Teuton

Lock Screen on Mac OS X using keyboard shortcut.

2007-09-18T08:08:00.000+02:00

1. Download "Global Hotkey"
2. Create a folder "Global Hotkey" and copy contents of downloaded DMG to that.
3. In a terminal do:
cd "/Applications/Global Hotkey"
ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app "command f10"
4. Make sure Screensaver is set to prompt for password (you may need to relog for this to take effect)
5. Preferences -> Accounts -> -> Login Items : Add "Global Hotkey.app"
6. Launch the app as well

Dapper Drake Final Ready for download!

2006-06-01T11:22:00.000+02:00

Get it here.

Free Windows Firewalls

2006-05-05T16:16:00.000+02:00

It seems like every year I need to go through this exersize over and over again.
The Firewall landscape seems to be like a formicating pool changing goalposts and lanscape as you watch.

What was good is now deprecated and vice-versa.

I used to prefer AtGuard, but then new exploits came on the scene which it did not catch (Due to some Windows low-level flaws) and the product was discontinued (and later bought by another company and defiled)

Then I swote by Tiny Personal Firewall (version 2015a), and that also went the way of the dodo.

Then it was Zone Alarm 5 (version 55940).

Then it was Kerio Personal Firewall 4.2.3.912.

And for the past year I was using Sygate Personal Firewall (which I bought)

To my great dismay I have now discovered that Symantec has bought Sygate and basically deprecated the product, and having no great love for Norton/Symantec or MacAfee I started to look for alternative.

These are my options now. (in order of preference)

Core Force
ZoneAlarm 55940
Sygate 5.6
Tiny Personal Firewall 2015a
Kerio 4.2.3.912
AtGuard 322u

For most people I would suggest ZoneAlarm 5 which can be found at OldVersion, but if you have a bit of time (at least initially) but want FULL and I mean *FULL!* control over all programs and access on your machine, look no further than Core Force. It may not be as polished as the rest, but it is totally free and massivle configureable.

Most of these firewalls and versions can be found using google or on the OldVersions site.

My criteria have been:

Machine Performance Degredation/Footprint (Sygate was the best here)
Ease of Use (ZoneAlarm)
Configureability (Core Force, Sygate, Kerio, Tiny)
Cost (Can't argue with Free)

Any comments welcome.

Creating a SSH tunnel to the internet.

2006-05-05T12:55:00.000+02:00

Ever been at a client with Orwellian access restrictions on the internet?

Why not use what they provide you to the max without cracking their security.

What you will need:

1. Access/login to a linux machine with ssh running on port 80 (or 443)

(See UnixShell - They're grrreat!)

2. The proxytunnel client program.

Creating the tunnel:

Firstly you will need to create a TCPIP tunnel through your proxy server. For my example I'm running OS X (on my shiny MacBook Pro).

To do this, add the following (2 lines) to your ~/.ssh/config file:


Host shell.my-host.com
    ProxyCommand /Users/teuton/bin/proxytunnel -N -p "local-proxy:8080"       -u "proxy-user" -s "proxy-pass" -d "shell.my-host.com:443"

Great! We are all set! You may need to tweak these settings depending on your local proxy server type and configuration (NTML auth etc)

Now the easy part.

Creating the proxy:

To ssh into your machine simply type:


> ssh teuton@shell.my-host.com

To make things easier it is advised that you create ssh public and private key pairs and set these up... (see ssh-keygen command, and always check access rights are correct!)

Now create a proxy to services you require.

The following will create a SOCKS5 proxy for you:


> ssh -N -D 8080 teuton@shell.my-host.com

This will create a tunnel to your remote POP port: (local port 2110)


> ssh -N -L 2110:127.0.0.1:110 teuton@shell.my-host.com

This will create a tunnel to a jabber port at a 3rd party host


> ssh -N -L 6222:jabber.third-party.com:5222 teuton@shell.my-host.com

How all you need to do is create a script file:


~/bin$ cat t
#!/bin/sh
while true
do
  ssh -N -L 2143:127.0.0.1:143 -D 8080 teuton@shell.my-host.com
  sleep 1
done

And you are set:

Lastly to configure your applications, just add a SOCKS server entry (no other HTTP/S entries should be added). Some applications may still not work. For these you may need to create custom direct proxies to specified ports.

