Anti-aliasing in MacOS X

I thought I'd get used to MacOS X font-aliasing. I've always turned this off in Windows, because it makes me unable to read small text. My favorite fonts such as Verdana and Tahoma look gorgeous in 8pt and 10pt, but they look like shit when they're smoothed. :)

I hope I can find a way to completely turn off anti-aliasing in Mac OS X. I'm planning to use ProFont for editing codes, but anti-aliasing blurs the difference between 0 and O; 1, I and l, and other similar-looking characters.

/me googles for solutions

Christmas party

Genuine laughter, genuine fun; these are the moments when working here have its meaning...

thoughts

To resign or not to resign? Hmmm... I sometimes feel stupid for holding on to a dream that may not come true. I wanted to work in a startup because I thought that working here would let me innovate and program with passion without all those bureaucratic stuff that plague large companies. Never mind the low salary. Never mind the long working hours without adequate OT compensation.

Oh well, I'll see how it goes. I'll keep my options open while staying loyal to my current company. Working for another company that would give me twice my present salary is quite tempting.

Cisco opens up too

Good job, Cisco. This is a step in the right direction. Like Juniper, you are wise in opening up your network appliances to third-party developers. If only management in our company would wake up too...

Mac OS X mouse acceleration curve

Aaaargh... Mac OS X' mouse acceleration curve is getting on my nerves. I am unable to have precise mouse control for playing DOTA (i.e., without getting myself killed) because the pointer movement is just too unpredictable. Every second in this game counts, and I don't want the mouse getting on my way. If Windows did something right, its superior mouse feel would be it. Aaaargh... !$$^@#&*(!! Lina Inverse at level 10 killed my Faceless Void that was at level 11. #$%238(&387!!!

API/SDK for network appliances

I feel so sad that my vision for creating an API/SDK for our network appliances has been implemented by our competitor. I have been proposing this for more than a year now, going as far as to create a draft architecture for our network appliances-- but it fell on deaf ears. Juniper has implemented it on their products, and I honestly envy them because I know that this will make them sell like pancakes to big corporations. I wish them the best of luck.

I want an OpenMoko

Waaah... I want an OpenMoko phone. My ancient iPAQ H5550 is too limited-- it can't even send SMS messages.

MacBook or OpenMoko... MacBook or OpenMoko... Choices, choices. I can't buy both. =(

How can I enable WPA on an Atmel AT76C503 USB 802.11b device?

I have set up an OpenEmbedded build environment on my Linux box, and it is now steadily humming as it cross-compiles Angstrom. I am trying my luck on WPA by building the whole thing myself. I'm willing to use unstable sources if I have too.

The day I wiped out Windows Mobile was the day I said hello to freedom. It was also the day I said goodbye to things that work out of the box. Yet this is fun, and it forces me to learn new things that will come in handy in the future.

Anyway, if you know how to enable WPA on an Atmel AT76C503 USB 802.11b device, can you please leave a note? I'm using an iPAQ H5550. I suspect that I need to modify the driver myself, but I don't know how. Help. =)

GPE is beautiful

w00t! GPE Screenshots:

Hello GPE

GPE looks more refined than Opie. I'm still having trouble setting up WiFi with WPA-PSK though. I'll post screenshots later.

Opie Screenshots

Here are some Opie screenshots before I wipe it out from my iPAQ. I'll be replacing it later with GPE.



Wtf. I think my SD card is worm-infected (i.e., the recycled directory is not supposed to be there).

Hidden Costs in License

Blah. Opie uses Qt, so I think it has some hidden costs when developing commercial applications on it. Bad platform for learning my first embedded apps. I might get stuck on it later on. I'll try Opie for a week or so, and replace it with GPE later on.

New Environment

Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (Opie) generally works OK, although it still has some rough edges. Crappy handwriting recognition system, lack of simple GUI to configure the system (although I'm happy that it has a console), and other stuff. This will not yet attract the average user in its current state, but this may improve in a year or so. I hope this gets sponsored by a commercial entity, similar to Ubuntu being sponsored by Canonical.

My ancient iPAQ is not GSM and GPRS-capable. I hope I can save enough money to buy OpenMoko. Bounty projects on that platform, anyone? =)

iPAQ touchscreen out of whack

The touchscreen is out of whack. Waaaah... How can I recalibrate this thing?

Hello Familiar Linux!

w00t! It works!

root@h3900:/# uname -a
Linux h3900 2.4.19-rmk6-pxa1-hh41.1 #1 Tue Aug 15 05:10:33 CEST 2006 armv5tel unknown

Familiar Linux

I foresee that embedded programming would play a large part in my future. Web application development will no longer pay as much as it used too, because scripting is too easy. I was already coding in PHP while I was still in highschool, when that language was not yet in vogue. Now that it is being offered in some schools, I need to learn something else. I need to start early so that I will be ready when the time comes.

