A customer texted me saying they are having issues running our operating system on QEMU-KVM, so I opened a cloud provider’s portal, clicked on “Deploy a new bare metal”, and tried to SSH.
After waiting for a while, I see that I can ping the machine, but I can’t SSH into it…
I open the console, and this is what I see.
This. This is why I moved to FreeBSD.
I assume that this feature has been around for a while, maybe it came with Ventura, but I noticed it just today.
Turns out, if you have a MacBook Air and you want more resolution in the expense of sharpness, you can go to System Settings → Displays, Click on Show all resolutions and get more options.
I just moved from 1680×1050 to 2048×1280. While I don’t recommend this for most people, it it useful if you do development in your terminal (like I do) and want to see more context.
I like Windows because it’s the best for gaming!
Meanwhile on Windows: The simplest game that has been around for 30 years, Solitaire, has ads in it. You have to pay $2/month or $15/year to remove ads.
The design is ugly, it’s so ugly that the Windows XP version easily beats it and it takes at least 10 seconds to load the game, which used to take 1 second on Windows XP.
I’ve stopped using Windows 12 years ago, I’m not sure why everyone else hasn’t.
If I didn’t need to test network protocols every once in a while, I would be happier, because booting Windows feels like a pain already…
illuria’s ProfilerX runs on LureOS, which is our custom operating system based on FreeBSD.
To update the operating system we rely on two tools, pkg(8) for packages and freebsd-update for the base.
Initially, I’ve setup our poudriere and package repo in the FreeBSD way, so our URL looks like /FreeBSD:13:amd64/devel and /FreeBSD:13:amd64/prod. This is done by expanding the ${ABI} variable, similar to what FreeBSD does in FreeBSD.conf.
Initially, this worked fine, but now that there’s a new FreeBSD out there (13.2), I didn’t want to put the new packages in the old URL, but rather have a URL for each major.minor version. This is mostly for the enterprises who take their time to upgrade software.
Turns out the easiest way to do this is (after reading the pkg.conf(5) manual page) is to use the VERSION_MAJOR and VERSION_MINOR variables.
The new LureOS will use /${ABI}/${VERSION_MINOR}/repo, which will expand to /FreeBSD:13:amd64/1/devel, making it easier for us to extend life after a new release.
That’s all folks…
The Pixelmator Team released Photomator a month ago (well, technically renamed), one of the things on their roadmap was Photomator for Mac.
I submitted a form to join the TestFlight Beta and I got in! I’ve been using it for couple of days now and I absolutely love it.
The Photomator Team sent an email saying “Photomator will be released on ███ ██th, so we ask all testers to hold back on sharing any screenshots of Photomator for Mac until this date.”
While I can’t share any screenshots, I will share a photo edited using Photomator for Mac.
Can’t wait for the official release!
That’s all folks…
Ever since my Sony PS4 Pro’s HDD broke down last year I’ve been using my iPad as my main gaming device. There are some awesome games such as Moonshot, Dead Cells+ and my personal favorite, LEGO® Star Wars™: Castaways.
A day (or two, I’m not sure) ago, Viacom International Inc. and Paramount Global in collaboration with Nickelodeon released TMNT Splintered Fate. I’ve been playing the game for couple of hours now and I like it very much.
But this is not a game review, as I’m not a reviewer.
I’m not sure if people read/listen to game dialogs these days, but I do.
I just encountered DONATELLO, METALHEAD and APRIL talking about software, open-source and hacking.
Unfortunately, as I was not aware about the conversation, I had to restart the game from scratch twice so I record the the dialog.
Here’s a GIF and the dialog itself 🙂 I hope you appreciate it as much as I did.
DONATELLO: Metalhead, can you give me an update on the microchip I gave you to analyze before?
METALHEAD: Affirmative. Analysis complete. Top-level configuration consists of standard StockGen operational code.
METALHEAD: Command controls for MOUSERs, etcetera.
DONATELLO: Open source?
METALHEAD: Both open source and proprietary, most of which we have already accessed in the past. However… the drive also contains inert sub-configurations, protected by military-grade encryption.
APRIL: What do you mean, ‘inert?’
