Greg's House of Treats

Glib static library

Have been trying to get the static version of glib. According to Tor, this is a bad idea:

This is intentional. GTK+ and Pango on Win32 *require* being built as
DLLs in order to be able find their configuration files and message
catalogs at run-time.

View thread here: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-app-devel-list/2003-September/msg00024.html

I really don't understand his point. Why does static linking of the library preclude finding configuration files at runtime? Anyway, it doesn't really matter, the fact is that tml doesn't distribute official static libraries.

Stay tuned...

Cygwin mounts

I was having an infuriating evening last night. Amongst other things, I unmounted my textmode cygwin mount, but it kept remounting itself. Then out of desperation I did a 'umount -S' on it. That took care of the pesky mount that kept remounting as well as every other mount! So I had to figure out how to remount them. Here is what I did:

./mount -s -b c:\\cygwin\\bin /usr/bin
./mount -s -b c:\\cygwin\\lib /usr/lib
./mount -s -b c:\\cygwin /

Dell XPS 720

Here are my customization steps for the Dell xps 720 system. I want to convert it into a computer suitable for fluoro. Most importantly for my needs, the system comes with on-board RAID, a gaming GPU, and 3 real PCI slots. I need 3 real PCI slots, not PCI-X. There will be two Bitflow R3-PCI-DIF frame grabbers and an Adlink PCI-7248 I/O card.

1. Move the NVidia 8800 to the top-most slot. In the center slot it covers a PCI slot, but in the top slot it covers a PCI-express x1.
   
2. Remove the Creative Soundblaster X-Fi and use integrated audio. Dell doesn't seem to sell the XPS 720 without the X-Fi card. It is a great card, but it takes up another valuable PCI slot and the integrated audio is also great. The Dell cable should be moved from the X-Fi to the motherboard so that you can get audio through the jacks on the front panel. You also need to enable the on-board sound in the BIOS, which is not possible with the bluetooth keyboard.
   
3. De-crappify the dell XP build. There is a lot of crap, where to start...
1. DellSupport (Add/remove programs)
2. Dell support center (Add/remove programs)
3. ESPNMotion (Add/remove programs)
4. Roxio drag-to-disk (Add/remove programs, reboot required)
5. Yahoo music jukebox (Add/remove programs)
6. Google desktop (Add/remove programs, uncheck box about keeping indices, reboot required)
7. Media center
8. Media manager services
1. move c:\program files\Common files\Roxio shared\9.0\sharedcom\RoxWatchTray9.exe, RoxWatch9.exe into junk folder
2. Delete entry from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
   
3. I'd like to figure out which roxio thing to remove for this, they have a bunch of separate programs in the add/remove list
   
9. Windows messenger (Add/remove windows components)
10. Outlook express (Add/remove windows components)
11. MSN explorer (Add/remove windows components)
12. InstallShield Updater
1. Remove (from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run)
1. key=ISUSPM Startup
2. type=REG_SZ
3. value=C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\INSTAL~1\UPDATE~1\ISUSPM.exe -startup
2. Remove (from HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run)
   
1. key=ISUSScheduler
2. type=REG_SZ
3. value="C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\UpdateService\issch.exe" -start
13. Microsoft plus! photo story
14. Remote assistance
15. Windows digital media enhancements
    
16. Creative MediaSource (Add/remove programs, reboot required)
17. Sound Blaster X-Fi drivers (Add/remove programs, reboot required)
4. Make explorer sane (XP version)
   
1. Don't automatically search for network drives & printers
   
2. Display contents of system folders
3. Do not cache thumbnails
4. Show hidden files
5. Don't hide file extensions
6. Don't hide DLL's (click yes)
7. Don't remember each folder's view settings
   
5. Turn off autorun
1. HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom
1. key=Autorun
2. type=DWORD
   
3. value=0
   
2. http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-018
6. Create a home directory (I think this is right)
   
1. mkdir c:\gcs6
2. Create environment variables
1. HOMEDIR=\gcs6
2. HOMEDRIVE=C:
3. HOME=C:\gcs6
3. Change "My Documents"
1. Start > Right click "My Documents" > Properties
2. Set to C:\gcs6
4. Reboot
5. Delete crap that XP puts in "My Documents"
1. http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips746.html
2. http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1097791278
3. Use TweakUI to change the location of "My Music", "My Pictures", "My Movies" to C:\Documents and Settings\gcs6. Then delete these directories from the home directory.
4. Reboot to test that it worked.
   