I'm now installing Familiar Linux on my iPAQ in preparation for my experiments. It's now being reflashed as I type this blog. I'm crossing my fingers. I hope my iPAQ won't end up as a very expensive paperweight. =)

Logging in to Unactivated Windows XP

I was looking for a way to log in to an unactivated Windows XP so that I could back up some files and load a few applications before I completely erase it from my partition.

I found this tip very helpful: http://tomorrowtimes.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-login-to-expired-windows.html.

It works.

Display IPv6 routes in Ubuntu

Unlike FreeBSD, Ubuntu doesn't show the IPv6 routes when netstat -rn is invoked. To display the routes, just do ip -6 route show dev <interface> or route -A inet6.

KDE in Ubuntu

I've just installed KDE on my Ubuntu box. It's been a long time since I've last used KDE. I want to try it to see how things have improved over the years.

Installation via Synaptic was very simple. KDE is now running on my left box, and the UI looks impressive at first glance. One problem though: the menu is a mess. The programs are packed into big sub-menus, and it's very annoying to sift through the labels just to find what I need. The problem is aggravated by the fact that Gnome apps are mixed with KDE apps in the menu. Where the bleep is the KDE Control Center? How the frack will I change the screen resolution without directly modifying xorg.conf? I don't need all of these programs in the menu. I just need to change the screen resolution and customize my box via Control Center. Aaaaaaaargh... KDE has become bloated.

pfSense HTTPS fixed

OK, I found the problem. The fix is very simple:

$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" {
    ssl.engine = "enable"
    ssl.pemfile = "/var/etc/cert.pem"
}

I'll commit this change soon.

fixing pfSense' HTTPS support

lighttpd seems to have an issue when enabling both IPv4 and IPv6. With plain HTTP, enabling them both is a simple matter of adding the following lines:

server.use-ipv6            = "enable"
$SERVER["socket"]          == "0.0.0.0:80" { }

With HTTPS, however, $SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" doesn't seem to work. Although sockstat reports that lighttpd is indeed listening to port 443, https://<ip_address> doesn't work. http://<ip_address>:443 work, but this is just plain HTTP served on port 443. Weird. the following is sockstat's output:

root     lighttpd   53320 4  tcp6   *:443           *:*
root     lighttpd   53320 5  tcp4   *:443           *:*

Hello DragonFly!

        ,--,           |           ,--,
        |   `-,       ,^,       ,-'   |
         `,    `-,   (/ \)   ,-`    ,-'
           `-,    `-,/   \,-`    ,-`
              `------(   )------'
          ,----------(   )-----------,
         |        _,-(   )-,_        |
          `-,__,-`   \   /   `-,__,-'
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      `|'

simoncpu@dragonsentinel:~> uname -a
DragonFly dragonsentinel.experiments.simoncpu.com 1.10.1-RELEASE DragonFly 1.10.1-RELEASE #0: Mon Aug 20 17:42:05 PDT 2007 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386

I've successfully installed DragonFly on Soekris net4801. Installation was very simple.

Configuring the box is not much different from FreeBSD. The only problem that I've encountered is that DragonFly stops and asks me where /boot/loader is, if I specify -Dh at /boot.config. Weird. The boot menu doesn't even show up in the serial console. Everything works fine if I just specify -h.

xmms-wma on Ubuntu

To play Windows Media Audio (WMA) files on XMMS, just do the following steps:

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Install xmms-dev.
3. Download xmms-wmma plugin from <http://mcmcc.bat.ru/xmms-wma/>.
4. Extract the package.
5. In the current directory of your extracted files, do make install.

Rock on!

buffer overflow

Aaaaargh! I'm getting too many interrupt-level buffer overflows with FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT. I can't connect to the network. Yeah, yeah. I know that using the bleeding-edge development branch is tantamount to suicide. But what the heck.

Should I experiment on using DragonFlyBSD?

My Soekris net4801 box, which acts as my Ethernet switch by bridging all of its ports, is experiencing intermittent slowdown, especially under heavy load. This has occurred after replacing its OS from FreeBSD 6.2 to FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT, March snapshot. I think it's because it had some critical bugs last March (I was too lazy to download a September snapshot) and because WITNESS, INVARIANTS, and other debugging options have been enabled in the kernel. Instead of rebuilding the kernel, I'm thinking of using DragonFlyBSD instead. I want to experiment. I'll do this on Saturday so as not to interfere with my work.

xmms-shn on Ubuntu

To play Shorten (SHN) files on XMMS, just do the following steps:

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Install xmms-dev.
3. Download xmms-shn plugin from <http://www.etree.org/shnutils/xmms-shn/>.
4. Extract the package.
5. In the current directory of your extracted files, do ./configure, make, and make install.

