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Teaching Bird a new trick December 30, 2007

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So now that I’ve got OnBoardC launching Bird I’ve noticed it does something a little different to RsrcEdit.

RsrcEdit has a “QuartusC” button (I always rename it to “OnBoardC”) that launches OnBoardC. Bird does not have this button but it does have a “Done” button on the top screen that appears when it’s launched via a “goto” instead of a “normal” launch code and causes the calling app to be restarted. This button does what I want (returns to OnBoardC) but it’s on the main page while RsrcEdit has this button on the resource list page.

Bird comes with code but it’s written in pascal. I installed PP Compiler to build a new Bird. I also installed Piaf because SrcEdit doesn’t do pascal editing particularly well. I edited the Rsrc file to make the main screen’s “Done” button appear the same as the “Apply” button (it was too small) then I added a new “Quit” button to the resource list screen (I had to move the other buttons around a bit to accommodate it). This button behaves exactly like the “Done” button on the main screen but it takes one less click to invoke it and it matches RsrcEdit’s “QuartusC” button. I had to do a bit of code tweaking for this but it wasn’t too hard.

Of course, I’m now stuck because I don’t have diff on my device. I think my best bet will be to post a .zip with the modified Bird sources. There’s tools that convert PDBDOC to text (for the pascal code) and Rsrc to .rcp (Pilrc) so I guess a diff can be made but since Bird is designed to be built onboard, I’m not sure if a patch will help the developers. Once I find all of the files, I’ll zip them up and attach them.

Update 1 February 2008

I’ve sent the patch off to the developers finally. I’ve also collected my patched utilities into a single file, OnBoard.zip. If you want the modified sources let me know.

Giving OnBoardC the bird December 29, 2007

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So I was a big fan of OnBoardC back when I had my Visor and I was keen to see how the project had come along (it had only just been open sourced last time I used it). It seems you still need to use the non-Free (and legally gray) RsrcEdit for resource editing. At least, that was until I found Bird (along with an onboard Pascal compiler that I’d consider looking at if I actually knew pascal). However while most of the dedicated OnBoardC users have been using Bird for a while now, OnBoardC doesn’t support it, it’s hard-coded to use RsrcEdit. I’ve just fixed that.

My patch gives you a new choice in the “Choose Editor” dialog. You can continue to use RsrcEdit for editing Rsrc files or you can choose to use Bird. The “Edit” button now just always says “Edit” instead of changing to “RsrcEdit” when a Rsrc file is selected.

I’ve sent the patch off to the developers. I’ve also collected my patched utilities into a single file, OnBoard.zip. If you want the modified sources let me know.

New Sound System December 28, 2007

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I got a new sound system for Christmas. It was a boxed set with a Sony HT-DDW885 receiver and a full complement of 6.1 speakers. I’ve got the DVD player and PVR going through it now and with a bit of fiddling, I’ve got the remote handling the setup.

The system came with a cable to connect the DVD player’s digital audio via coax. Other systems are expected to use Toslink (that’s all my PVR does anyway) so I had to go and buy a cable for that. My PVR also has incompatible video output. You see, the receiver supports only composite, component and HDMI. My PVR outputs composite, S-Video and SCART. So the only way I can connect the PVR through the receiver is via composite or via a SCART breakout adapter. I picked up one of those only to find that my PVR outputs RGB instead of component (stupid European standards). I could buy a converter for $130 but I’m a cheapskate. Using composite (which is how I connected the PVR before) turns out to be a pain because the receiver is a switch only, it doesn’t convert video formats. The problem is that the TV doesn’t like having multiple video inputs in Wega Theatre mode. I want to use the TV as the center speaker but you can only make this stick in theatre mode.

Harmony 525 to the rescue. I’m now using S-Video to connect the PVR to the TV (not sure why I didn’t use it before, I had 2 spare cables) and the Harmony remote runs through the 10 button presses required to navigate the TV’s menu to enable the center speaker. It’s not particularly elegant but it works. In fact, due to the loooong startup time of the TV the setup is done before I get a picture.

I also discovered that I can add a “sequence” to my remote (aka. macros ?). I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an option before… the harmony “app” is just a browser so I guess they may have updated the back end without updating the displayed version number. I had a look but unlike the pre-activity implicit macros, these macros are limited to 6 commands. That’s not enough to navigate the menu. Suck.

