Monthly Archives: October 2007

For Starters, My Name is NOT Scott

Looks like some idiot is doing a spam campaign trying to promote Ron Paul, some US candidate for congress. Personally I couldn’t give a rats ass about an election in The United States of America, but if a spammer is going to irritate me about this then can they please spam me about a candidate that matters for me in the Australian federal election.

Here is the message that they are spamming:

Hello Scott,

Ron Paul is for the people, unless you want your children to
have human implant RFID chips, a National ID card and create
a North American Union and see an economic collapse far worse
than the great depression. Vote for Ron Paul he speaks the
truth and the media and government is afraid of him. This is
the last honest politican left to bring this country out of
this rut from the War Profiteers and bush Administration has
created. Get motivated America, don't believe the lies of the
media he has also WON the GOP Debate On Sunday! Value Freedom
and Liberty instead of corporate lies and corruption. Bypass
this media blackout they are doing to Ron Paul, tell your family
and friends and get involved in a local group at meetup.com make
your voice heard! He will end the War In Iraq immediately,
He will eliminate the IRS and wasteful government spending, and
eliminate the Federal Reserve and restore power to the people
and the only person not a member on the CFR. Can any other runner
make these claims or give Americans the true freedom we were all
raised to believe? We are all economic slaves to the banks and the
illegal federal Reserve. This is why our currency is worth nothing
because of Hidden Inflation Tax and the IRS taking everything
you make!

** RON PAUL WILL STOP THE IRAQ WAR IMMEDIATELY! **

He has NEVER voted:
* to raise taxes
* for an unbalanced budget
* to raise congressional pay
* for a federal restriction on gun ownership
* to increase the power of the executive branch

He HAS voted:
* against the Iraq war
* against the inappropriately named USA PATRIOT act
* against regulating the internet
* against the Military Commissions Act

He will eliminate the IRS, Wasteful Government Spending &
Stop The Iraq War Immediately!

Most importantly, he voted NO on anything in Congress that
is not allowed by the Constitution. And he Despises any
politican that does not do their job for the people and lives
up to the constitution!

Google.com & Youtube.com Search: "Ron Paul"
Join The Revolution!

***************************************
We Need A Real President That Will Restore And Protect
Americans! Stop The War! Protect Our Borders!
*********VOTE RON PAUL 2008************

Apple, "Most Consumer Hostile Tech Companie"

This post on Jon Lech Johansen’s blog (AKA DVD John), just about sums Apple up.

“It’s evident that Apple is well on its way to become one of the most consumer hostile tech companies”

And as I say myself, Apple, built by wankers, for wankers. Although I can’t confirm that any staff member at Apple is a wanker, the behavior of Apple stands for itself.

Think Closed

2Clix Faces Liquidation

When accounting software provider, 2Clix launched into legal action over comments made about its products on the popular Australian broadband forum, Whirlpool the public backlash was quick and brutal, in what could be the final chapter of 2Clix’s very public history the company is on the verge of appointing an administrator to go into liquidation.

Company Who Sued Over Forum Comments Appoints Administrator

Magic Numbers (Unnamed Numerical Constant)

The term magic number also refers to the bad programming practice of using numbers directly in source code without explanation. In most cases this makes programs harder to read, understand, and maintain. Although most guides make an exception for the numbers zero and one, it is a good idea to define all other numbers in code as named constants.

For example, to shuffle the values in an array randomly, this pseudocode will do the job:

for i from 1 to 52
j := i + randomInt(53 - i) - 1
a.swapEntries(i, j)

where a is an array object, the function randomInt(x) chooses a random integer between 1 to x, inclusive, and swapEntries(i, j) swaps the ith and jth entries in the array. In this example, 52 is a magic number. It is considered better programming style to write:

constant int deckSize := 52
for i from 1 to deckSize
j := i + randomInt(deckSize + 1 - i) - 1
a.swapEntries(i, j)

Source: Wikipedia

Runing old DOS applications in Modern Microsoft Windows

It was drawn to my attention today that it can be a real bitch to run this old DOS games and other DOS applications under modern Microsoft Windows, thus I thought I would dump this guide on everyone.

Personally there are some old DOS games I still like to play who haven’t lost any play value e.g. The Settlers 2, Dune 2, WarCraft… etc. All of which were programed to run in Microsoft DOS and not Windows. While Windows does have some ability to run these new versions of Windows are slowly killing off support for these old DOS applications. What prompted me to write this is that I run Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and low and behold the following error message if you try to run a DOS application.

Frustrating isn’t it, you will probably see this in Windows Vista x64 as well.

But low and behold in all it’s glory there is a solution. DOSBox.

DOSBox is a DOS-emulator that uses the SDL-library which makes DOSBox very easy to port to different platforms. DOSBox has already been ported to many different platforms, such as Windows, BeOS, Linux, MacOS X

DOSBox also emulates CPU:286/386 realmode/protected mode, Directory FileSystem/XMS/EMS, Tandy/Hercules/CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics, a SoundBlaster/Gravis Ultra Sound card for excellent sound compatibility with older games.

Now while that is a quote from the site, it’s actually true.

MS-DOS Technical Reference

Four Things You Should Know About Your IT Technical Staff

I seen this item on TechRepublic, one of the many email subscriptions I find actually usefully and informative. This blog article talks about some generalizations about IT people in an attempt to help IT Managers understand the nerds they have working for them and how they think. Although the entry calls them IT Pros, I don’t believe in being that politically correct when I know myself I’m one of these people being managed. (A nerd, an introvert, a logical thinker, a problem solver, and well I try to be technically creative)

Four Things You Should Know About Your IT Technical Staff