Miniature Worlds 1

Registry Hack: GNU Utilities on Windows

Want to add right-click support for decompressing GZIP and extracting TAR archives to Windows? Here’s how to do it.

First get hold of Win32 ports of the GNU Utilities. Extract gunzip.exe and tar.exe and place them somewhere sensible, i.e. D:\UnxUtils\.

Fire up regedit and start hacking (the usual warnings for hacking the registry apply)…

More Apache Fun

Overriding the default Apache directory restrictions in order to allow directory listing.

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
    DocumentRoot "D:/dev/htdocs/test/"
    ServerName test
    <Directory "D:/dev/htdocs/test/">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Apache Fun

Recently I’ve been dipping my toe into the world of PHP, and in order to get a reasonable test environment on my laptop I installed Apache web server. Really, I should say that I installed it (and removed it) about four times until I got it working in a useful fashion.

I’ve put this here because I’m bound to forget what I did otherwise.

CHOLO

I’ve been playing Cholo for about two weeks now. It’s a truly excellent remake of a 1980s classic (originally released on the BBC Micro, Amstrad, C64 and Spectrum).

Visuals, music and sound effects combine to produce a eerie lo-fi game environment. Initially you control a single robot, which you can use to explore the city, buildings and collect clues. By gaining control of other robots, you can hack computer terminals to get RamPaks: passwords, power-ups etc.

Honestly, I haven’t got very far, but I’m not a big gamer. And it probably says a lot for the game that it’s immediately accesible. Best of all, it’s freeware, so there’s no reason not to give a try.

Cleaning Up

Fancy a job? They’re recruiting Restoration Technicians in Hemel Hempstead.

In case you’ve never come across this job before, restoration technicians are responsible for cleaning-up property after fire, flood and other accidents. It’s tough dirty work, usually performed in difficult and hazardous conditions. For the firms effected by the Buncefield accident this work is going to be essential. In most cases the insurance companies are footing the bill.

We have reports locally of smaller firms unable to pay their staff. Understandibly those without work will be anxious to find alternative income. Especially with Christmas fast approaching.

So what would you expect to be paid for this work?

Would it be £5.50 per hour for a 40 hour week? Barely over the minimum wage. What would your take-home pay be? If you want more money you could always work overtime.

How much money per man-hour do think that the company advertising this work is receiving from the insurers?

Developments in Turkey

As soon as it started the trial of Orhan Pamuk has been supsended. Yesterday the BBC reported that a delegation of human rights observers and european parliamentarians were on their way to Sisli to observe the trial. So you can imagine that the Turkish Government might be feeling somewhat exposed.

Did you see them wobble? The trial has been halted… the local judge is seeking ministerial approval before proceeding.

Hemel Hempstead Oil Terminal Blast

Well it’s 8 O’Clock in the morning, and I’ve been up since just before 6 O’Clock. I had just finished giving my son a bottle and was heading back to bed when the blast happened. There was a long low rumbling sound like thunder, as the shock-wave hit the house the loft door lifted up and clattered down.

I went out into the street and there was no-one else up. There was a strange pulsating glow in the sky.
I’m within 2 miles of Buncefield Oil Terminal and the sky is now quite eerie, the sun is rising and has turned a strange sulphurous yellow.

A huge black plume of smoke is hanging over my house.

Turkey [the country, not the bird]

Reknowned author Orhan Pamuk is just one of a number of Turkish citizens currently being charged with “denigrating Turkishness” under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. Others indicted include journalists, publishers, the vice-president of a Turkish human rights NGO.
If found guilty they can face a tariff of between 6 months and 3 years. In Orhan Pamuk’s case this can be increased by one-third, because his offence was committed in a foreign country (an interview given to the Swiss press in February).

Before anyone gets on my case, I have to say that I have a great fondness for Turkey. It’s a beautiful country and is full of warm friendly people. Like a lot of other european countries it also suffers from the occaisional blip. A tour guide I met in Turkey made a big deal of saying that Turkey was roughly 20 years behind the rest of europe, and in some ways this is true.

There is currently a lot of discussion about whether or not Turkey should be allowed to join the European Union, or not. Personally, I hope to see Turkey join the EU soon: I think it’s vital for European security and healthy diversity. I’m sure it will only be a matter of time.

And this legislation… well, it could well be a matter of interpretation (as reportedly stated by the Turkish Minister of Justice)… you decide:

Amnesty: Turkey: Article 301…

BBC: Turk “genocide” author faces jail

BBC: Leading Turkey reporters charged

Orhan Pamuk is due in court on the 16th December.

Bitwise Magazine

For several years the only mainstream consumer PC mag I read was PCPlus.

Recently I discovered Bitwise Magazine, an online-only monthly aimed at “technically literate computer users“, and fronted by Huw Collingbourne and Dermot Hogan (both ex PC Plus).

They’ve currently run to seven issues, and have tutorial articles on C#, VB, Delphi, Smalltalk and Prolog, plus the usual editorials, reviews and letters etc.

For some reason I found myself downloading the free version of Dolphin Smalltalk from the site and installing it. I haven’t looked at Smalltalk for years, and might spend some time getting re-acquainted. It’ll be Ruby next!