

My point being. What if my reason to change email

address is the fact that I cannot access the old

one.

Hacker alert!

2010-01-05T11:34:00.005+01:00

Last night, my gmail and facebook accounts

were hacked. It looks like the hacker only

changed my password. I was able to recover

the password.

Possibly other accounts are comprimised as

well, if I find out, I will add it to this blog too.

If you received an email from me last night

(between midnight and 11:00 AM, CET)

it was not sent my be, but by the hacker!

Edit: It appears only facebook and gmail were

compromised. Still looking for a suspect.

Edit2: Seems Last.FM was attacked as well,

I cannot recover this one since it seems the

attacker changed email-address as well.

Possible SourceForge.net too.

Merry Christmas.

2009-12-26T00:07:00.002+01:00

Merry Christmas! God Jul! Vrolijk Kerstfeest! Frohe Weihnachten! Bonne Noël! Hyvää Joulua! Feliz Navidad!

I haven't been blogging in english lately. So, it's

Christmas, so I wish everyone a merry christmas.

What else to tell. I quit my job to go to university

in Februari. So, I am going to be a student again ^^

Well... I guess, that's all for now, merry christmas!!

GRRRRRRRR

2009-11-12T19:40:00.001+01:00

My laptop is broken!!!!

Developing....

2009-10-09T18:30:00.003+02:00

So, I am working on my scrobbler application. So far so good.

As I mentioned before, when coding, I prefer to code for a *nix OS.

Windows coding seems so ... weird...

So, I had the idea to write a dll in cygwin and load it in a windows

app, to avoid the weird WinSock API. When you code a basic IPv4

app, it's almost the same, except for the fact WinSock needs to be

'started' before it can be used. When coding an application with

IPv6 support... you'll find a lot of functions, like gethostbyname2,

missing from the windows world. Really, what are they thinking?

Oh well... the conclusion... writing a cygwin dll and trying to load

it in a windows app doesn't seem to work. I have compiled the

code, without the IPv6 support, as a native windows dll, and

that version works, so I guess, it's safe to assume the cygwin

part is the cause of trouble here.

Well... I suppose, I will continue on the native windows version,

and add IPv6 support later. Both last.fm and libre.fm don't seem

to have IPv6 enabled servers anyways, so, it won't hurt much

to leave that support out for the time being. For now, the library

had basic scobble support, as in, it submits, but doesn't process

the server reply yet, and other stuff lacking too, that will need

to be fixed before I can release a binary version of this app.

Also, there are no plugins available yet. I suppose, I will look at

those after the scrobbler library is finished. I will have to look

at some IPC. Still not sure what I will do there, since I like to

keep it portable, but on the other hand, a platform specific

implementation could be an option.

There is progress, yes, but there is still a lot to do...

Libre.FM and a little coding.

2009-10-04T11:00:00.003+02:00

So, recently i installed the qmmp media player on my linux.

I was looking for a decent replacement for xmms, since my

good old player is a GTK 1 based player, and it's no more

included in debian 5. Off course I can install it anyways,

if I get it elsewhere then the default repository.

Anyways, I found this qmmp player. Another 'Winamp clone'

for linux. But it's Qt based, and I don't like Qt much.

Anyways, when setting up the last.fm I noticed it offered

an option to scrobble to libre.fm too. So I was curious and

checked this site out. So, it's an open source reimplementation

of last.fm. signed up and all. Libre.FM reimplements the

AudioScrobbler protocol, so exsisting plugins could be used

if they're set to the correct server.

For this purpose, I did a quick patch on the AudioScrobbler

classic plugins, so they scrobble to libre.fm in stead of last.fm.

I also changed the check for double plugins, so it's possible to

have the modern plugin scrobble to last.fm at the same time

as this classic plugin scrobbles to libre.fm

Download the WinAMP plugin

Download the Windows Media Player plugin

Browse the source code

Leave feedback on BlaatSchaap or Last.FM

So, after this quick patch, I decided looking into writing a

new application, that will allow multi scrobbling in a nicer

way. I wish to write an application a la the modern last.fm

scrobbler. For this purpose I decided to try the lazarus IDE.

