I had replaced the Nokia Booklet, but somehow it replaced its replacement again. Something about its shape, about the keyboard. Whatever it is, the Booklet wants me to use it, and the replacement gathers dust. I'll try again when Apple releases retina macbooks, because 1GB RAM is really not enough.

The retima macbooks aren't here yet, so I tried to install Ubuntu 12.04 on the Nokia. It didn't work very well with the SSD I had installed. Apparently the Crucial C300 (or perhaps the Intel SCH controller) doesn't like a trim command of 1Mbyte or more, so the kernel reports a timeout during data set management, resets the drive, and from that point things don't work very well at all.

The only workaround is to boot into a live file system, open a console window, fdisk the disk (or do something else to make the kernel notice the disk), locate a file called /sys/…/scsi_disk/…/provisioning_mode, and write unmap into it. Then install linux as usual. Once you boot, write the same echo -n unmap > /sys/…/provisioning_mode command into /etc/rc.local so it's run at boot. I think the disabled provisioning mode would be more appropriate, but the kernel ignored me when I tried to set that, so…

FAQs happen, and have to be handled. There are four ways. A sorted commented list (I promise this won't be a rant):

Do nothing. A valued approach, and there is much to say in its favour. For an opensource hacker who's basically writing code to scratch his own itch (using the male pronoun seems safe in this context) there's no intrinsic reason to care about FAQs at all. (more…)

Last night I read that use of the GPL is declining, ever faster. Makes sense. And makes me want to braindump another minor aspect of Trolltech's history, with a bit of a comment.

Trolltech started using 100% closed licensing, then, when I suggested it a few days after being hired, gradually relased Qt under ever more permissive licenses. (more…)

You'll need content to test your new server.

To generate sample test content

1. Build the AESPackaging sample (for more information, see Packaging Samples) by following these instructions:
   1. Install PlayReady Server SDK. For more information, see Installing PlayReady Server SDK.
   2. …
2. …

Those links do not lead where you think they do. There are indeed web pages they could lead to, I have the pages. But I cannot see them in the address line of the browser, and even if I could, I couldn't give them to the colleague whom I'd like to read them and follow the instructions, because the files are on my machine.

Copying them to the web is difficult.

I despair.

No matter what the documentation says, the source code is the ultimate truth, the best and most definitive and up-to-date documentation you're likely to find. Sounds really good. But grand sentences often sound really good — better than reality even. So let's try checking that against the concrete code and documentation I personally have written. Have I written anything where the documentation describes the code better than the code itself does?

Here's what I could think of during the time it took to brew myself a pot of tea:

I have written code that was not supposed to be used, except by internal unit tests. For instance to get January 1, 1970 instead of the current time. Very useful for unit tests, but do you really want to depend on that kind of thing?

I have written documentation that described only what's common to the current and the the next major version (in Qt, I did that many, many times). Anyone who depended on the documented behaviour got a simple upgrade, anyone who read the source might get trouble, often (more…)

The Popcorn Hour A-300 is an updated version of the A-110 — a small fanless box to play ISOs and other movies. My work involves such boxes, so I upgraded from the A-110. I still use it with a Synology NAS and mostly play ISOs ripped with Anydvd.

The A-300 is better than the A-110: The remote control has better range, it doesn't take as long to start playing ISOs, and the user interface is snappier in general.

Its film selection interface remains terrible. It shows less than three film titles per m² of canvas in my case, and navigation is strictly one-dimensional. Up, down, select. A web site built along the same design principles would have wonderful margins and beautiful fonts, and would not manage to display this paragraph on a 1920×1080 screen.

The screen saver now features animated buzzwords. I call that a feature, because it goaded me to disable the ███████ screensaver. The rest is rather like the old box.

Remarkably, telnetting to the A-300 gives a root prompt.

Update: At first, I didn't notice how bad the sound quality is. I have now played some films with good sound. Ouch is the word.

I need it for testing some compatibility blah.

Although it looks modern and snazzy and so on, and they've clearly tried to make it iOS-like, the visual design somehow communicates that the next screen may be this:

(Note: I copied that from MSDN without permission.)

Update: Later it told me an update is available, and to please connect the phone to a computer, which would tell me more and allow me to update the phone. I connected it to my desktop. The phone did nothing and there's no apparent way to make it do something or ask what the problem might be. The computer supplies power, so it cannot be fear of running out of power in the middle of the upgrade.

I suspect that computer actually means something that runs the right version of Windows and has the right software installed. But they don't want to say that, because it would sound complicated. Windows phone can be complicated but it must never sound complicated. Plonk.

The worst of the nine RFCs I have written is doubtlessly 5465, IMAP NOTIFY, which should have been good but is a disaster. Its main characteristics are that it's complex (both in terms of number of rules in the RFC and the number of features needed in a server), that it's much more complex than the first of its input documents, and that noone implements it.

My best may be 4978, IMAP COMPRESS=DEFLATE, which is much shorter than 5465, roughly as complex as its first draft version was, contains an informative section with implementation advice, and is widely implemented. (more…)