Category Archives: Software

World’s oldest vaporware finally shipped

Posted on June 20, 2007 by Eric

You might think that vaporware is a relatively new thing. Perhaps the best known example is Duke Nukem Forever, which was announced in 1997 but still has not shipped. It received Wired News’ Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Vaporwear … Continue reading →

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Skype and Teamspeak finally coexisting

Posted on June 4, 2007 by Eric

I use Skype for telephony, and Teamspeak for some online games (mostly Ticket to Ride). Until now, I’ve never gotten them to peacefully coexist on my 64-bit Linux system, despite the use of the ALSA OSS emulation library. Now, with … Continue reading →

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Fedora 7 Rhythmbox install is brain-damaged

Posted on June 4, 2007 by Eric

The update to Fedora 7 installed Rhythmbox.  Perhaps it was already installed with Fedora Core 6, but I didn’t use it, and it hadn’t caused me any grief.  But in Fedora 7, Rhythmbox registered itself as the default player for … Continue reading →

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Upgraded one system to Fedora 7

Posted on June 1, 2007 by Eric

After making a backup, I upgraded one of my computers to Fedora 7.  The upgrade went smoothly, and I haven’t noticed any problems.   The balloon theme is nicer that then Fedora Core 6 DNA theme.. GutenPrint 5.0 (formerly GimpPrint) has … Continue reading →

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od hac

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Eric

Originally a spoonerism I inadvertently used in a business meeting.  Someone proposed a kludgy solution to a problem, and I meant to say that we should use a better, more general approach rather than an ad hoc fix. od hac … Continue reading →

Posted in Portmanteaus, Neologisms, and Sniglets, Software | Leave a comment

Reverse defenestration

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Eric

Around 1992, I started using the term “reverse defenestration.” I no longer remember whether I’d heard anyone else use that term previously. Example usage: “I reverse defenestrated that PC, and now it is faster and more reliable.” Such an upgrade … Continue reading →

Posted in Phrases, Software | 2 Comments

lcdtest now uses SCons instead of make

Posted on May 23, 2007 by Eric

A few people reported problems caused by the “.d” dependency files created by the dependency analysis hack in the Makefile, so I’ve updated lcdtest to use SCons instead of make.  I’ve also now made RPMs for Fedora Core 6 available … Continue reading →

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Closed caption decoder enhancements contributed by user

Posted on May 21, 2007 by Eric

Kevin Timmerman sent me email about having built a USB version of the closed-caption decoder that Richard Ottosen and I developed.  He used an FTDI TTL-232R cable which incorporates a USB-to-serial interface chip.  He has added many new features to … Continue reading →

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Gish – novel computer game, using 2D physics

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Eric

Hanford Lemoore recently wrote about the low sales figures for the indie game Gish. in which the player controls a gelatinous blob of tar, navigating subterranean coridors and traps, dealing with monsters, etc. They actually have a Linux version (as … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Games, Linux | 2 Comments

lcdtest 1.04

Posted on May 7, 2007 by Eric

lcdtest wasn’t working properly with German keyboard layouts.  It was using keysyms from SDL key events, and those only indicate what the unshifted key legend is.  The fix was to enable the optional SDL key event Unicode mapping, and switch … Continue reading →

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