So which is better? The Sony PSP or the Nintendo DS?

2005-04-03T13:50:00.000+02:00

I recently went on a trip to Japan, and was faced with a choice on a new handheld gaming device to purchase for a friend.

So which is better? What are the differences?

First-off, I personally own a Gameboy Advance, and I finally chose to buy the PSP.

The reason for the choice was that I already owned both an iPod and a Gameboy Advance, but this friend of mine had neither... so for me the DS may have been a better choice, but only slightly.

Firstly the DS:

This little machine is slightly heavier than the PSP, but folds away neatly, it's more solid and resiliant, the games are cheap, load fast and can use older Advance cartridges. The screen has a huge surface and the touch screen is really nifty. The technology is way behind the PSP, but it is also about $50 less in price.

So this device has a huge advantage with current game availability.

It also has a good battery life (something I appreciate after my Japan trip on both my iPod and Gameboy).

The PSP:

This is a slick-looking device, but unfortunately the screen picks up scratches and fingerprints quickly. The teething problems with the first release has been sorted out, so no more bad buttons and broken pixels. It's battery life is poor, but is expected for the processing it delivers. It's really an amazingly fast little machine... way way way ahead of the DS. The games come on disc (UMD) and can hold a lot more than the DS cartrige, but loads slower (only slightly really) and are more expensive. The PSP seems pretty versatile though and you can easily get games and other software and upload it to the Sony memory stick (of which I have 512Mb and you can also get 1Gb now...).

It can also play movies from the disc (or from the memory stick if you (re-)encode and upload it yourself as well as music as MP3 (and some other silly format).

It's got WiFi and bluetooth (and I have already updated the firmware to a new version using WiFi without a problem).

The screen is brilliantly scrisp and clear, and even though it is smaller in size than the DS's two displays, it's still larger in size than a single DS display and about double or more in resolution than both DS screens combined.

Both these devices are good with playing WiFi linked games with multiple players, and the PSP can even 'clone' a game to a second machine allowing you to only need one copy of a game to play multiple players.

Overall the PSP is a well-rounded machine with a lot more potential growth. You will see a lot of 3rd party apps being released for it in the near future.

If you want something innocuous but reliable and fun nontheless, go for the DS.

Just my view.

Japan trip (pt. 1)

2005-03-17T10:57:00.000+02:00

A bit late, but better late than never...

A quick journal of my trip so far:

(Times are as per locality)

5 March:

13:10 Depart from JHB

About a 12 hour flight on which I did not sleep and watched many movies...

07:00 Arrive in Hong Kong

On my first day there, I found my hostel first, dumped all my luggage and started walking.
walk walk walk...

I tried to stay awake until 11pm and got to bed pretty exhausted.

I stayed in Hong Kong for three days, seeing many cool sights and also taking the time to buy a good digital camera (About R5k)

Also saw and met some cool Tai-Chi people, and suffered no jet-lag.

8 March:
11:20 Fly to Tokyo.

Arrived at Narita airport, picked up my JR Pass, caught a train, then a bullet train, then another train, and finally a local rapid train.

I spend the first two days just eating sushi and planning my next few days...

20:00 Finally arrived at my destination... Hozumi. I was picked up at the train station by a friend of Charisse and Jason's called Sumire.

10 March:
I took some trains to Takayama, a city pretty high up and surrounded by mountains... absolutely lovely. Walking into an antique shop I found a nice go table (Goban). Saw many cool temples and shrines. Higher up the mountains I had to trudge through snow... it being only the second time in my life that I have actually seen snow (this time it was just lying there though...)

My path led me up some pretty deserted trails in the mountains (lots of snow... sometimes sunk in up to my knees!) Emerging from a trail there was a welcome restaurant. At this point I should mention that practically no-one speaks English, and that there are none or very few signs in English... this is a Japanese only country... monolinguility? in extreme! I ordered some ramen (yummy!) and some unrefined sake (woot!). After eating I had to rush back to the station to be able to catch my train, as I was not keeping track of time. Fortunately this was not a problem. (The morning train I had missed, but this is really not a big problem since most trains were free for me and they tend to run often...)

