If this guy is running M$, what can we expect for an OS?

Via: VideoSift

Most comprehensive washing instruction.

Thank you Google!

Thank you Google.

We hope to see this in all Google pages, not only in www.google.com.tr

Dead in a ditch...

I caught cold on Monday in a lunch at a meeting in Gemlik. Damn I am still fighting with it. No complaints except that I am unable to carry out the day. I am feeling weak and I want to lay down to bed and not get up.

This sucks. Tomorrow is Monday and it sucks more.

Don't have the energy to confront the chaos...

Daaaammmnnn!!!!

KDE Error: Could not find mimetype application/octet-stream

Yesterday evening I experienced a problem with KDE. When I was working on it, I began to have a strange error message telling that "KDE - Sorry / Could not find mimetype (or mimelnk): application/octet-stream".

After googling, I found that it is due to corrupt entries in Konqueror's "File Associations". I found two possible solutions:

1. Please note that this solution did not work for me, but it might work for you.

Start Konqueror -Settings - Configure Konqueror - File Associations (select from the left pane).

Then click "applications" and there, for each application you will see "Filename Patterns" in the right pane. The patterns are the usual file extensions (*.chm, *.odt, *.pdf ...). If you can not find a filename pattern, just delete it from the middle pane (in the screenshot below, the red area is the "File Associations", green is the "application types" and blue is the "filename patterns". In the upper box, if you do not see the "*.xxx" pattern, then click "remove" in the center pane (under the "Known Types").

2. This is the solution that worked for me.

Logout from your current session and start KDE as root. See if you have any error messages like the one we're talking about. If not, open konqueror and navigate to your regular user's home directory:

/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk

and delete the contents in the directories application, audio, image, text, video; DO NOT delete the directories:

/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/application
/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/audio
/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/image
/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/text
/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/video

Then, switch to

/root/.kde/share/mimelnk/application

and copy the contents to

/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/application

And then repeat the content copying for the other audio, image, text, video ... folders.

Then, finally, switch to

/home/your_user_name/.kde/share/mimelnk/application

and select all the files, right click, go to properties - permissions. The following should be the permissions:

Owner: Can Read & Write
Group: Can Read
Others: Can Read

Ownership:

User: Your regular username
Group: users

Logoff and log back in to KDE. You should not have any error messages.

Being civilized calls for waiting in the line

Being civilized requires waiting in the line...

Call to Google

Google... The thing we can not do without... Our homepage when we fire up our browser...



Now, we would like to have support for all the Turkish Citizens in the world. We would like to see customized logos in the www.google.com.tr address in our special dates.



Visit here



Yes, we would like to see these logos as the Americans do on the Independence Day, as the Christians see on the Thanksgiving day, as the Koreans do...



Yes, we want it out!

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Everyway that it can: M$ trying to make Linux usage more expensive.

M$ is struggling with its partners to ban Linux to the maximum extent possible, making it harder and sometimes more expensive for the users to purchase hardware without Windows preinstalled.

In this article we see a friend who tries to buy an Acer Laptop, but does not want to pay the activation fee (which you are entitled to pay once you accept the EULA), because s/he will install Linux on it. Acer requires GBP 30-50 to remove the preinstalled but not activated Windows (price of fdisk'ing).

Our friend also tells us to the details that Acer required him to sign a document in order to remove Windows. I presume that the document is about "rejecting the EULA". So, the question is that, isn't it possible to send the document signed back, stating that the EULA is rejected and the copy of Windows will not be activated on this particular computer? Just a regular mailing price and all would be ok.

This simply is not fair. Acer forced me to pay the Windows XP Home Licence Fee, in front of their technical service (in Vatan Computer, Topkapi, Istanbul), stating that I must pay the price regardless of accepting it or not. In my country we got used to these kinds of pressures from the hardware vendors. Acer makes it the same in Great Britain, the same game...

It is not Acer who does all these stuff. It is Microsoft, emposing its so-called monopoly on everyone.