Oh yeah, did I mention how awesome this thing sounds? I’m not experienced in this stuff, this is my first >2 speaker setup. I tested it out with the Balrog scene from LOTR. It’s got some distinctive (as opposed to rumbly) bass that lets you know the sub is working right. I’m also really impressed ability to hear and understand spoken words but I think it comes more from having a center channel than anything else. The receiver has a cool auto-setup mode where it makes sounds from the speakers and measures them with a mic to get the levels set correctly. It nicely handled the fact that I haven’t got around to connecting the rear speakers yet (need to put holes in the wall for that) and that the front speakers aren’t an equal distance from my chair.

My favorite feature? Dynamic Range Compression. It’s something my ancient CD player (one of the first “stackers”) had and something I’ve been pining for in AV equipment since. In a sound-proofed room or during the day when it’s ok to turn up the volume you don’t need this (unless you’re watching a movie on TV and hate the “ad volume spike”) but I like to watch TV at night and I can’t afford to turn up the volume or I’ll wake everyone up. During the day there’s more background noise anyway and I don’t like excessively noisy environments (I don’t like the loudness of cinemas). So I’ve got the receiver doing “extreme” compression and I’m loving it.

Isaac tries (and fails) toilet training December 23, 2007

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After the Christmas party we tried to toilet train Isaac.

He liked wearing “big boy” pants but despite his enthusiasm he was just not ready. The problem seems to be that he has no advanced warning that he’s about to go to the toilet. We had him on the potty one day for half an hour, only to have him wee everywhere five minutes later. It wasn’t intentional either. He knew what we wanted him to do and was quite distressed when he wet himself. He was equally pleased with himself when he did wee on the potty (though that was due to luck).

We kept it up for 2 days but he didn’t get any better so we’ll try again in a few months.

Christmas Party/Wiggles December 23, 2007

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We had the work Christmas party. It was up on the sunshine coast this year. We went up early on Saturday to the Eumundi markets. Due to a late scheduling change, the kids and I missed out on most of Sunday because we were driving down to the Wiggles concert.

This was the second time Emily had gone to a Wiggles concert. She wanted to give Dorothy a rose. It seems to be an unofficial thing that happens. Unfortunatley, I forgot to get a rose when we stopped for lunch and the drive down took longer than I’d anticipated so we didn’t have time to get one when we got there.

Isaac had his feathersword to wave. The thing is, he was all good right up until we got to our row. As we started to go across to our seats he just lost it. I think it was because we were in a hurry and there were so many people everywhere and it was very loud. He didn’t want to sit beside me so he sat on my lap. We only just managed to sit down before the show started and I think it was a bit overwhelming for him. He spent most of the show sitting there watching the stage with a slack jaw. Emily was much better. She clapped, sang and danced along. By the end, Isaac had warmed up a bit. Afterwards he talked about it so clearly he did manage to take it all in.

The monday was our last day and we went swimming again before coming home. We hit a major traffic incident on the Gateway. There was a sign saying there was a road closure at an exit but it didn’t mention an accident so I figured the exit was shut rather than the whole road (for road works or something). The radio hadn’t mentioned the gateway being shut either. Of course, the actual problem was a rolled truck that had closed the road for most of the day. In the end it took us about 2 hours to get down the Gateway. Luckily the kids were asleep the whole time.

A free/Free virtualization solution for the Mac December 13, 2007

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VMWare really dropped the ball this time.

The beta of Fusion was free so I used it. It felt to me about the same as VMWare Player which is free on Windows and Linux (and very limited compared to their non-free offering). For some reason though, they decided that despite missing all of the advanced features found in VMWare Workstation they’d charge for Fusion (I guess because they saw Parallels was doing the same thing). It’s too bad because I have been using VMWare Player on both Linux and Windows machines but now that I’ve found VirtualBox I’m probably going to be getting rid of VMWare on all of my systems.

VirtualBox is dual licensed. You can get it for Free (GPL) or for free under a personal use license. It is supported on Linux and Windows hosts and Mac OS X support is currently in Beta (though it’s working fine for me right now).