Yeah, yeah. My instructions are not very precise. It should give you sufficient idea though. Just post a comment if any of the steps are unclear.

Rock on!

women on unix

simoncpu@localhost:~$ man woman
No manual entry for woman

simoncpu@localhost:~$ finger woman
finger: woman: no such user

simoncpu@localhost:~$ fsck woman
fsck: cannot open `/dev/woman': No such file or directory

w00t GPRS!!!

Hello world! I'm scriblling this entry using my iPAQ that is connected to my cellphone via Bluetooth.

I'll post the details later on how I made my ancient iPAQ H5550 GPRS-capable. w00t! :)

Virtualization Killer App

Citrix is acquiring XenSource (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2171251,00.asp). Very cool.

As grid computing becomes reality and as processing power, memory, and bandwidth become utilities just like water and electricity, I see that the future lies in virtualization technologies + remote X sessions and/or VNC.

I see that the future in creating an online and pervasive workspace lies on running multiple operating systems and offering it as a service. Each user can have his own virtual machine, and each user can pay the provider based on his memory and processing requirements for each session.

This will be the killer app once the infrastructure is in place.

Sorry, but we are interrupting your GRPS session because of insufficient balance. Pls. reload your account and try again. You have not been charged for this download attempt.

There you go. I feel so suddenly enlightened.

SMART 3G

SMART 3G is so sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow... I can't browse external WAP sites!!!

Or is it because my prepaid load has already ran out? Oopsy.

New Title

I should replace my blog's title.

Initially, my plan was simply to chronicle my learnings with the FreeBSD Operating System. I was planning to make this similar to The FreeBSD Diary, hence my original title of "A Neophyte's Journey to FreeBSD".

Blah blah blah. Shit. It's 5:42PM already. I have to stop writing this entry. I'm late for church. =)

pfSense IPv6

Basic IPv6 support in pfSense is almost ready now. Although I expect that this still has some bugs, IPv6 support is already usable.

This is only available in the HEAD branch as of this moment. I may merge it to RELENG_1 as soon as it is deemed stable. You may download the daily snapshot at http://snapshots.pfsense.org/FreeBSD6/head/iso/.

I'm setting up a pfSense CVS mirror right now, and I'm using nginx server for the CVS Web interface. nginx server is kindda weird-- everything has to done manually, even for setting up a Perl process that will bind to a Unix socket in order to run Perl scripts.

Here's the URL for my mirror:
http://www.simoncpu.com/freedom/pfSense/CVS/cvsweb.cgi

Please note that not everything will work, as this is still highly experimental.

pfSense

Okidoki... I'm now officially a pfSense committer. I've always wanted to give back to the Open Source community ever since I was a kid. I'm so happy that this time has come.

What is pfSense, by the way? pfSense is "[an] open source firewall derived from the m0n0wall operating system platform with radically different goals such as using OpenBSD's ported Packet Filter, FreeBSD 6.1 ALTQ (HFSC) for excellent packet queueing and finally an integrated package management system for extending the environment with new features."

w00t!

CVS commit bit to pfSense

Yey, I'm about to have a CVS commit bit to pfSense. I'll be contributing IPv6 support to the community. w00t! =)

ATI Radeon drivers

Blah blah blah. The ATI Radeon driver for my video card doesn't work with a simple emerge. I may have to compile the kernel again. Blah blah blah. I'll just use VESA for now. Blah blah blah. It's slow but it works.

ping!!! I'm alive goddamit

My fucking via-rhine NIC now works using this fucking vanilla Linux kernel. I can now proceed installing xorg, fluxbox, and other stuff. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Linux via-rhine support

Not again. I thought they've fixed this stuff already. Linux doesn't support my VIA Rhine NIC, even though I've disabled ACPI already. The other Intel NIC works perfectly fine though.

Lemme recompile the kernel using vanilla-sources. This better work. :)

meh

With all this hoopla about K/Ubuntu, one would think that this is a revolutionary distro of some sort, sent by the messiah.

Meh. I'm gonna replace my other PC with Gentoo. :)

I hope I can resume my Xen experiments

My experiments on Xen was stopped a few months ago since the amd64 machine that I was working on was needed by the company.

Fortunately, I now have two CPUs sitting at my desk right now. I'll be installing Kubuntu on the other CPU so that I can use it for "official" work. I've been using it as a prototype box for our network appliance, but I figured that I can maxmize its use by using VMWare instead (hence the decision to use Kubuntu, even though NetBSD already has a stable Xen support; VMWare doesn't have a native port for BSD). Since the prototype will now be running inside VMWare, I can now use Xen kernel for the host OS. Weeeee...