The most beautiful part of this day-trip I would say was the trip there and back... an expensive (free for me) train through some stunning mountain passes.

11 March:
Today I visited Nagoya (the closest largish city). This was the first time I got an idea of the sheer scope and popularity of Manga (Japanese comics). 6 floors of comics did the trick. 4 floors of those were purely porn (the Japanese culture is strange... they censor only the genitals... they seem more critical of images than thoughts and meanings. So these comics are pretty damn explicit. An entire floor dedicated to female lesbian porn! (And I don't mean male-centric lesbian porn, guys!) There were also some other stores with more than just manga... they had cels and figurines and some Anime...

Anime here seems to be scarcer... also without ANY English whatsoever... so nothing I can really buy. The most I could buy were figurines and cells.

Manga is sold EVERYWHERE... in every 7eleven (seven11?), on every station platform and in every street. They get Anime for free on TV, so it's not as big. (For us in SA it is all we really see...)

Hmm... perhaps I should make some things clear about their culture...

Pachinco centres... these seem to be popular as well... kinda quasi-legal gambling (a recent thing). These parlours have a huge number of metal ball-based machines sticking out like sore thumbs all over the place and basically just making a lot of noise. I really pity the people in these places.

Cell-phones. Japanese cell phone networks are TOTALLY incompatible with the rest of the world... they are also way, way ahead of us. The cameras in these phones are 2Megapixel and up... they all get upgraded CONSTANTLY. About half the people I see who aren't otherwise occupied are always busy on their phones... I've even heard of girls text-ing away on two phones AT THE SAME TIME!

Also, second-hand does not exist... people just don't really buy second had stuff... so it's pretty cheap!

You only get antiques and recycled goods.

Anyway... back to Nagoya... only Charisse and I went, and met a friend of theirs names Kobus (a SA ex-RAU student basically doing a thesis... quite an interesting chap.). Charisse had to leave early, so Kobus took us around some shops and later left me to my own devices.

(He also helped me buy a Japanese/English translator... quite an amazing little device really...)

After wandering around a bit more in the rain, I decided to call it quits and go home. I took a subway train to the main Nagoya station, and instead of going home I decided to check out an electronics store close to the station first... wow! (this was not an exceptional store either!) It was about 7 floors of electronics!

I did not stay long, and left for Nagoya station again after which I went home to Hozumi.

12 March:

Today I drove to an interesting place... got a good idea of the traffic here. I went to visit a place called
'The Site of Reversible Destiny'
Which was an exercise in architecture and geometry and how it can confuse the senses... look it up on the net!

Nothing much else done... only a cool party in the evening.
This part ended at a Karaoke bar... I was pretty amazed at the selection available... even had some Nine Inch Nails... but I refrained from doing these. -grin-

One of the guys there even did the Cowboy Bebop theme song (just for me -grin-). A cool thing is that he (Hideki Kudomi) was a character designer on the 'Real Myst' game! His business card looks sooo cool!
:)

13-16 March:

I decided to tour a little... first I went to Kyoto. There I visited some temples and castles and shrines and basically just walked and walked and walked. I stayed for two nights there. I also tracked down and found a Go salon... had a quick game or two (or three).

Then I left for Osaka... here I just experience the city some... nothing really special... like Tokyo (which I'm still to visit) just less so. (Still quite impressive and intimidating)

I only stayed here for one night (uncomfortably) in a capsule hotel (missed the 'Love Hotel' experience!). It's really just a little capsude (with lights, TV, clock).

The next day I decided I had had enough of Osaka, and on a whim decided to visit Hiroshima. Well... It was a wise thing to do. It was awesome! It was also pretty warm... I only needed a T-shirt!

Hiroshima was the bomb, Baby!
;)
It was also quite toasty... -grin-

-cough-

Anyway... city is of great cultural and historical significance... it symbolises one of the greatest lows of the USA. Quite a moving moment to have been to ground zero (IQ).

Having had enough of this... I head back to Hozumi (Read: Home)

17 March: (Today)

Wrote this blog and did some future (financial) planning.