I wonder what the future will bring to M$ with this mentality...

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Overworked?

Yes I am. Plain and simple: I am overworked.



Days passed by -16 days by now- and I am unable to post a single line to my blog. No, I will not let it die; at least not nowadays.



I was on board a 1856-TEU, Chinese container vessel for hold cleaning, painting and maintenance works. Of course I didn't do any of these jobs, but coordinating the terminal, vessel, cleaning company was a big issue. We overcame all everything and had the vessel sail in 4.5 days, including cargo operations. It was hell of a job and I am just recovering by lots of sleep.



Before my brain is leaking from my ears, I have to go back to sleep again. Possibly I will speak about the "Ultimate History of Videogames" by Steven Kent soon. For now, my only advise is to purchase it and read it, if you are into videogames.



If you want to see what games looked like in the beginning, High Score and Supercade will keep you busy.

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An IT that can't manage either I or T.

Following my blog dated 02MAR07, our IT guys are -still- working perfectly.

1. Our company has a seemingly good looking IT infrastructure. I mean, we have 100 MBit intranet, Exchange 2003 servers, AS400, BizTalk, some Blade servers etc. Of course we are using the most vulnerable OS, running M$ Office 2003 running on top of it. However, our IT guys are well behind all these structure: Today they have installed Chris' pc and she could not see "her documents" which are stored in the Company's SAN (Storage Area Network). She can not connect to Exchange Server to check her mail either. After lots of tinkering, our IT guys found out the problem: they didn't connect the pc to the LAN.

2. Finally they could deliver my LAN connection. After the booting, WinXP started to spit out messages that it can not connect to "My Documents" and other files which we share and which are on the SAN. Thanks to God, they could find out that I have the same IP address with my colleague next to me. Later on they discovered that with Sysprep, they have assigned the same Mac addresses to multiple computers. Since all the network inside our building runs static-ip based and the ip's are assigned by mac addresses, it means that some 15-20 of 600 computers are struggling to get the same ip. Whomever boots first wins the game.

3. I am running a specific program that authorizes through IP. No need to say, I could not use this software also.

4. After all the fuss, I could not connect to Exchange Server to check my e-mails. Reason: they have connected me to the wrong switch. Solution: pull off someone's LAN cable and put me instead. Poor guy.

5. We have to back up some data of our colleague who joined our department a couple of days ago. He was working in a distant location, so he had to take his data from his previous pc's hard disk. As required by the holding's procedures, he filed a request.

Our IT guys could not find someone to assign the task at first (thinking to find someone lasted for 5 hours). Then, they managed to find the victim. After that, the victim guy started to think what he could do to transfer the data from the old hard disk (which is about 50 kms away from us) to the new disk. He first thought of bringing in the disk physically and to transfer the data. Realizing that this would render the other (old) computer useless for at least two days, he thought of writing the data to cds. But then realizing that the data is too much to write on a cd (at least an outlook pst file of 10 gigs), he thought of writing to a dvd. But again realizing that one dvd would not hold the data, he turned to the first idea of bringing in the old disk. This is where I intercepted as the department chief and offered him to use an USB disk. The answer I got was not surprising for me: "We have only one USB disk and we can not use it for this purpose. Only one person in the field support team is using it." (Ah, by the way, these two locations are connected via a dedicated line. So, downloading files after an rdp session is another option.)

This IT company of the holding charges USD 20 + VAT from the other companies (of the holding) to unplug one pc from a desk and for plugging it to another desk. Of course, if you want your LAN connection back, it is additional charge.

Don't get me wrong, I am working in a holding, one of the biggest in my country.

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Microsoft, please stop it.

