The Hyperlogos

Ubuntu has set the system clock to UTC since the Intrepid Ibex (8.10.) I didn't notice because I had upgraded through several other versions. Using UTC for the system clock is cool if you don't dual-boot, but I do. The functionality exists in at least Vista and later to use UTC for the system clock, but I'm using XP and don't trust it to work even if it appears to.

For some time now I have been using ps3mediaserver to stream video to my Xbox 360. Since solutions for playing various video streams on various devices have become more convenient of late I've become less picky about what I transcode to, except that I like to achieve fairly high quality. ogmrip has become less useful of late, failing on most source video on which I try to use it, so I've gone back to Handbrake, the most competent and arrogant of DVD transcoders.

I have two LCDs and Ubuntu, and I want to use compositing so I can use Compiz. Xinerama still doesn't work with Composite outside of Xgl, which was deprecated some years ago. I want to play full screen games but they don't properly span monitors in many cases, even if that's what I wanted. What is needed then is a way to easily toggle the second monitor. I found it in the Ubuntu forums archive in the form of Disper.

As I now own a Magellan Maestro 4050, which unlike my 4250 has bluetooth and a headphone jack, I decided to upgrade the software. After hunting around a little I found Miopocket 4.0, a complete shell replacement for WinCE 4.x through 6.x GPS devices including smartphones with touch. It implements an iPhone-like interface and provides dozens of utilities, apps, and games.

After installing plugbox linux on my Dockstar I found that new users' passwords expired on login and forced a logout forever. To fix this for a single user use this script:

Call it with the username you want to fix. It sets the last change date to a day after the epoch but it works.

GoogleCL is a python-based command-line utility for accessing Google. It uses gdata-python-client for the google interface. No Windows release is planned, but this is largely irrelevant because python runs fine on Windows, and so do gdata-python-client and GoogleCL.

One of the big problems with Google Chrome is the lack of inline PDF support on most platforms. Google has added preliminary support for PDF to Chromium but so far it has not come to Linux. It may come tomorrow, but until then, users who would like to avoid using acroread may use the following hack, at least on Ubuntu Lucid. As always, your mileage may vary.

We have often heard from a broad variety of pundits about how Linux is not a mature, enterprise-class Unix. All discussion over how "Linux is a kernel" aside, today I have encountered the first piece of evidence that suggests to me that this is true. It seems that no Linux distribution has a simple "repair permissions" tool. This was a standard feature of package managers of UNIX systems before Linux was even dreamt of, for example in Solaris.

This article details the process of building the stock firmware for the SMCWAPS-G from the sources on Ubuntu Hardy (8.04.1.) The SMC SMCWAPS-G is on one hand an 802.11g access point with two USB2 ports and a 2.5" form factor ATA/IDE connector, and on the other a small and extremely low power consumption x86-compatible linux-based server with the same. While the included GPL compliance CD is relatively worthless to the casual user, the company does make the same content available in a more useful form for free download via their web site. This article explains how I built the sources; Read my review of the SMCWAPS-G for more information on the device in general.

SimCity is one of the most popular and well-known video games of all time. This game was ported to Unix in the 1990s and the source code has since been released under the GPL version 3. Micropolis is the resulting program (as well as the original working title of the game.) Making this game work correctly is easy enough once you know the recipe.