I thought it would be a good opertunity to try how well this

IDE works. For those who don't know lazarus, it's an open

source Delphi clone, using the FreePascal compiler. So, it's

pascal programming with a RAD (Rapid Application Development)

Rapid Application Development, programming with the mouse,

as I like to call it. Just point and click, create a form, place a button,

click it and add code to it. The lazy way of programming,

but well... I do like to concentrate on the functionality of the

code. The GUI, well... it's there to show what the program

is going, but not the main part, so, RAD is fine.

Anyways, so, I was thinking to write a scrobbler, so, what do

I need to scrobble? Networking, right? So, this time, I am

programming in pascal in stead of C, and for windows in

stead of posix. The pascal wrappers for the sockets API

don't feel nice at all, and the WinSock implementation of

the socket API is just... annoying, incomplete and stuff...

So, I decided to do some coding in C++ in stead. For this

I used the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, hoping this

version of the compiler does include the headers for

IPv6 sockets.

As I wish to write a modern application, I would like it to

support IPv6, right? So, I have done this on linux before,

resolving a hostname to an IPv6, under linux, or *BSD

for that matter, I would use

gethostbyname(hostname, AF_INET6);

right? Well... not on Windows, oh noes! Not supported

by uncle gates' winsock. So, how to resolve it then?

After googleling a bit on this issue, i found the getaddrinfo

is supported by windows.

Well... having the hostname resolved, I want to show the IP

address to the user, right? So, we call the inet_ntop function

for this, right?

And so it seemed, the compiler compiled the code without

complaining, but as I tried to start it, an error message

showed up, complaining about missing symbol inet_ntop in ws2_32.dll

Missing symbol... right? so it's not implemented. Looking

at MSDN, it seems they've only added this symbol in

since Vista.

All this stuff pisses me off at Windows, and I want to return

to Linux for developing, where stuff at least compiles and

works the way I want it. I am thinking about using cygwin

for this, so get rid of the windows-api-annoyance and work

with a clean posix-sockets-api.

BeagleBoard

2009-09-02T20:41:00.004+02:00

So, yeah, I got this BeagleBoard for a while now.
The problem is just, with this job I hardly got
any time to do stuff. After work I am just too
tired to do much stuff. Anyways, so, my BeagleBoard.

Since all my monitors had a VGA interface, and the
BeagleBoard only support DVI-D interface, I needed
a converter or a new monitor. The converters
are ridiculously expensive. Why is an external DAC
so expensive, while they are integrated in any
cheap-ass video card?? Anyways, at my work, we got
new monitors, so I could buy an old monitor with
DVI interface for cheap.

It's native resolution is 1280x1024.... So far so good,
I tried to set my BeagleBoard to that resolution, but,
my monitor kept complaining about the signal to be out
of range. Why? The resolution is it's native resolution.
So... Why was the monitor still complaining. The board
is supposed to support that resolution. 1
After a little googleling around, it turns out, the
refresh rate for this resolution is too low. This is my
first experience with DVI, but I was assuming refresh
rate was no more relevant, since an LCD display has
no physical refresh rate, there is no electron cannon
anymore. But it seems otherwise. So, until there will
be an updated driver that allows running a higher
refresh rate. (The pixel clock should be able to get
as high as 86.5 MHz, but is limited to 72 Mhz by the
current driver, it seems)
So, for now, I cannot get it working at my monitors
optimal resolution.

At the moment I am using Debian for ARM cpu on
the BeagleBoard. This is compiled for general ARM
cpus and contain no optimizations for my CPU, but
after a little googleing, I found 2 The Pandora uses
the same CPU as the BeagleBoard, so this should
be usable for the BeagleBoard as well.

Hardware Upgrade Failed

2009-06-06T15:27:00.004+02:00

So, I bought two modules of DDR RAM

and a Radeon HD2400 Pro Video Card.

