FL Labs

I recently procured the source code for qwebirc, which is one of the fastest and cleanest web-IRC clients I've come across. You can test it here: http://i.armed.us:81/?channels=Lounge


How does one go about setting up something like that? First you get the source code. Then provided that you have all the requirements, you compile it. Even then you might get some errors.


I got two errors after making sure I had everyrhing.
Firstly there's mercurial. You have it, now what?
You need to initialize the qwebirc directory as a mercurial repository...

cd
hg init

Secondly there's Java. Wait a minute, I have Java, why are you complaining?
Apparently the 2.3.5 release of yui-compressor doesn't like my debian-Java. What did I do?


I went to yui-compressor's site and downloaded a fresh copy. I then extracted this to some directory, after that I copied the "yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar" found in the build directory to the bin-directory of my qwebirc. Wait a minute, we're not completely done yet. You still need to visit the file: "bin/compile.py" and update the line that contains the old yui-compressor file...


p = subprocess.Popen(["java", "-jar", "bin/yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar", src], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)


After that you should be able to run ./compile.py
then at long last; ./run.py


Requirements:

Python

I did 'apt-get install python'

Twisted

Went to their site, downloaded twisted, extracted, entered the folder, went chmod 755 setup.py, then entered ./setup.py and hit enter.

Java

Already had, but to get it I went 'apt-get install openjdk-6*'

Mercurial

Yet again I relied on Debian's apt-get command; I typed 'apt-get install mercurial' and the magic was alive!

While some might want to hear more about the resurrection of BillyBot, I shall veer off from that string now. As there is something else I'd like to describe to your faces. Many people feared the release of the thing I am now going to write to you about. "It shouldn't be tried resurrected.", "They should leave it be as it is, as a homage to the original author." To them I propose this: Have we not learned anything from the open source community?

I recently borrowed a book from a friend of mine. While I usually am faster at chugging new books, I let this book gather dust most of the time I borrowed it. Which is a pity as it wasn't a bad book. Far from it, as my previous experience with the writer Eoin Colfer told me I was in for a good read. What I didn't expect was Eoin's digested "Douglas" writing mode. It's a literary thing, after reading a certain number of books you start seeing patterns in the way people structure their sentences. Sometimes you even start loving certain ways of describing things.

Douglas Adams' way of writing is somewhat similar to the by now ancient writer Pelham Grenvile Wodehouse, whom Adams himself confessed to liking. I myself has read a couple of Wodehouse's texts and I happen to like his way of writing as well. Thus I was surprised to see this new side of Eoin as a writer. He did absorb the Adams way of writing, fiddled with it added his own twists and touches and we ended up reading a marvellous piece of art.

Without fail I see that I am looking forward to the next crazy sci-fi book in this saga of unfortunate events. With the wonderful regular-guy Arthur Dent, his friends Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian McMillan, Random Dent and the rest of the universes they live in.

It's acquirable at Amazon.com

I've been trying to boot my Macbook over the network to install Windows 7 from my WDS server. The EFI doesn't support it however. Neither does the Mac want to boot the discovery CD I've created. Searching the mighty internets for hours has revealed nothing.

The solution is to trick the Mac into BIOS emulation mode. This will make the discovery CD work. You enter BIOS emulation mode by starting the Boot Camp assistant in OS X and pretending you want to install Windows from a CD. Once the Mac reboots to start installing Windows, hold down the option/alt key and select your Windows partition (NOT THE "WINDOWS" CD). It will try to boot an empty partition and complain about it. Reboot and don't touch anything. It'll chime... go black... and ask you to PRESS ANY KEY TO BOOT FROM CD-ROM! =D (This seems like a bug, because it won't ask this if you don't try to boot the empty partition first.)

