Software patents rejected!
Jeej! Some good news came in on my Newsfire! Apparantly, software patents are rejected by the EP! Not much info yet, but still very good news. I read it from this blog.
Busy busy busy
Today I’ve been mostly busy with re-installing my PowerBook and getting the administration ready for the accountant. Especially that last part took way more time than expected. Also, while working on those other things, I backupped my dad’s machine and started installing Ubuntu Linux on that machine. Which made me realise some stuff:
- Having a dual-head videocard is a pain in the behind. Booting starts on one screen and continues on the next. Very stupid.
- Those 50 CD’s that were sent to me recently? PPC CD’s, not x86. Shipit made a mistake, I guess.
I’ll survive though. First, sleep. I desperatly need it.
Chicks
As I announced earlier, we got little chicks. Here some pictures:
A little chick in my hand. This was the first one, it’s still with it’s mother. But the mother left the nest for it, so the others are hatched out in a special hatcher.
Here you can see the chick in a rabbit cage we lend from our neighbour. 5 of them, but another (number 7!) has hatched today too. Some more of those pictures here:
This is a picture of the little chick that stayed with her mother. Difficult to photograph.
As usual, you can find more pictures in the photo album (to your right, in the menu, almost at the bottom of the menu).
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Mac Essentials
Some links to programs I can’t live without on my PowerBook:
- SSHKeyChain, for all your ssh needs.
- NewsFire, for RSS feeds, of course. I’ll publish a list of my feeds later.
- Fink, to make installing Open Source Software on your Mac a breeze. Includes FinkCommander.
- MacGPG, for safe emailing. I use it in combination with GPGMail, to make using GPG from Apple’s Mail easier.
- NeoOffice, the OpenOffice.org-clone for the Mac. Because all my documents are in OOo format.
- X11 from the Optional Packages from the Install DVD’s. Used for programs like GnuCash, which I use for my administration.
- Colloquy, the nightly built, for my IRC needs.
Did a re-install today, because Apple’s FileVault (encryption of my personal files) seemed to mess up my disk. All is fine now, so I think I’m okay. Had to reinstall every program and setting, though, because I wasn’t able to make a backup from my previous settings.
Random problems/rants/thingies
- World of Warcraft has a problem in which some textures aren’t loaded properly on the PowerBook. It makes some characters appear as ghosts. I’ll must take a screenshot of it before I can post it on the forums at Blizzard as a bug. I might do that tomorrow night.
- Apple’s iCal allows publication of calenders through secure http (https), but apparantly can’t read them through https. That just doesn’t make sense.
- I just can’t get used to not being able to use the Home and End key to travel through a line of written text on my PowerBook. Gotta find a solution for that soon.
- We got little chicks! The first one hatched yesterday, today 2 more hatched. I’ll put pictures on soon!
- Today I spent 31 minutes on the phone with Apple Technical Support to get an issue with my screen sorted out and two of the keys of my keyboard replaced. Apparantly, they’re not able to send me any new keys, I have to take my machine to an Apple Support Store. So I called one in Sittard today and the woman on the phone was really friendly, asking me how long I’ve been using Mac and welcoming me to the club of devotees. I can take my PowerBook in there next Wednesday, to make sure it’s indeed just those two keys. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep my PowerBook until they have recieved the keys. I’m already attached to the little thing. (Well, that and WoW of course.)
- I finally made level 30 with my Warlock Mulguy! /cheer
- I feel guilty for neglecting Fluffy a little bit. Although she did spent her whole day on the new-lain gras in the backyard yesterday. If it’s a bit drier tomorrow, I’ll put her there again.
- Justice and Child Care suck in The Netherlands. The rather condone sexual abuse of a child than take action. A very sick world we live in.
- Newsfire is the perfect RSS reader. $18.99 very well spent.
- Macro’s in WoW are cool.
/s Fear me, %T, for I am Root!
/cast Fear (Rank 1):) I’m rolling on the floor, laughing. (%T is replaced with the name of the selected character)
- Tomorrow a colleague of my father comes for a visit. He owns some houses which he lets out. So I’m hoping to make a good impression on him… Monique and I desperately need a place for ourselves.
- I should go to bed earlier. Starting today. I’m off. Good night.
- My visit to the dentist this morning went okay. He replaced a filling which he wasn’t happy about and that hurt a little, but all in all, it went okay.
- Now I’m really off to bed. Good night!
CIDEV’s contribution
Last week, Bart and I decided to publish some of the internal documents we use to the world. Our small contribution to the Open Source community (well, mostly Bart’s, because at the time of this writing, all those documents are his). They’re in Dutch, so maybe you can’t use them. You can find them here.
I hope to add some documents there too, eventually.
Quiet again…
Okay, it has been quiet on my blog for quite a while now. Several things happened that made me less inclined to do some blogging. First and foremost, I’m officially addicted to playing World of Warcraft on my new PowerBook G4. The machine might not be the ideal gaming machine, but the OS (Mac OS X rocks!) and at least the ability to play the game without too much hassle makes up for a lot. I’ve been playing last week way too much, to get my Human Warlock (Mulguy on Frostwhisper on the European servers, if you play) close to Monique’s character, so we could play together. We did this morning. I went with my PowerBook to her place, set up a switch between their pc and Internet router and plugged my PowerBook in. So we played all morning together. Did two instances with our guild (The Light’s Reach) and had lots of fun together.
But next week I will not be playing as much. I felt a bit guilty about not working as much as I should have without, so I promised Bart that I won’t be playing WoW before 5pm from now on. May sounds childish, but I really am addicted. If you want a new, fun game, go buy WoW. It’s most certainly worth the money! Even Monique, who really isn’t much of a game-player at all, is quite addicted to WoW. Trust me, that means something…
Other things have happened, some of which I just don’t want to talk about here (too personal) and others you’ll not be interested in. So mostly, I’ve been playing WoW :) Fluffy isn’t getting much attention now, though, so another good reason to start playing less is probably to give Fluffer some more attention. I’m off again… Playing, probably ;-)