I have read an interview with Mr. Caglayan ARKAN in Chip's special bonus magazine featuring Vista. One thing about open source particularly hit me. Following is a free translation from the interview:

Open Source Code: Some software is developed on this philosophy because the Internet was first used in the academic institutions in which the sharing of information is fundamental. In the application of this philosophy to the real life, there had been lots of confusion since, in the real life information is an economic power and it is not a question to share it free of charge. In addition, with the open source, not only the source code is open but also the work processes of the companies, and this is not acceptable. In our country, the public should be made aware of the intellectual rights and enforce the laws in parallel, meantime the open source notion should be understood well amongst all beneficiaries.

I am using Novell's SuSE Linux since 7.1 release, now openSuSE 10.2 is installed. I am using open source operating system with open source software (though I have some proprietary software as Adobe Reader). Throughout these couple of years, I have never thought that Novell has opened its working procedures to me and/or the other users. Nor, using Cedega from CVS to run Diablo, I got no idea about the inner workings of Transgaming Technologies. In fact, it is totally incomprehensible how one can figure out the working procedures of one company using software code?


include"stdio.h";
main()
{
printf ("Hello world\n");
return 0;
}


See? It tells you that I run a small grocery shop in our street. My process is that I buy the apples from my proprietary wholesaler and put my costs and a little bit revenue on it and sell it to you.

If I coded some ruby program, you could definitely conclude that I am running a coiffeur. With mono, it would be obvious that I am running a coffee shop.

Come on Microsoft. With guys you are appointing as region/country managers do not know what they are saying.

Please, at least try to stand as a respectable company.

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Scott thank you for the phrase "The Preventor of Information Systems"

I have asked our IT department to arrange for my moving: all is to move about 1,5 meters left of my present desk. It was 27FEB07 1125 when they accepted my request. It was today (02MAR07 1400) that I learnt that they will not be able to arrange it. It was scheduled for sometime in the next week. Furious I was, I burned everyone on my path: The IT Department of a Holding can not make someone move about 1.5 meters and install one LAN cable. This is the process I didn't know about:



1. Make your new LAN-point (ethernet plug - RS232) request.

2. Wait for its approval

3. Make your request again on SAP-SRM Module (Supplier Relationship Management Module of SAP)

4. Wait for the approval of your request from your manager

5. When you get the approval, wait for the pc guys to come and see the area

6. Wait for the pc guys to prepare their report and submit to their subcontractor

7. Wait for the subcontractor to come and see the area

8. Wait for the subcontractor to prepare their report with the cost analysis

9. Wait for the cost analysis to be approved by your manager

10. Wait for the subcontractor to come and install the LAN RS-232 ethernet plug



The process is just to have one female RS-232 ethernet plug, just to work!



See the prices: 2 RS-232 jacks (20-plug pack is about $10), 1 cable fixed ($20), 10 meters of cable (let's say $10). Total investment: 40. Total work hours lost: 18, excluding the Saturday (+ 6 hours), excluding Monday (+10 hours) = 34 hours (after lots of quarrel, they told me that the ethernet plug would be ready on 06MAR07 TUE).



Bosses, read this carefully. That is why your companies are not running as you want.



Dear Scott (Adams), you can safely publish this in one of your books/comics.

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Windoze and Flaws: The same story of Romeo & Juliet

Bill, please change your ad campaign from "efficiency" to "deficiency":

1. Security flaw of IE 7 and Firefox: OK, IE 7 is just to the market and Firefox is an open source software. You can claim that the match is a draw. But how about this vulnerability affecting only Windows systems?
2. Windows flaw allows privilage escalation, Vista affected: Self explanatory. Exact title from arstechnica. You can check this page also.
   
3. You are a pirate! Yes! You!:M$ is adopting a "Windows Genuine Advantage" campaign. You register your copy of Windows on the Internet and you see that you don't actually own the licence you paid a couple of hundreds to. Nice one. M$ claims that it is about 1% of the users that face this problem. Seems like they forgot about the thing they call "volume licencing". You can also read here.
4. (D)efficiency:You have just purchased a computer for a high number of hundreds dollars, which claimed to be Vista ready. It has the latest graphics adapter, speediest hard disk, XYZ gigabytes of RAM, such BUS speed, pci-e card slots (perhaps an SLI or a Crossfire System), you installed your beloved OS Vista. Now, you want to make a simple operation: deleting some files from directory A. And your beloved computer is lagging behing XP (a.k.a. eXtra Pain). Or you just clicked on the "File" menu to "Open" something. Aha, your pc is lagging behing XP again. To see what happened, follow the link at the beginning of this paragraph.
   