I read in the computer magazine PC-Active

that is video card supports hardware

h.264 decoding. So I was interested in

this card. Usually I would have bought

an Nvidia card, but since the webshop

I usually buy computer hardware didn't

have a suitable Nvidia card with an AGP

slot, I had to take the ATI one.

And yes, it causes trouble, no it doesn't

work. As soon as it tried to enable the

graphics, the computer freezes. I already

updated my BIOS to the latest version,

but it wouldn't help.

It's not the cards fault, because I tried it

in my older computer, and there it works

fine. So, this seems to be a compatibility

error with the Gigabyte GA-K8VT800 mainboard.

It works fine with an ASUS P4T-F mainboard.

But now I have this situation, the older computer

with a better video card then the newer computer.

This is a kinda useless situation.

The Gigabyte mainboard is also having trouble

when I want to add some more memory to it.

It just refuses to work with more then one

memory module installed, but it doesn't seem

to care which one it is, as long as it is one module.

So, it seems not to be an incomatibility with my

new memory module, since it works also with

just one of the new modules installed.

Edit: the ATI video card is also causing trouble
on the other mainboard. It works but it refuses
to enable the TV-out. It sees the TV, but
enabling it fails. I should never buy an ATI
video card again, nothing but trouble :/
.... but I could not find a Gefore 8 series
video card with AGP interface.....

Edit2: It now works, now I connected my monitor
using a DVI-to-VGA adaptor on the DVI port.
It seems the card is using some funny wirering
that only enabled tv output when the monitor is
connected to the DVI port, and disables it on the
other port.

Uploading a photo over IPv6

2009-05-31T11:28:00.003+02:00

So, ya know, I have this website,
www.blaatschaap.be. This website
offers IPv6 connectivity. Also, I have
IPv6 connectivity at home. My ISP is
xs4all, and they offer an IPv6 tunnel (proto41).

So, last week, a problem appeared on the
website. It seemed to be impossible to
upload a photo. When I tried to upload
a photo, it just timed-out. I tried to change
some settings on the server, but without
result.

After I started using a sniffer, the true
problem showed itself. The problem wasn't
at the server, but at my home.

Look at the result from the sniffer:

So, what are we seeing here.
The first three packets show a TCP handshake,
nothing unusual there. Since I am uploading
an image over a HTTP POST, there is a lot of data
to be transferred, which is in the next packet.
In a reply to that packet, we receive a ICMPv6
packet 'too big'. So, that's the problem, the packet
my browser tried to sent was too big. According
to the IPv6 Specs, the client is supposed to send
a smaller packet when it receives a ICMPv6 too big
packet. When looking at what the sniffer shows,
that appears even to be happening, but for some
reason, it still doesn't seem to work.

The MTU, is 1480 for a Proto41 IPv6 tunnel.
The default MTU for Ethernet networks
is 1500, so changing the MTU to 1480 solves the
problem. (see this link)

So, now I've found the problem, and know how to
fix it, it's time to have this fix made permanently.
So, looking for the fist solution:
adding:

pre-up /sbin/ifconfig $IFACE mtu 1480

to my /etc/network/interfaces file. (See this link)

Applying this solution does set the MTU to the
desired value, but also makes IPv6 to stop
working. So, this solution is no option.

The solution that did work is

up ip link set mtu 1480 dev $IFACE

With that line added to my /etc/network/interfaces
file, my IPv6 connectivity works, and my MTU is set,
so I will not generate packets that are too big for
my tunnel. (See this link)

BlaatSchaap Coding Projects

2009-05-24T12:59:00.002+02:00

Lol, so, I got a job as a coder since the
begin of this month, so now I have a
few days off because of
ascension (? hemelvaart, says google translate)
it was 21 may, some christian feast)
Anyways, I got a few days off, so, what am I
doing in my spare time? coding! lol

I started coding some on my IRC bot again.
The design wasn't right the way it should be,
and I moved some code from the IRC class to
the Bot class. Still isn't quite the way I want it,
but it's better now. Hard to separate, what should
be done by the protocol and what by the bot's code.

