Aug 302013
 

As I mentioned – I’m migrating my sysadm tasks from Perl to Python, and Windows is just one of them.

This is a real case, I like VirtualBox as a neat visualization container, and spending lot of time on using it, actually there are always 2~3 VMs running on my laptop while another 4~5 lying on HDD. However, I have different requirements for different types of VMs, like for Windows VM, I used to launch them in GUI mode so that I can use another Windows environment, but for Linux and other *nix machines I used to launch them in headless mode and use putty (another neat tool ๐Ÿ™‚ ) to access. Continue reading »

May 302013
 

Give up MacBook Pro to someone else, and moved back to PC laptop.

I was thinking of running Ubuntu on the new laptop so to fully utilize the 16G memory and 4-core i7 processor. However, after two days’ painful trial, I finally gave up and moved back to Windows, and you can image – I moved back to Windows 7 instead of 8.

The problem with Ubuntu and Windows 8 are similar, they were not designed by following people’s common sense, or direct sense, whatever you want to name it. I, personally, believe the usability is OSX > Windows 7 (Windows XP as well) > Ubuntu (Windows Vista is almost the same) > Windows 8.

Heard of Windows 8 is to be upgraded to have something like start button and program folders, etc. though it is still rumor so far. Shall we just name these changes as “graceful downgrade” in case they are really true? ๐Ÿ˜€

BTW, I turned on Hyper-Thread on i7 processor so logically, I’m running a 8-core machine with 16G memory – this is my dreaming machine several years ago ๐Ÿ˜‰

Jun 132012
 

Got a Nokia Lumia 800, and slowly migrating to Windows Phone platform now.
I would like to say the hardware design is great, but the software is some sort of sluggish, though it may be because of I’m still trying to catch up.
BTW, I checked 900 in a Microsoft store – doesn’t seem to be a great design.

Aug 302010
 

Iโ€™ve been having trouble in launching Windows Live Messenger for quite some time and I had to use Pidgin to connect to my MSN buddies, finally (today) I decided to solve this problem and here is the quick solution:

http://www.truecombatelite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=26227&sid=d7f42bc042a2595f68b3ec3b98f08262

Iโ€™ve tried and it works perfectly โ€“ after deleting the registry key under group HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\PerPassportSettings, my Windows Live Messenger came back to work.

I havenโ€™t read through though, not sure whatโ€™s the story beind.

Mar 232010
 

I had e-filing problem last year and even customer support people could not figure out what was the problem (BTW, it was the first time I saw people doing remote desktop thing for support which is pretty cool), so they end up with refunding my money paid for e-filing.

I tried e-filing again this year and same thing. Reading the help articles and discussions on the web doesn’t help too much. I tried to change SSL/certificate setting in IE, nothing helped, I’m on wired LAN so wireless problem should not be an issue to me, I tried on both Vista and XP but neither worked so …

I thought it could be because I’m using Chinese version of those Windows, so I installed everything on my corporate-issued laptop (thanks for the download version, easy to install anywhere you want), things are working like a charm.

I still need to dig out if it is network issue (such as TurboTax or IRS blocked Comcast which seems less possible), or it is actually Chinese edition problem – I would like to say the 2nd one is more reasonable.

However, I may only get the answer the coming year, since I’ve filed everything …

Aug 232009
 

Just to mark here – this is the only one works for me:

http://www.technullogy.net/index.php/2009/06/22/multiple-remote-desktop-sessions-on-vista-sp2-x86-x64/

I’m trying to migrate some VMs to the Vista Ultimate so that I can utilize all those 4 cores and 6G memory.

I need to test some mysql proxy and master/slave things, and better try it out in different environments.

Jul 072009
 

Now here are steps to build a Windows application as for “hello, world” ๐Ÿ™‚

Create a message.lisp:

(use-package "FFI")
(def-call-out messagebox
              (:name "MessageBoxA") (:library "user32.dll")
              (:arguments (hwnd int) (text c-string) (capt c-string) (type uint))
              (:return-type int)
              (:language :stdc))

(defun main()
  (messagebox 0 "Hello World!" "Message" 0)
  (quit))

then run:

clisp -M “C:\Program Files\clisp-2.47\base\lispinit.mem” -x “(load \”message.lisp\”)(ext:saveinitmem \”message\” :init-function #’main :executable t :norc t :quiet t)”helloworld

now we have a message.exe under the same directory, run it, you will get a standard Windows message box like this:

Almost all stuffs mentioned here are coming from:

http://www.frank-buss.de/lisp/clisp.html

except I added “:quiet t” to avoid CLisp’s welcome messages printed out in screen.

Jul 032009
 

While I was trying to dig out how to play with lisp, especially how to create an executable from it, I came across this message posted to c.l.l:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/a8ffbb6d53f6b3db

pretty much what I want ๐Ÿ™‚ I’ve managed to created a executable on my Windows box and it runs just fine, well, with some tweaks, and actually a follow up describe the Windows dll problem:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/71544781ad46b5c3

Jun 082009
 

Downloaded and installed Windows 7 in a VirtualBox VM, the UI is pretty neat, but that’s it, I haven’t found anything else, yet.

Most likely I will leave it there and play with it once another while, but I may not be able to have enough time to do serious evaluation, as I’m not a serious Windows developer or a system administrator :P. I would like to assume all potential development should be based on Windows XP or at most Vista, so to make majority can run it.

By the way, I haven’t figured out what’s the difference between Vista and 7 :D.

May 182009
 

Got this site from co-worker, pretty good. Now I need to test the speed of connecting from China, and once it works I will install it on my parents’ computer so that I can help checking their computer problems once there is any.

Better than remote desktop or VNC, as it does not need port forwarding nor firewall holes.