Dangblastit....

[jarandhel]

Well, I did it. I found a program I want that nobody seems to have created yet that should theoretically be childishly easy to put together using languages and toolsets I already have a passing familiarity with. This has, of course, sent me hurtling back into programmer geekspace... (a dangerous place for me, with my limited knowledge of programming.)

Ah well, at least I'm back on a Mac for this little endeavor. :)

Yes. I did buy a new laptop last week.

Comments

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Does the new addition have a name, yet?:)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

"The Heart of Dream". Or "dreamheart", depending on whether I want to go formal or not. It's kind of a play on a concept from a fiction series I liked when I was younger... "timeheart". But merging it in with the Dreaming.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Very cool.:)

I named mine Artemis. Seemed appropriate somehow for the small white MacBook. So, which one did you get?

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

15 inch MacBook Pro, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 1 GB 667Mhz RAM. :)

I also picked up the new Airport Extreme Base Station (802.11n) and got a multifunction printer/scanner/copier combo for $9 after mail-in rebate. (Off the top of my head, I can't remember the specs on the printer, I believe it's a Canon though.)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think this is the printer:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=116&modelid=13369

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the wireless network is named "The Dreaming" and the base station is named "DreamGate". See a pattern here? ;-)

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

DETAILS. WE WANTS DETAILS, OH YES.

(Seriously, congrats :D I've been getting into things on another end, namely, working on making Ubuntu packaging ports for things available in source and in RPM formats but not in .debs :D Even registered myself as a porting assistant to work my way up into this stuff, and working with the author of a kick-ass fractal program (GnoFract4D) to get his stuff properly Debianised and into the repositories. It's do stuff like this or go bugfuck nuts :D)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

15 inch MacBook Pro, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 1 GB 667Mhz RAM. :)

And that's cool... I like Linux a lot, there are some things it does even better than the Mac (and I'm hoping that eventually Macs will wise up to this and borrow those things as well as the things they have already borrowed and improved upon). I'm actually planning to set up Linux and Windows on an external hard drive for this machine, I just need to see about obtaining an adapter so I can connect the 2.5 inch IDE hard drive to my desktop machine and actually format it... apparently, enclosures for making internal drives external through usb and such do not support formatting the drive initially through the usb interface.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

That's sort of odd in that you can't format it using an enclosure...one would think there should be a driver for that *shrugs*

I is envious of the Mac, though. :D One day, oh yes, one day I *will* get a Mac if it kills me (and then I shall turn it into a triple-boot box. Why? BECAUSE I CAN, DAMNIT. I do see you have the same evil plans though :D)

And just out of curiosity, what sort of program you muckin' with? (Whilst I've not been writing programs, I've been having fun with making makefile stubs for Python programs...whilst I love Debian-based Linuxen in general, the .deb creation tools are b0rken in that (quite *unlike* RPM creation tools in RedHat/FedoraCore) there is a very heavy assumption you are creating a package from C source code and a configure.sh script--this no workee so well with Python programs (which tend to use install.sh scripts that compile Python code livetime and are architecture independent) so pretty much you have to make a makefile as a hack to call the Python install.sh script for the damn .deb creation tools to properly do their magic. If I weren't trying to make this a *proper* Ubuntu .deb build, I'd say "fuck it" and run alien on the RPMs :D)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

It's a concept for a specialized mp3 player... an adjunct to iTunes, not a replacement. I've got a LOT of mp3 cds that a friend gave me. I've been trying to go through them, play what's on them, decide what I like, and just add the ones I like to my iTunes library, so the excess files aren't taking up a ton of room. Unfortunately, I've found there's not really an easy way to do this. What I want is basically a music player that will function somewhat as iTunes does for cd ripping... it will play the cd without importing anything, then import just the ones you have checked when you click the import button. This would also be useful if you use p2p programs and have an "incoming" folder that you would simply like to play, without automatically adding them to iTunes, and then be able to just import the ones you decide you like enough to check off. I'm fairly certain that all of this functionality would be quite easy to implement using Cocoa frameworks. Even the option to autoimport files to iTunes and delete them after they are added has already been implimented in Limewire and various other mac p2p programs, some of which I believe are open source.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