50.000.000 lines of code, written by a handful of coders. Is it possible to be efficient? Is it possible to provide the ultimate security promised? Is it possible to be free of bugs? Is it possible to be provide comfort, speedy operations, etc?

No OS is "the best". Not OSX, not UNIX, not LINUX, not WINDOWS. But, be realistic: open source software runs much better, much safer, much secure, much bug-free, more comfortable than proprietary software.

Arcade rulez! But not with "Arcade Fever" by John Sellers.

Yesterday evening I started reading "Arcade Fever" by John Sellers (lazy people can check this this out.)

It may seem that it is too early to comment on the book, but there are some things obvious:

Pros:
1. Flashback
2. The relaxing feeling that many people like you have spent lotsa coins in the "Atari Saloons"
3. Interviews with some programmers

Cons:
1. Author's style: As Videophreak Joe puts in amazon.com: "Did not understand the author's potty-mouth descriptions and lame jokes in the book."
2. Even if you find some fun, it dissipates after a few pages.
3. Shallow, not a history record

Buy this book second hand as I did, flip a few pages, read the games that interest you, put it on your bookshelf with a 40% overall score.

However, I will read this book to the end. If worthwhile, I will post my comments.

25 shortcomings of Vista.

I have seen this blog of Ravi today.

The following are my additional comments. There is no need to say that my opinions are 100% same with him.

------------------8<>

I have a PS2 and an XBox [hacked ones] at home for playing games: I do not need the newest, ATX-ZYVF graphics card with zillion pixel-shading capabilities, I do not need lots of gigabytes for installation, I do not need the newest sound card.

I have a home network that I configured myself with Linux. I have a 24-port 10/100 M switch, I ADSL connection both wired and wireless, I have a 400-gig LAN Drive. And what: I am totally network illiterate! Tell me about the easiness of windows.

I do not need to spend USD 300 [+VAT in my country] for transparent window borders: I can have a rotating-cube desktop in 30 minutes. Come on guys, get to know xgl, compiz and beryl.

We don't need extra MBs of graphics cards for widgets. Take a look at gkrellm and if it is not too *shiny* for you, see superkaramba. They do not eat up your ram, your graphics adapter and cpu. And plus, you can easily modify them.

Before supporting Vista, please tell me something that you can do with it but without any other operating system. Aha, you do not need the fancy mobile phone-computer connection software that came bundled with your new mobile phone. If you have syncml, visit www.mobical.net. If not, purchase a bluetooth or an IR dongle. The cost is 1/4 of the WinXP Home licence fee.

The M$ Office can't print to pdf, but OpenOffice does.

We Linux guys/gals do not need antivirus, antitrojan, antimalware ... stuff. We are immune by default.

By the way, the most amusing thing with Linux is to receive an e-mail with an attachment that contains a virus: You download it, save the attachment to your desktop, open it with a text editor and see what the person has written. And watch Symantec, Kaspersky and other companies headline the threat.

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Try mobical: www.mobical.net

A great place to back up your valuable phone data: sync'ed 409 contacts today in less than 3 minutes. Everything works like a charm: just make sure that your phone supports SyncML (or you can get a software to support it).



Send the activation message to your mobile phone, and navigate to "SyncML" on your mobile. And wait...



Since I do not have M$ Windoze installed on the two computers I have, I do not have a chance to synchronize with the inferior e-mail program Outlook. Nor I do not want to bug myself with the pst file. To the web, from the web: Thank you mobical!