But I should keep in mind some changes I am planning
to do later. I wish to separete my code into different
libraries, so, it should be possible to use the IRC protocol
class and use it to create an IRC client. Not that I am
planning to do so, but I just want the code to be clean.

Speaking about libraries, I am indeed planning to make
bot plugins also, just to load new commands into the
bot as a library. Not just that, I am also looking at some
stuff about mixing languages. As I am working at a
company that uses Delphi, I suppose my (Object) Pascal
skills to get better. So, I was looking at ways to mix
pascal and c(++) code.

So, there are two pascal compilers available for the
Linux platform. The GNU Pascal compiler and the
FreePascal compiler. Soon it turned out the GNU
compiler didn't support libraries yet, so it fell off,
leaving the FreePascal compiler as the compiler to use.

Well... first I tried if I could just write some function
in Pascal, create an object file, and link it so some
object file from C code, but that fails, since the
pascal code expect the some pascal runtime code.

So, then writing an so file, failed... the compiler kept
complaining about linker errors, and this error
was mentioned on many internet sites as well

Free Pascal Compiler version 2.2.4-1 [2009/05/12] for x86_64
Copyright (c) 1993-2008 by Florian Klaempfl
Target OS: Linux for x86-64
Compiling t.pas
Linking libt.so
t.pas(17) Error: Can't call the linker, switching to external linking
t.pas(17) Fatal: There were 1 errors compiling module, stopping
Fatal: Compilation aborted
Error: /usr/bin/ppcx64 returned an error exitcode (normal if you did not specify a source file to be compiled)

So, after trying some stuff, it turned out that adding the
parameter -XX (Smart Linking) to the compiler solves
the problem and generated a usable .so file, that can
be used from C code.

Not only the use of Pascal code is on the new stuff list
for the BlaatBot Project, I have also been looking into
some XML parsing code, to integrate some site stuff
into the bot. I have been using this XML parser to parse
some XML code, and so far I am happy with the results.

The author or that code also offered a possibility for a
BSD-style license, what would be great so I do not have
to worry about having to change my own license and
release my code under a BSD-style license as well, as it
has been in the past. For the moment, it's just, the code
really needs some cleaning up, and when that's done,
it will be released again. For the time being, there is
some ancient code from the project at sourceforge.
Don't look at it, it's ancient and ugly.

Windows 7 on an MSI Wind?

2009-05-20T23:02:00.003+02:00

So, I've been running Windows 7 ever since
the public beta was released. So, first the
beta, later the Release Canditate. And it
ran fine so far. I've been running it first on
my Pentium 4 (1,6 Ghz) and installed it later
on my Athlon64 (2,0 Ghz) too. It works nice
and I had nothing to complain about.

So, today I decided to install it on my laptop,
it's an MSI Wind. Installation went fine, but
very soon, messages about disk corruption
started to pop-up. After running chkdsk,
the problems returned immediately.
It seems Windows 7 is corrupting it's own
file system.

A Windows Vista beta also did something like
this on my old laptop. I don't know, but
Windows 7 runs without any problem on
my desktop computers, but it hates my laptop.

Upgrading to IPv6

2009-04-18T23:30:00.002+02:00

So, since about an hour ago is my internet connection

using the IP version 6 protocol. My ISP xs4all has been

offering IPv6 for a while now, but just today I decided

to configure it.

My router doesn't even support it,

but that turned out to be no problem at all.

I've been using my old laptop as a server,

and it's running an irc daemon for a while

now. I've configured the IPv6 tunnel

according to the instructions on the xs4all.

Not much about that, just enable IPv6 in

the config file, enter the IPv6 address, and

the IPv4 address on the other end of the tunnel.

Then I installed radvd, entered my IPv6 address

range in the config file, and without any other

configuration, all my other computers got IPv6

connectivity.

But it's not only my home that got upgraded,

also blaatschaap.be got upgrated to IPv6.

As you could have read in my dutch blog, I've

obtained a year of free dedicated hosting at OVH.

OVH also offers IPv6 connectivity. Unfortunately,

their servers do not support it out-of-the-box.