I'm going to buy the Goban tomorrow and investigate ways of getting it back to ZA. I've also booked for my stay in Tokyo (4500 yen per night) and needed to borrow some cash from Jason.

Ah, yes... Japan does not DO credit cards... Hmm... there are *some* vendors in Tokyo, but in general they seem like a pretty isolated country.

They have all the big brand stores here... much more quality stuff than SA could ever have, yet they are missing something. They seem more concerned with images and appearances than in quality and meaning... at least that is the modern youth's view.

They are more first world than I have even seen in Europe, yet I feel it is a step back, somehow... I sound like I am contradicting my own words, yet this is how I can best describe Japan.

Anyway... off I am.

Avoid: "The Incredibles" for Mac

2005-01-10T11:37:00.000+02:00

I bought a friend of mine "The Incredibles" for Christmas. It seems he was having some trouble getting the game to run, reporting that it switched resolutions and seemingly did not want to start running at all otherwise.

He is using a dual G5 desktop Apple Mac, running OS X version 10.3.5. (fully patched)

It's a pretty standard machine with no additional hardware or software.

The strange thing is that the official site does not even recognise that the game runs on the Mac at all! This I find pretty worrying!

See: http://www.thq.com/

I've seen other people on the net having similar problems, but no solutions are forthcoming... if anyone has a solution, please post it here!

One thing I have seen that is a similarity is the fact that both machines are Dual CPU machines.

And as well all know, Apple's Java seems to be vulnerable to a user space system panic on dual CPU machines via some name lookup problem. (See Azureus forums)

So as I know of both G4 and G5 dual CPU owners having similar problems, I'm thinking it may be related.

I'm sorta glad Disney and Pixar are splitting soon, as Disney only seems to tarnish the Pixar/Apple name.
(light jab)

Why torrent low-ratio banning is killing the network and is generally a bad idea.

2004-12-25T13:22:00.000+02:00

It seems a growing trend for people to get banned for low share ratios.

Now I can understand how this would appeal to some people`s sense of (in)justice as there are people out there who do not understand that not sharing while you download will ultimately make you download yours slower as you supply bits to other people who would otherwise been supplied by the seeder, making it possible for you to download from open slots at the seeder. These are typlically low-intellect `kiddies` who don`t do math and then download hacked clients because they are just stupid.

I agree that these people are evil.

But putting a share-ratio of 0.9 and higher as mandatory is just insane. (IMHO 0.1 is the absolute maximum)

Take the following example (using mathematical induction and taking values to extremes) if I limited my download to 1k/s and my upload to 25k/s (I have a 256/256 connection) my share ratio inexorably tends to go to sub-1.0. In fact, I find that only the T1 people seems to get any use out of these torrents. I start on the same torrent as everyone else, and I seed like crazy, but even so, those 30 people I started together with on the torrent all have the file completely downloaded within the first hour, and I still download the file for the next day at a measly 20k/s. So no matter HOW much I share and am willing to contibute, it seems I cannot win. (Yes, about all of those 30 people have high bandwidth, as most lower bandwidth users have already fallen prey to this)

In a way these torrent sites seem to be quite similar in nature to pyramid schemes where the rich only get richer and feed off the poor, ignorant and innocent. (Hehe... which am I?)

I joined p2p, and not understanding the low-ratio banning for lack of contemplation I was excited about the whole prospect of torrents. It seems now, however, that only the people creating the site and it's rules who, togther with a few select users, have the download (yes download) and upload bandwidth capacity to be able to stay in the black. The other poor fools who always seem to come at the end of torrents and never are able to seemingly finish downloading torrents as they are always the last in the queue, only serve to help the file spread a bit for those big users.

The two things that are equally bad to torrents in general are idiotic leechers, and pedantic rules.

I`ve just joined this eFarm and read the usuage policy/guide, and was dismayed to find these rules here as well.

I initially got invited here as I want to promote art/horror/noir/cult/foreign movies by seeding these. I`m not really interested in general releases, but would probably partake in spreading some of those as well) The only thing keeping me back is the general difficulty of creating torrent releases as I do not just re-seed scene ones like most other people, but have many of my own hard-to-find and not-released-by-local-distributor releases. For a list of what I`m talking about:

http://www.mediachest.com/users/lailoken/dvds.html

(In my country the film industry is controlled by only two companies who have not sense of what art-films are supposed to be about... and thus refuse to ever supply anything of real value)

And delaying low-ratio users will only exacerbate their situation, and they can just as well quit.

