Thu - February 19, 2004

"Turnabout Intruder" Episode Review Added



After what seems like 10 hours of typing, the latest Trek Bits review has been added, "Turnabout Intruder". (For those who care, this is the first major web page I've done using Vim instead of BBEdit, SimpleText, or that thingy at Case Western Reserve's site. After all those "bus error" crashes, it may be the last major web page I do using Vim.) I wonder what might have happened to Jan and Artie in the ensuing years--maybe they turned Camus II into a twisted "adult" amusement park that was eventually shut down by the UFP authorities for "gross violations of Federation standards of decorum and decency."

Posted at 07:31 AM     Read More  


Wed - February 11, 2004

Rebate Blues


Or "Box Closed No Order"

I recently bought an Epson scanner (my old UMAX was not OS X compatible), and I dutifully sent off the $30 rebate form just under the wire--the deadline for purchasing the scanner was January 31, and I had ordered my scanner on the 27th. I mailed the rebate materials on January 31, and yesterday I found that my submission had been returned to me by the USPS, marked in red "Box Closed No Order." I double-checked the rebate form to make sure I had sent it to the right address and then called the toll-free number on the rebate form for questions about the offer. The woman who answered the phone seemed shocked that the offer's post office box had been closed. She then gave me another box number to send the rebate material to and told me to mark the envelope to her attention. I mailed the rebate submission again yesterday afternoon. Why on earth was the PO box closed before the rebate's deadline? I'm not really counting on ever seeing the $30, and one of the reasons I chose this particular model (Perfection 2400 Photo) was the rebate offer. (The other reason I chose it was the fact that various online retailers actually had it in stock, unlike the 3170.)

Posted at 07:54 AM     Read More  

More TNG Fun



Watched the TNG episode "Sarek" last night (it was supposed to have aired a couple of weeks ago during a Sunday afternoon marathon, but was inexplicably replaced by that horrible episode in which everyone de-evolves into a snake, monkey, spider, fish, lizard, ad nauseam). Watching Picard's ranting/babbling/crying during the mind meld was, frankly, embarrassing. Why couldn't they have given him a tranquilizer before the mind meld took place? Watching Sarek's meeting with the goo-inhabiting aliens would have been more interesting and more entertaining.

Posted at 07:52 AM     Read More  


Fri - January 23, 2004

TNG Thoughts


As promised!

Have been busy this week (working on the next episode review for Trek Bits, scanner shopping, etc.), so I've been late adding the thoughts on TNG I promised on the Trek Bits homepage. I don't mean to sound like the guy who runs the web site listing 5 million reasons why Kirk is better than Picard (I'm only slightly exaggerating -- he does have over 1700 reasons). Really, the only reason I started watching TNG occasionally is for the slightly interesting plots that come along from time to time and to get ideas for my "private" Trek universe. Here goes:

1. The biggest problem I have with TNG is (and I'm sure you've noticed this) is Picard's veddy British accent. Isn't it odd that a Frenchman would speak that way, as well as his brother, sister-in-law, nephew, etc.?
2. The crew on the Enterprise-D spend way too much time in the holodeck; when they're not pretending to be 20th-century private detectives or cowboys, they're...playing poker(!)
3. It's too easy to tell aliens from humans; they all have misshapen foreheads. Not very original. :-\
4. Any episode featuring Picard romancing some poor woman and/or shirtless should be avoided at all costs.
5. It seems that half the episodes are either rip-offs of TOS plots or have plot elements "liberated" from TOS stories (e.g. "Measure of a Man" -- prosecutor is Picard's old girlfriend, ensuing trial pits Picard against his old flame).

Posted at 11:41 AM     Read More  


Sat - January 17, 2004

"A Treatise on Newsgroups and Newsreaders" Updated



I've updated the "Newsreaders" page of my HiWAAY site with an entry on Pan, plus a screenshot of same. For those who are wondering how I got the pseudo-Aqua look seen in the Pan screenshot, here's how to achieve it:

1. Install fink
2. Type in Terminal.app fink install gnome-themes-panther
3. If your default shell is not bash, type bash at the next prompt
4. Then, type echo "include \"/sw/share/themes/Panther/gtk-2.0/gtkrc\"">~/.gtkrc-2.0

That's it! (For some reason, the above echo command doesn't work with tcsh.)

Posted at 11:17 AM     Read More  


Fri - November 21, 2003

Fun with X11



Not only do I have X11 versions of Vim, Gimp, Abiword, and xv up and running, I even have Linux's answer to WinAmp set up, xmms:




This skin looks awfully familiar, doesn't it? ;-)

Posted at 12:47 PM     Read More  


Fri - November 14, 2003

"Back Pages"


My first Trek story

I have written a sort of rough outline/summary for my very first Star Trek story--a TOS/TNG hybrid called "Back Pages." I know it is a pretty pitiful work, but anyone interested in reading it can e-mail me at m5comp AT warpmail DOT net (if you promise not to make fun of it!) and I will send a URL where the story can be accessed (only 2 pages long).