7. Turn off balloon help
1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
1. key=EnableBalloonTips
2. type=DWORD
3. value=0
   
2. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;307729
   
8. Set up environment variables
1. PATH=C:\bin
2. CVS_RSH=ssh.exe
9. Install applications
1. Various native command line tools (cvs, svn, ssh, infozip, etc)
   
2. Cygwin
3. Emacs
   
4. MSVC6
5. MSVC2003
   
6. CMake
   
10. Install Bitflow R3-PCI-DIF
1. According to the README file, you actually have to install the software before you install the card. The reason for this is that the installer writes the INF file, so that windows hardware detection will find it. Since I didn't do this, I had to reinstall the driver through the control panel.
   
2. Bitflow has a separate download page. Here is the link: http://www.bitflow.com/index.php/DownloadTable
3. Test it out using the synthetic camera
1. SysReg > Configure > Recent > BFSynth256E1.cam
2. Run ClView
11. Install the Adlink card & drivers (requires reboot)
12. I'm getting errors from DELL on boot
    
1. 02/04/0 - Error Allocating MEM Bar for PCI device
   02/04/0 - Error Allocating MEM Bar for PCI device
   02/02/0 - Error Allocating MEM Bar for PCI device
2. 02/04 is the Adlink card. 02/02 is the Bitflow card.
   
13. TODO
1. Network ports - either I gotta find a suitable hub or get another network board.
2. Speakers - my manifest says the PC came with speakers, but I never got them.
3. Serial ports - maybe some USB hub thing
   

Closing Output Window in MSVC 2005

Finally found the magic. You now have to hit SHIFT-ESC (it used to be ESC in MSVC6).
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000315.html
It doesn't seem to work, however, when the focus is already in the edit window. So you have to go something like CTRL-ALT-O, and then SHIFT-ESC. Whew! What a pain.

HOSTS

I thought I'd test out the HOSTS method of deterring internet malware. This method is described here:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Specifically, this requires shutting down the DNS client service. Strangely, shutting down the DNS client service only shuts down DNS caching, not DNS lookup. Change from "automatic" -> "manual".

.CRT section exists; there may be unhandled static initializes or teminators

I tried to remove this warning using the following method, and it worked.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814472

afxres.h

Fatal error RC1015: cannot open include file 'afxres.h'

This is an odd error. Easy to fix though. Just rename afxres.h to winres.h.

http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/errors.html

Also, you need to add the SDK directory to your project include path.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=362656&SiteID=1

Fortran Madness

I was very surprised by the number of free fortran compilers available. I am trying to integrate LBFSGB into my B-spline optimizer, and ended up using f2c, but would like to go Fortran native sometime soon. Here is the link which lists the free compilers:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/fortran.shtml

Samba woes

First off, never forget that if you want to connect to samba, you need to add the user:

# smbpasswd -a username


Now, it might be the case that the machine is listed under NFS (i.e. assuming you are using SFU for the NFS client) instead of on Microsoft network.
I think the reason is the client is outside of the broadcast of range for the netbios name.
Manually mounting the drive using numeric ip address does work:

C:> net use Y: \\XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX\share /USER:WORKGROUP\username


There is a good explanation of this here:

http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/NetworkBrowsing.html

It's a bit odd really. The windows 2000 client seems to find the right computer fine but stops after noticing that it accepts connections on the NFS port. At least that's what I think happens.

I tried re-enabling the "Computer Browser" and "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service" services in my client, but this did not solve the problem. I did also stop and restart the NFS client. I can now mount the volume using the command line without specifying the numeric IP:

C:> net use Y: \\MACHINE\share /USER:username

but I'm not sure which step allowed this to be possible. It might be when I moved the samba server into the corporate domain instead of letting it stay in a workgroup. However, when I enter "\\MACHINE" into Start->Run, I still get a blank window under "NFS Networks".

The closest I could find on the web is the below list, with a cryptic comment about a "binding list". So far I can't figure out any what this binding list refers to.
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/forumarchives/servicesforunixgeneral/Sep2005/post23530848.asp

Telling DHCP your hostname

Just to remind myself how to do this. If you are running dhclient2(?) just edit /etc/dhclient.conf, and add

send host-name "fantasy";

For dhclient3, there is /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf which does the same thing.

Note, this seems to be possible in windows too (see below). My DNS server adds a dongle to the end of my hostname which is undesirable, but I'm used to it.

Windows 200x/XP can register its hostname with a Dynamic DNS server (DDNS). It is possible to force register with a dynamic DNS server in Windows 200x/XP using ipconfig /registerdns