Little Spikey Land - September 2003

I wrote a little java version of the MacOS program called "Stickies", which lets you leave virtual post-it^TM notes on your screen. It's called Jammies, because Jam is sticky and I couldn't think up a better name. I have it setup so that it starts up when I login. It should remember how it was when you left it (including whether it was minimised or not). It's only a tiny program so Java is probably overkill. Maybe I should write a tiny C version for Linux...

... just uploaded a version which slightly simplifies changing colors and closing notes.

Edited on: Monday, October 06, 2003 12:35 AM
posted at 9:51 PM John

Forgot to upload one of the drawings and it's one of my favourites, seeing as it's a monkey.

posted at 9:43 PM John

Well I am now a student again:

Also went on a bit of a drawing bender (well for someone who isn't an artist). It all started with a picture of my sister graduating, done manga style. Anyway, uploaded six other pictures too. Two are old ones I rediscovered, which are more for interest as they date back to sixth form, which makes then nearly ten years old! The others are comicy/manga ones.

Edited on: Monday, September 29, 2003 10:50 PM
posted at 10:48 PM John

Well just had a quick play around and wrote an ASCII Art generating program. which was based on a bit of code from Wikipedia. I've made it so you can move a slide bar to alter the effective contrast. Works pretty well:

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Edited on: Monday, September 15, 2003 11:29 PM
posted at 11:25 PM John

Normally I don't like to post things that are political in nature, as it's a highly individual topic and posting my views will have little effect. However I am making an exception here.

Yesterday, in The Guardian, Michael Meacher (the former minister for the environment) wrote piece on how This war on terrorism is bogus. This was an interesting read and for those of you who might doubt the Guardian (I believe some refer to it as a "pinko rag") it was also published in the Daily Mail today.

What disturbed me the most was the comments about Project for the new American Century. I had been aware of this neo-conservative thinktank before, but did not know too much about them. Now in one of the reports published on their site, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century (pdf) their is one quote that is particularly worrying. On page 60 of this report (page 72 of the actual PDF) you will find the following:

And advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

Now to me this seems a little like contemplating genocide as a "politically useful tool". Let alone the practical problems of possible mutation in the biological agents (evolution usually finds a way) how on earth can people even think about, let alone write about, something so evil!?

Edited on: Sunday, September 07, 2003 4:58 PM
posted at 4:56 PM John

Well here's another self portrait In some ways it's better than the last one, but the forehead/top of the head is a bit too small (not saying that my forehead is as large as Dawson from Dawsons Creek, but it doesn't look quite like that). At least the mouth is a bit less trout like.

I would like to draw other people, but I don't think I'm good enough at drawing yet to feel that I can ask people if I mind drawing them. That always leads to expectations that you can draw and more importantly you will make the other person look half human. Hence any drawings I do of other people are either done furtively (train passengers beware!) or while people are sleeping (beware anyone staying over at my house!). I think I shall have to find some life drawing classes at some point. Or else start drawing people who aren't real.

posted at 7:03 PM John

A small progress report on how the 4M Thinkpad 750 Linux experiment is going...

Installed PCMCIA fine, just had to copy if.h from /usr/linux to /usr/net to make it compile and then it worked fine. It detects my Psion Gold Card fine and with a few deft commands I have a net connection working. I'll need to make that happen automatically later, but that should not be too hard.

However I have been having trouble trying to install Lynx which is not a problem with Lynx, but the lack of memory makes running apt-get/dpkg a problem under debian. I think I'll need to just copy the binaries across from another system and install them manually.

Edited on: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:15 PM
posted at 6:19 PM John

Well I just got a months coding work today! In VB!?! Should be interesting, and a lot better than data entry (and better paid too). It should take me up to the start of term nicely and it means I don't have to worry about money quite as much. I might even be able to afford a few luxuries (because wireless networking is obviously a necessity).

p.s. sorry about the title, Megatokyo has warped my mind and this resulted in me receiving this comment from a friend.

posted at 8:11 PM John

Well today I got some wireless kit. Got the cheapest Access Point I could from Dabs.com (Quicklink code 2MBDWS) and the Buffalo slimline pcmcia wifi card which is listed at Silvester.org.uk as working with the psion netBook. The Buffalo card is basically the same as the Lucent cards (in terms of chipsets), but is slimmer and therefore does not block the stylus.

Got it working very quickly (too quickly some might say). Just plugged in the access point, connected to it with a web browser to change it's ip address and so on and then setup the netBook. I tried a manual configuration first, but that didn't want to work (I suspect because I need to specify routing information). Then I tried dhcp and it worked like a charm. The netBook is now living up to its name, even when in the garden!

The only problem at the moment is that it's all very insecure. Anyone could walk up and hop onto the network. Given where I currently live that's unlikely to happen, but it needs sorting out. I'll probably enable WEP (wireless's builtin security), which should keep most hackers at bay for an hour or two and should keep out most people, unless they really want in. I do want to make it completely secure at some point tho. This will involve using ssh and probably a proxy server, but I haven't figured it out yet. Either way I'll need to keep my eye out for any suspicious goings on and strangers with laptops ;^)

posted at 8:01 PM John

Random sketches on post-it notes. Some of the better sketches from my last temp job. Hopefully not many more temp jobs to go, as Uni starts in just under a months time!

posted at 12:45 AM John