OK, lemme rephrase, more "What sort of program are you thinking of writing and all and what is it meant to do" sort of thing :D

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

*pokepoke* See my answer to that above. :)

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

You may want to check out Parallels. On of the sys admins here runs it and swears that XP actually runs faster and is more stable when run through Parallels.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I've thought about it, and I do like virtualization, but I'm not sure yet if that's the way I want to go... plus, I've already got a free virtualization program on here, with XP loaded up, that I'm not sure I want to trade over for a commercial one. It's called Q or Kju, not really clear on which is the preferred name, it seems to use both interchangeably; and it's a cocoa port of qemu. My only issue with it so far has been a bit of oddness in full-screen mode that I think has more to do with the video drivers Windows is using... (it's hard to describe the effect, exactly, but there's a sort of slight distortion of the screen which follows the mouse around.)

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Parallels claims to be working on 3-D graphic acceleration, though, which would be quite nice if they can actually get it to work. This would be a huge step up in virtualization since this is one of the major complaints about a lot of the virtualization software.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

True... though if you're running a program that requires 3D graphics accelleration, it's hard to see a benefit to running it virtualized; it would inherently be a resource intensive program, and one would want to have as little unnecessary overhead on the system as possible. Virtualization is the antithesis of that.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I thought the same thing, but there is a sys admin here claiming that XP runs faster and is more stable under Parallels. I have not, mind you, confirmed this statement in my own testing.l

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Faster than running it natively? Virtualization inherently distributes only a portion of the available RAM of a machine to the guest OS, and basically makes cpu usage into a timeshare kind of deal... I really can't see any way that could possibly speed it up. Not sure on the more stable aspect... possibly, just by virtue of keeping XP from accessing some things directly.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I was surprised when he told me that, too. Any time I've run something virtually, it's always been slower, but that's the claim and the person who told me this definitely knows his stuff. Whenever I get the time, I'll download the trial and check it out. It is definitely one of those cases where I'll have to see it for myself.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Well, I've tested it out and so far I'm rather surprised by the speed... unfortunately, I haven't tried running Windows through boot camp yet, so I'm not sure what the real difference is in terms of Window's speed on this identical hardware running natively vs running virtualized. This computer is also a lot more high-end than any other I've ever ran virtualization on, so it's hard to judge whether it's just that I've got a damned fast computer or if it's really something about Parallels.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Well I think the system architecture on the mac is a little better, so I'm sure that's a factor, but anytime I've run something virtually it's always been a little slow. I think I'll be adding Parallels to my long to do list for the mac. I'm really curious to see how it works.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, I was very impressed by its unattended installation feature... feed the info into Parallels itself real quick, and it will run Windows XP Setup for you. I very much recommend downloading the trial and giving it a test run. I'm also intrigued by the "coherence" mode, which lets you run Windows in the background, but makes the Windows apps show up in the foreground as if they were Mac-Native apps.

I'm kind of tempted to buy this program...

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I have to say that sounds like a piece of software that may actually, indeed, be worth buying. Windows should definitely be seen and not heard.:)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

It's a cool feature, but it's important to keep in mind that the whole Windows OS is still running, just invisibly. That said, it was kind of cool to play the Windows Native 3D pinball game on my OSX desktop...

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

But if it's invisible then I can be like the rest of the world and pretend it's just not there.:)

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

There's also work being done on 3D support for qemu, btw: http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/viewtopic.php?p=9867

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

This has, of course, sent me hurtling back into programmer geekspace... (a dangerous place for me, with my limited knowledge of programming.)

*hands you a cup of coffee and a b33r* Godspeed!

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

It's ok, I've got Jolt Blue, I'm good. :)

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

Bawls is always good too.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, except it comes in those teeny-tiny little bottles... I like big bawls, damnit. ;-)

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

Good Mexican food always rocks too. So does pocky. I seem to be the only person who likes green tea pocky. I like black soy pocky too. It's sweet but not quite as sweet as other flavours.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I've never had soy pocky, and I generally dislike green tea anything (except, oddly enough, green tea soda which may be the key to easing me into green tea more generally) but I did try some honey-milk pockey and that was DELICIOUS. :)

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

Never had noney milk pocky. It sounds quite addictive.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

It is indeed. :)