I'm installing Windows from my WDS server right now =D

My user profiles share has restrictions set on it to prevet users from reading each other's files. This broke compatibility with Windows 7 clients. Why? Because Windows 7 profile are not compatible with older ones, so the Windows 7 machine will try to use .V2 as the profile path. That doesn't exists, so it will atempt to create it, and fail. This results in the user being logged on with a temporary profile, and changes not being saved.

The solution is to create a folder named %USERNAME%.V2 for each user in addition to the regular %USERNAME% one. To make the two "different" profiles share desktop/my documents/application settings, enable folder redirection.

I got back some really old, like three-five years old or even older *checks* These files date back to 2006 so three years old. Wait, you don't know what or who BillyBot is do you? I'll explain.

BillyBot is my beginner perl project. It was something that started out as mayabot 4.0. Which I to this date have been unable to retrieve(I'd like to help others learn pearl through MSN-botting since I found it enjoyable.) I could of course now that I have an extended knowledge of perl and Just found MSN.pm which also seems lost to the web.

Thus my three years old project. The first thing that happened when I booted up billybot was that it complained about not having some required stuff. As I learnt way back when bot-depot was alive. You need Crypt::SSLeay this is retrieved by writing: "ppm install http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/PPMPackages/10xx/Crypt-SSLeay.ppd" into CMD prompt, sure I could've used run as well but I didn't. (That's without the "s if you didn't get that)

So, now that I've found my bot again, and all the code and requirements to run him, what will I do? I will most likely Run through the code and try to run an upgrade on him... Even though some might argue that he don't need one(silly people :P). I am not certain as to werther I will completely rewrite him or what. One thing is certain though, I will change some things.

I think it's stable enough now. Here you go =)

Norwegian manual attached.

#1: It's fast.
Or at least the experience is that it is fast. I often find Chrome waiting for my input, this was something that didn't happen on Firefox when I used it. Do note that I tend to be on the bleeding edge in my choices of versions.
#2: It saves.
I recently spent quite some time devising a wish-list so as to give my relatives a pointer towards what I'd like to receive for christmas. I accidentally clicked the close button on the tab, the tab was gone. "Fuck" was my first thought, "I hope Chrome saves input data" was the second, a right-click and some quick pointing and clicking later the tab was restored. With the only loss being the title of the input. (which was a lot less work having to rewrite than the 200+letter note...)
#3: Sandbox-processes
One of the most used functions within Google Chrome is it's versatile rearrangement features. I often find myself having two or three tabs that revolve around the same subject, and the rest around them being other stuff. As I rarely close tabs unless I have to, I proceed to click the tab, drag it to the middle of the screen, then repeat that until all the tabs are outside of the original browser window. Then I minimize the original, and start dragging the drop-outs into one of them, they seamlessly merge with the new "main"-window. This works so well that I actually wouldn't go back to Firefox as my main browser for this simple and probably weird cause. Wait, there's more to the way chrome handles this rearranging. It doesn't reload the tabs when I move it around. Firefox has gotten the "drop tab in middle of screen"-function going however. Chrome doesn't reload these tabs when you move them about... I many times find myself dragging a window onto my other screen so that I can view a video. In Firefox the tab is reloaded and the progress towards buffering finished is lost(Sometimes, on rare occations Firefox remembers that it has a cache. At which point it still needs to render the site anew).
#4: Chromeexperiments
Okay, I know. This isn't strictly chrome, however I've found that most of these can only be properly run on google chrome, for now.
#5: Links
In chrome you can click a link drag it to the top, release it and magically a new tab appears with the wanted link inside. Also, chrome has the "paste & go" function which I first found in Opera. It is some time since that time, However that was one of the few functions I missed during my time with Firefox.
#6: Extensions
YES, chrome HAS extensions, you just need to run the developer build. For now. While at the topic, the only reason why I waited a bit before I changed to Chrome was because of my relentless use of Adblock+ in Firefox. Thus Chrome lacked one of my most used addons. The other somewhat used addon that I still miss(it probably exist, I just need to find it) is downThemAll.
#7: It installs everywhere
The Chrome team did something rather interesting when they made the installer for google chrome. They took the realization that the browser one wants to use is a private choice that should be made by the user him/herself. They achieved this by installing Chrome into the userprofile instead of in the "public" "program files" directory. Thus allowing it to be installed even on highly restricted places. Since most places lets the user do stuff to their own profile.