Let`s hope these views start a constructive conversation and not a flame war. It is a difficult problem to solve, but "cutting off one's nose" is not the ultimate solution. It's like using `chemo` to treat cancer when there *is* a cure...

Firefox Tweaks/Speed-ups

2004-12-09T13:31:00.000+02:00

These options can go into the user.js file, or can be set from the 'about:config' url.

(Editing the user.js file may need to be done when FireFox is not running)
(Editing the about:config may require a FireFox restart)

Speed-ups:

user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 128);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 48);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 24);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 12);

// Enable pipelining:
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 100);

Firefox: Open diverted links in new background tab instead of new window

2004-12-09T13:27:00.000+02:00

This has frustrated me for a long time... something I really liked about Opera.

Go to 'about:config' url and set:

browser.tabs.loadInBackground to true (should be already)
browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs to true

browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground to true

Then in advanced preferences is a new option:
'Force links that open a new window to:'

can be used for immesdiate effect.

VMWare referral discount code

2004-11-29T17:48:00.000+02:00

I thought I would try this since I really do think VMWare is the best thing since sliced potatoes.

If you want a 5% discount toward buying VMWare Workstation 4.x, (perhaps ESX and GSX server as well) then just use this referral code during the checkout phase:

VMRC-MARVAN882

Edit: Seems to work for VMWare 5.0 as well!

I've been doing all my major development in Windows 2000 and RedHat VMWare sessions, and even though I have changed desktop PCs multiple times and re-installed even more times, I have always had a stable and CLEAN development (compile/link/build and test ISO) environment.

This will save you many hours, as well as the extra cost of hardware.

Don't even bother with other products (unless you need something like VirtualPC for the Mac).

Have fun!

Marius.

What a week-end.

2004-11-29T13:13:00.000+02:00

Well, this week-end started off with a bang. First I had the EPI-USE year-end function: a dangerously silly-sounding theme of 50s, 60s and 70s. I had a shower and then took a nap, hoping beyond hope for fate to take a hand and cause me to oversleep and miss it. But then Aubrey phoned and chided me into going after all. (By that time I was already 30 minutes late, but found this not to be a problem since everyone else was).

Well, the party turned out to be entertaining, and I could at least squeeze out a "Jean Genie" from the Jukebox.

I left early (11pm) with some friends, and went to my place to watch "Princess Bride", chat some and watch some music videos, talk and drink coffee.

Got to bed at only 2am.

Saturday after I got back from the 'boere-mark' having bought loads of berries, I decided to clean out my place, and I practically got rid of half my furniture. I drove around like a crazy looking tor places selling leather couches, and finally went home. The evening I went to Menlyn shopping centre, and true to self, impulsively bought a neat 3-seater plush leather couch. Yummy... (will only get it in Feb. though) I felt so flamboyant, that afterward I went to dine (without a reservation!) at 'La Madeleine' with by best friend.

Sunday started with the holistic fayre (an essoteric fair) where I had my eyes examined by an Iridologist who likened me to a stud bull.... Hmm...

|         (__)                [@@]          ?  (__)  ?              (__)

|         (oo)              <=|^^|=>       ?   (oo)   ?         |\/|(oo)

|  /-------VV       /--------- \/       /-------\/           /--| \--\/

| / |     ||       / |       ||        / |     ||           / |     ||

|*  ||----||      /  |       ||       *  ||----||          *  ||----||

|   ^^    ^^      *  ||------||          ^^    ^^             ^^    ^^

|                    ^^      ^^

| Cownt Dracula     Francownstein       Where Cow             Cow bird

| Cow

-grin-

After the fair I got rid of most of my furniture with the help of Aubrey, after which I rushed to the gym and had a grueling session of squash (of which I lost 6 games out of 6)

Also quickly played 2 Go games against Riaan... one even, the other with 6 stones handicap... beat him both times by about 35 points.

Then went home and slept.

Well, nothing more to report...