A little configuration was required as well,

their default kernel only supports IPv4. They

use custom pre-compiled kernels. Fortunately,

on their ftp server they also has a IPv6 enabled

version, so I downloaded, configured lilo, and

rebooted. The kernel support was working,

but still no connectivity. A quick look on their

forums showed the IPv6 address had to be

assigned manually. After doing to, IPv6

connectivity was working.

Crisis?

2009-03-13T17:58:00.002+01:00

Everyone in this world should now it by now

there is an economical crisis.

But who's to blaim for this misfortune?

Who's to blaim for the fact many people

lost their jobs? Is it the USA to blaim?

Or who should be blaimed??

Well... if you ask me, the media should

be blaimed. Radio, TV, newspapers...

Every day they are talking about this

damn crisis. That's when the real crisis

started.

By telling people there is a crisis, they

start acting like it, causing the crisis.

By telling people there is a crisis. they

stop spending money. So the shops

won't sell, so the fabrics won't

produce so they need to fire people.

So, in the end, I blaim the media they

kept reporting the crisis, to actually

have caused the crisis.

Yes, there was a problem to begin with,

but it went out of control, which should

not have happened, if the media didn't

report about the problem so extensive

as they did.

The crisis exsist in the minds of the people,

when you control what the people think,

you control reality.

So, who caused this crisis. The media?

Are they really to blaim? Or are they

just being used, as everyone else.

In the end, I am just thinking who's got

an advantage by this crisis. I have no clue

who could possibly have an advantage with

this crisis. So is it just the media after

all? Just to have some 'sensational news' to

report? Or is there more behind this crisis?

2009-01-29T14:20:00.002+01:00

So. Yesterday I was at Hans' place.

Played some Age of Ampires, watched a

movie (Wall-e) (yes, really!) (lol)

and played some wii. Today...

to continue what I was doing the

day before. My computer. As I mentioned

before. It was Windows 7 beta installed. I

tried to install Windows XP next to it and

it BSOD' ed with code 7F and parameter 00.

Some googleing told me this means a devide

by zero in some driver. As this error appeared

during the detection of the hardware, it

appears to me this is the cause. The website

also says it is likely to be caused by broken

hardware. Since my video card was suspected

before of misbehaviour. As I wrote in an earlier

blogpost, the time I removed the USB/FireWire

controller. Well... I placed a different video card

now and the installation program doesn't BSOD

anymore. So it seems the problem is solved.
I installed Windows XP on a different hard disk now,

since I was first thinking that the Windows 7 instalation

sitting on the same hard disk might cause the problem.

So... of all the hard disks I had emtied, they are all filled

with some data again. And now my I need to get a new

video card for my Pentium III machine, since that's a

low-profile case, and I need a card with suitable backplate,

wich was the card I used in my Pentium 4 now.

And since my computer uses a newer video card now,

Windows 7 might be so kind to "unlock" so eye-candy now.

Bye bye sweden, part 2

2009-01-23T11:02:00.002+01:00

Sooo... I ran a little out of time when I was
writing my post in Sweden. So here is the
continuation.

Last friday my collegues took my furniture
back to BTH. BTH payed for it so they wanted
it back. So, I had no bed since friday, so I slept
the last four days at Jonis' place.

Before they took my furniture, I did my presentation
in Sweden. It went okay, but it could be better. I got
some comments to improve my presentation next
week in the Netherlands.

Now I am at Fontys in a class about the presentation.
So this is a boooring day, because I will be here till 5.

Jonis, I mentioned him earlier in my blog,
I like him, but I am too shy so I never told him.
I am just too scared to tell him. That's just silly
me. Too scared to tell him. Because I am too
scared for his reaction. Too scared to loose him,
so in the end I am still alone. Loneliness

Bye bye Sweden

2009-01-20T11:11:00.002+01:00

My last minutes in Sweden are counted.
Need to leave soon-ish, to catch my
train to Copenhagen, from Copenhagen
I will fly to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Köln.

More will be posted later. Running out of time.
Or see my dutch blog.