Right, for how long have I been annoyed at GTK for automatically forcing me into using the Norwegian language in the programs that use it? For far too long, so two days ago I gave in to my urge of using English.

So, I did a Google search, and the first hit was a forum, one of the patrons suggested this:
(Right-click on My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables)
While this route probably would've worked I used another way of getting there:
([Win] + [Pause-Break] -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced -> Environment Variables)

Then the creature suggested that I'd add a variable in the system tab, called 'lang' without the 's and then enter the language name of 'c', then to restart my app(which in this case was the GIMP). Low and behold! The language had magically(not really) changed to English. My feeling of dissatisfaction of the Norwegian translators vanished, since I didn't see their work any more.

Det irriterte meg at OneCall ikke tilbyr en sum nederst på fakturaoversikten slik at man ser hvor mye penger man har brukt totalt, så jeg lagde en bookmarklet. Dra følgende bilde til bokmerke-linjen din eller tilsvarende for å legge det til =)

Oppdatering: Her er siden med oversikten.

Right, you probably want to know why I decided to post these? Not? Well, I am going to tell you anyhow. A long time ago I stumbled over this article which I liked. Like all sites I like, I kept it open for a long time, intending on reading it. As usual, it ended with me bookmarking it when I got tired of having it up. That is, when I needed the few resources chrome used to keep it up. Well, at any rate I saved it in the bookmark-bar, so that it would be visible. At any rate. I finally read the article and can positively say that I learnt a lot about dental health, while it might not be "proper" dental literature, I found the article illuminating and would advice anyone with a healthy interest to read it.

Basically this list is from that article(to which I will link after the list of tips).

1. Floss at least three times a week, preferably daily.
2. Sterilize your toothbrush frequently.
3. Get a tongue cleaner and scrape your tongue each morning after you brush your teeth.
4. Drink enough water.
5. Eat onions (raw are best) since they contain powerful antibacterial sulfur compounds and in a 1997 test tube study killed S. mutans. Then use parsley or mint leaves for your breath.
6. Drink Green tea (Camellia sinensis) which contains substances called catechins that kill mouth bacteria.
7. Get enough vitamin C. Kiwis have more than any other fruit. I currently take 3,000 mg of C each morning in a delicious shake.
8. Eat a tablespoon of sesame seeds to clean teeth and add 87 mg of calcium.
9. Eat wasabi since it contains isothiocyanates that inhibit the growth of cavity-causing bacteria.
10. Eat cashew nuts which have anacardic acids that kill bacteria like S. mutans [Himajima & Kubo 1991 p419]. These nuts have antibacterial, antidysenteric, anti microbial and antiseptic properties.
11. Eat grapes since they contain polyamides, a type of tannin that inhibits the growth of S. mutans. Buy organic to avoid pesticide residues.
12. Eat pure cocoa powder or raw chocolate without sugar, since it contains tannins known to prevent bacteria from attaching to the teeth.
13. Eat Sage honey and Tupelo honey which inhibit oral pathogenic bacteria.
14. Kiss people who never get cavities.
15. Take Culturelle ( Lactobacillus casei rhamnosus GG ) which produces an anti microbial agent that kills Streptococcus.
16. Rinse your mouth with a baking soda solution within 10 minutes after you eat.
17. Cook with cinnamon and oregano.
18. Eat less processed sugar.

Xenophilia - Tooth health: Cure for cavities
As you may have noticed, I added the point to eat less processed sugar, I found it odd that he hadn't added that tip himself as he did point it out at several occasions.