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In Istanbul, physical relations between speed, time and distance do not work!

Really they don't! Check these out:



From my home to my work, the distance is 21.5 kilometers.



If I am going to my workplace



1. in the summer, when the schools are closed, it takes 35-45 minutes.

2. in the winter/spring, during the daylight saving time, it takes 45-60 minutes.

3. in the winter, not in the daylight saving time, it takes 60-75 minutes.

4. in the winter, if it's raining, it takes 75-90 minutes.

5. if it's snowing it can take any time over 90 minutes (last experience: 4 hours).



Yesterday, I picked up my girlfriend from her home. 3 hours passed, and we were only be able to drive 19.5 kilometers. What a nice saturday to spend: ~ 7.2 kilometers/hour in a car for 3 hours, drinking cofee in a mall (1 hour), going back home (1,5 hours).



This is the price you pay to live in Istanbul.

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What do you call a man who...

What do you call a man who cancels his & his friend's flight tickets return flight ticket when they fly to a foreign country? (from Athens to Istanbul)

And more, what do you call the same man who asks for a return ticket for himself and forgets his friend?

I don't know...

Windows & Trusted Computing

I shot this photo in one of the busiest shopping malls in Istanbul: Profilo Alisveris Merkezi, when it was lunchtime and people were flocking inside.


I wonder if Bill still claims that Windows is a trusted computing platform.


Ah, by the way, the ad on the screen is "IGDAS", the distributor of natural gas in Istanbul.

First message to Earthlings

Cool. This is the new mania on the Internet: Have a blog.

I never let myself carried by those kinds of winds. But, let me give that "blogging" a start.

Hopefully in Jan06 I will have my book orders! Since the whole stuff is about the Internet, I will be reading about some counter-thoughts :

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual
Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, Christopher Locke
Hardcover: 190 pages
Publisher: Perseus Books; 1 edition (February, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN: 0738202444

You can check it out from here.

Now, the other titles are about the history of the videogames [ if you start playing games with Atari in 1980 when you're 4 years old, then the history of them matters], and fractal geometry & chaos.

The following will be my whole order [order part 1 of course]. Review each of them carefully, since I have spent hours for selecting just one book!

1. The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual (Hardcover)
by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, Christopher Locke
Hardcover: 190 pages
Publisher: Perseus Books; 1 edition (February, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN: 0738202444

2. Fractal Cosmos: The Art of Mathematical Design (Paperback) [USD 29,95]
by Jeff Berkowitz
Paperback: 212 pages
Publisher: Amber Lotus; 1 edition (January, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN: 1569370648

3. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation [USD 34,77]
by Gary William Flake
Paperback: 514 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st edition (January 31, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN: 0262561271

4. Home Hacking Projects for Geeks (Hacks) [USD 19,77]
by Tony Northrup, Eric Faulkner
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 1 edition (December 16, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 0596004052

5. The LaTeX Companions, Revised Boxed Set : A Complete Guide and Reference for Preparing, Illustrating, and Publishing Technical Documents (2nd Edition) [USD 148,83]
by Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz, Helmut Kopka, Patrick W. Daly
Paperback: 2016 pages
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 2nd Boxed edition (July 2, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 0321269446

6. Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini [USD 9,71]
by Mark Leyner, Billy Goldberg
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (July 26, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN: 1400082315

7. High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, Second Edition [USD 16,49]
by Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson "
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 2 edition (December 18, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN: 0072231726

8. The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World [USD 13,57]
by Steven L. Kent
Paperback: 624 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1st edition (September 6, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN: 0761536434

9. Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984 [USD 21.75]
by Van Burnham
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press (October 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN: 0262524201

10. The First Quarter : A 25-year History of Video Games [USD 21,95]
by Steven L. Kent
Paperback: 466 pages
Publisher: B W D Pr (September 25, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN: 0970475500

11. Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution (Paperback) [USD 11,16]
by Steven Poole
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Arcade Publishing (September 15, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 1559705981