Fire and Knowledge

PearPC – PowerPC Architecture Emulator

I’ve always wanted to do this, but then I decided to buy an iBook. It will be interesting to see what kind of performance they can achieve with this. PC users might actually be able to run the real thing instead of always trying to make their desktops look like it.

Google starts a blog. I suppose it’s logical since buying Blogger, but it is still strange to me.

Short Version:
If you can’t get OS X to work with Windows Server 2003, this is what you need to do on the server to get it to work:

Go to: “Start” > “Administrative Tools” > “Domain Controller Policy”
Now go to: “Local Policies” > “Security Options” > “Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)”. Change “Enabled” to “Disabled,” then close the app and reboot the server. That should fix it.

Long Version:
We got a new server at work (Windows Server 2003), and my iBook (with 10.3.3, the newest version) didn’t want to connect to it. I spend hours upon hours trying to figure this out, and I even called Apple Support. The guy I spoke with knew less than me, and told me I needed to enable “AppleTalk” and “Samba” on the Windows server. Right…

So we enabled the Mac File Services on the server, which allowed me to connect but only to one directory that had software for old OS9 systems. I couldn’t connect to any of the normal shares on the network though. So we took off the Mac File Services and then I couldn’t access the machine at all. Then, finally, I found the solution (see the short version) and then it worked automagically. I could see all the shares. Hallelujah!

Windows 2003 has been out long enough that Apple should have made this seamless, and the solution is so easy once you know it that they should at least tell people when they call what it is. But hey, hopefully Google will have sent you here and you can use your pretty little computer with Windows 2003 now!

The new version of Thunderbird is great—especially with the addition of the awesome new interface and logo. However, it take 56 seconds for the compose window to come up once you click “Write.” That is simply unacceptable! Hopefully this is just on OS X and not the other versions, because people simply do not have that kind of patience normally. I’m glad that if I want to write another email or reply to one, it comes right up after the first 56 second wait, but hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Note: This is on the Mac version, not sure about the others.

The man has done it again.

I have just finished reading through Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and enjoyed it immensely. Dickens has a marvelous way of taking a character attribute and exploiting it, to the delight of his readers. There is David who is tormented by his youthfulness; Mr. and Miss Murdstone who are always firm in their firmness; Agnes dignified with virtue; Mr. Micawber who says more in short than in length, and his wife who will never desert him; Uriah’s damp, cold, frog-like hands whom David despises; Dora and her childishness; and so on and so forth.

In short, I enjoyed the tale very much and look forward with conversing with Dickens through another book soon, Lord willing.

I wrote down a few choice quotes along my journey—quotes that are more striking in their context, I am sure, yet are still worthy to be quoted apart from it.

“The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play.” (pg. 44)

“In a school carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely much to be learnt.” (pg. 89)

“Never do tomorrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time.” (pg. 155)

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” (pg. 156)

“It was as true . . . as turnips is. It was as true . . . as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.” (pg. 264)

“Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentlemen, whom, if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but whom I learned was the presiding judge.” (pg. 300)

“Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went down-stairs, one behind another. Near the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation for it.” (pg. 307)

“All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! . . . . I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.” (pg. 330)

“. . . conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colors not at all suggested by their original form.” (pg. 493)

“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose” (pg. 552)

“. . . nature and accident had made me an author.” (pg. 576)

“I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements” (pg. 590)

“Lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not easily satisfied, you know!” (pg. 621)

“We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well.” (pg. 627)

“The society of girls is a delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very delightful.” (pg. 686)

Note: All the page numbers are taken from the Barnes and Noble Classics Series edition (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003), ISBN number: 1-59308-063-8. I hardily recommend the B&N edition, which I found to hold up pretty well, and the ink did not smudge like some Penguin Classics. The binding also seemed better than most Penguin Classics, which I was very thankful for. I do think the endnotes section should have been expanded (there were only 14!), and there were two endnotes missing (I notified B&N and they will correct it in the next printing) but other than that it was certainly worth $7.95!