Posted at 06:42 AM     Read More  

Panther Progress



I got Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) a couple of weeks ago, and so far things seem to be working OK (other than the notorious Nov. 4 Security Update--turns out the installer kept crashing because I already had another program on my HD containing the word "Terminal" [an "Open Terminal Here" AppleScript]). One of the nice things is having X11 (now I can compile via fink such CLI programs as cadaver and lame that have ridiculous X11 dependencies). I still don't have the 2 X11 "biggies" yet--GIMP and OpenOffice. I do have ImageMagick (official binary), vim (built via fink), gftp (ditto) and xabacus (built manually using Ernie Rothman's instructions). Now if I could just find a "X11 for Dummies" book...

Posted at 06:38 AM     Read More  


Sat - October 18, 2003

BritInvasion Page Updated



[I don't have a "BritInvasion" category, but the BI page is hosted on HiWAAY like the AYBS?VVV, so I guess news can go here.] I've added iTunes Music Store links to the BritInvasion page so that visitors can click on the appropriate button to start up iTunes and go to that artist's section at the iTMS. Of course, not all the groups mentioned on the BI page have a section at the iTMS (paging Apple Corps. [The Beatles' Apple, not that pesky computer company]). There's also a link to go to the iTunes download page if visitors haven't already installed iTunes. I might announce this on the BI mailing list, if I can be certain such a Mac-slanted announcement (although iTunes is now available for Windows also) wouldn't cause an insurrection among group members (especially the "over here in America, nobody uses Macs" guy).

Posted at 08:28 AM     Read More  

Vim Patch 6.2.124


Fame at last! ;-)



I actually get a mention in one of the most recent official patches for the Unix text editor Vim. The patch can be seen here: ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/patches/6.2.124 (warning to Safari users: this is a FTP link and will open in your default FTP program or the Finder--if the latter happens, you'll be in for a hard restart in a few minutes).

Posted at 08:04 AM     Read More  


Sun - October 12, 2003

Adventures in Beta Testing


Sssh! Don't tell anyone!

I am now officially a beta tester for a OS X product I cannot name (no, it isn't OS X 10.4). I signed up in the hopes I would be rewarded with a free copy of the finished program. I've only tried out the mystery app a little bit, but it's already crashed once (!)

Posted at 07:26 AM     Read More  

GPG 1.3.3 (Developmental Release) Installed



Heard about this on the MacGPG list, so I went ahead and installed it (in spite of the fact it will probably have to be rebuilt when I install Panther). The util/srv.c file had to be tweaked (the past few versions of GPG have had pretty straightforward builds, so this was unusual), and afterward I had to change my gpgphoto alias in my .cshrc to "gpg --list-options show-photos --list-key" because some of the old options are now deprecated.

Posted at 07:23 AM     Read More  

Panther Pre-Order



I pre-ordered Panther yesterday (from MacConnection, because of the $20 rebate). Amazon is offering it for "only" $129 even, at a whopping savings of 99¢. What a joke.

Posted at 07:17 AM     Read More  


Mon - October 6, 2003

10.2.8 Update Revisited


Ho-hum

The new version of the 10.2.8 update is out. I DLed the "delta" installer (not the combo one) just to take a sneaky-peek as to what the installer actually contained (I'm not about to actually install the thing) and used Pacifist to extract the new Chalkboard font.

Posted at 07:15 AM     Read More  

Virtual Video Vault Update (New Sound Files)



I've added revised versions of two sound files to the VVV (from the new AYBS? box set): a better version (hopefully) of the main AYBS? theme (from "The Hold-Up", the only episode with a complete, clean rendition of the theme), and a stereo version of the AYBS?A! theme. There are links to them on the front page of the VVV. (For those who care, I used my old Rev. D iMac [I can't use my new Mac to record sound files because of a nasty "hum" problem] to record these. Since it's still only running OS 9, I used SndSampler to record and edit the files [I can't get playthrough to work with Amadeus on that particular Mac]. I then used Audion 2 to encode the AIFFs as .mp3s [on the AYBS?A! theme I had to use 192kbps encoding to get it to sound right at all] and then used iTunes 2 to edit the ID3 tags. After all this, I transferred them to my new Mac via SuperDisk. Now you know. :-\)

Posted at 07:12 AM     Read More  
"The Changeling" Episode Review Finished
It Came!
10.2.8 Update
Hello, "Roots?"!

©