I’m currently installing Ubuntu (to serve as the build machine for my Treo Linux hacking) and it’s running along awesomely in the background. I had previously tried out Q but it lacks virtualization (there’s broken links to an apparent solution) so it’s slow as molasas and even running old DOS games, it was a resource pig. It is apparently a good alternative to Virtual PC 7 for any PPC Macs running Leopard. Installing Ubuntu in VirtualBox feels like I’m using a VNC client, it’s hardly impacting on my machine (and the install doesn’t seem to be taking longer to finish either).

Besides the price, VirtualBox seems to be designed well. It’s smaller than VMWare and from what I’m reading is more efficient on the same hardware. It also seems to screw around less with the host kernel and the guest code. I’m not sure if it’s going to aim at implementing features from Fusion/Parallels (eg. run from Boot Camp partition, rootless Windows, accelerated graphics) but those are mostly fluff features anyway. I can certainly live without them.

Bree's computer goes in for repair December 13, 2007

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Bree’s computer is in for repairs. The hard drive just died. A bit of work and I got it to at least stop hanging any system that tried to do anything with it but it can’t complete a low level format so it’s even deader than my disk was. At least her computer is still under warranty.

Update 23 December 2007

The machine came back with a new disk. I’ve loaded on most of the software that Bree uses (which isn’t much) but there’s a heap of customization to do to get it operating how it had been.

Treo accessories December 8, 2007

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My accessories finally arrived.

The screen protector wasn’t what I was expecting but I’ve never had one before. I think it’s causing some false double-taps in a few apps but I’m not sure. The screen has always seemed more sensitive than I remember my Visor being.

The headset is a Jabra BT125. It seems to work ok. It sits on my ear funny, it’s not designed to sit in but rather beside your ear. This means it blocks out almost none of the surrounding sound (handy for when you’re not actually using it I guess) but it doesn’t have anything other than hard plastic so it can get a bit uncomfortable if you don’t position it just right. I really only got this for receiving calls in the car and it seems to be quite capable of doing that.

I was going to get a Palm side case, a leather thing roughly the same as the case I have for the Greenphone (and the phone before that). I’m not a fan of always-on cases because unless the device was designed for the case, it will always provide a sub-optimal experience.

I ordered the side case despite it not being in stock because the store said stock had been ordered and a 2 day lead time was expected. A week later and the stock has still not arrived. Good thing I rang up to swap the case for a Palm hard case. It’ll sit on my belt the same and it’s also got “squash protection”, something I haven’t had in a phone case before (though I haven’t been as concerned about squashing a phone before now). The hard case has the same plastic, colour and finish that the black MacBook uses so it looks and feels awesome (it was also out before the MacBook, I wonder if Apple copied it or if there have been other devices to use that style). It’s surprisingly compact. I was expecting it to feel bulky but it doesn’t. When clipped onto my belt it opens enough to let you grab the phone but not enough to let the phone fall out. Clever but I have to wonder about the longevity of the hinge. There doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of plastic preventing the case from opening all the way. For now though, it’s working fine and my only complaint is that the Treo has an aerial so it can only go in the case one way. Since I like my phone case on my left side this means the Treo is upside down, with the aerial pointing behind me. A bit of practice though and I can take it in and out of the case with one hand so it doesn’t seem to be a big deal.

Treo boots Linux (finally) December 7, 2007

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So I finally got the Treo to boot Linux.

For some reason the Greenphone didn’t want to act as a reliable SD card reader but I found a program called Card Export that turns the Treo into an SD card reader. That let me copy the files onto the card and got Linux booting.

However, it seems busybox’s /bin/sh is being run as init and there’s no ls applet. I suspect that I’m stuck in the initrd. It’s supposed to load the .ext2 file I put on the card but perhaps it only reads FAT16 (which is all the Treo 650 supports by default). I was using a FAT32 card (since my customized ROM includes a FAT32 driver).

I still haven’t got a kernel built (I’m about ready to switch to a Linux-hosted build environment) but I managed to find a binary distro.

Isaac poos everywhere December 7, 2007

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Last night Isaac did a poo in the bath. Neither of the kids bothered to tell me until I came in to get them out. Ew.

Then when we got Isaac up this morning he’d done a poo in his nappy. This was no ordinary poo though. It was probably the biggest, sloppiest poo I’ve ever seen him do. It was coming out on all sides of his nappy and was all over him and his bed. Ew.