METALHEAD: Hidden ‘ghost code’ that I posit contain command executables serving an unknown purpose.
DONATELLO: Hm. Kinda like the computer version of a sleeper agent.
METALHEAD: Affirmative.
APRIL: But why would Stockman hide ghost code inside his own code? It’s like he’s hacking himself.
DONATELLO: Yeah… it is strange. But we’ve gotta find out what’s in that hidden code before we can jump to any conclusions.
DONATELLO: Metalhead, do what you can to break through that encryption.
METALHEAD: Command acknowledged.
APRIL: Correct me if I’m wrong, Metalhead, but with this new info we should be able to… shall we say… borrow some StockGen tech to occasionally support you guys from afar?
METALHEAD: If you are equating ‘borrow’ with ‘hack into and control,’ that is affirmative, April O’Neil.
DONATELLO: Well! That’s exciting…
APRIL: Right? So, keep an eye open for some friendly support drops while you’re out there. We’ll have to keep it low key for now. Don’t want to set off any unnecessary alarms with the powers that be.
That’s all folks…
I use the Skype mobile app once a month, usually to talk with friends and family. I just noticed this.
There’s a new tab/view named “Today” which shows a feed of articles… WHY???
Are all proprietary vendors trying to do “everything, everywhere” or what?
I have no words, I’m still shocked.
One of the best features of macOS is the ability to have Light and Dark, as well as Dynamic Wallpapers. You’d think that Apple has done some Apple-y way to implement that, but not at all.
It’s actually part of the High Efficiency Image File Format that allows sequences which are multiple time-related images.
Here’s an example of Ventura’s default wallpaper.
As you can see, it’s multiple images.
So a while back, I thought hey, I can make a Light & Dark wallpaper for myself, which I did.
For some reason, I forgot to use these wallpapers on my iPhone and iPad. Days ago I tried, and oh boy, Apple messed up again.
Here’s how the image looks like on iOS/iPadOS.
It just loops over the images and if you try to set it as a wallpaper it sets the first one. That’s it…
Anyway, now that I’ve complained about Apple, let me show you how to use “Dynamic” wallpapers. Again, this is just a hack, it would’ve been easier if Apple just tested their own wallpapers on iOS/iPadOS.
Let’s start with iOS first.
Setup two identical wallpapers using the new iOS lock screen customization thingie.
After that, setup a Shortcut automation to set the wallpaper based on time. In this case, I use sunset and sunrise.
The automation itself looks like this.
Fun fact: Apple messed up again. You know how your iPhone changes appearance automatically between Light and Dark mode based on sunset and sunrise? Well, it doesn’t match with Shortcuts automator! the Shortcut automator will set your wallpaper sooner than iOS changes its appearance. I guess they each have their own “calculation” of when sunset/sunrise is.
Okay, but this wasn’t that hard.
How about iPadOS. Well, that’s more complicated.
First, you need to have a copy of each wallpaper (light and dark), and then you have to put them into an Album.
After that, you need a Shortcut automation that looks for these images and sets them as a wallpaper. Another inconsistency that we really didn’t need between platforms…
Here’s an example.
Here’s the automation itself
Fun fact: Sometimes iPadOS will forget to set the wallpaper and you’ll get a notification that says “Missed automation” or something like that. I forgot to screenshot that, but if you have an example, please do send me an image.
Congratulations, now you have Dynamic Wallpapers on iOS/iPadOS.
That’s all folks…
Like I said in my previous post, this is a long project and it relies on a lot of things 🙂
Wrapping libxo was fun, but wrapping libucl was way more complicated. However, it is done. It’s not a complete port, however, it has the basics to get started. The goes is to have all wrappers match the their libraries.
The source is at antranigv/voclibucl and here’s a screenshot of what it can do.
Next, I will be improving these wrappers and then work on lzc, a.k.a. Lib_ZFS_Core 😉
See you soon 🙂
I’m working on a new project, which is still only 10% done. For that project I chose to use the Oberon–2 programming language and the Vishap Oberon Compiler.
After seeing libxo on FreeBSD, I’m not sure I can go back to write or printf, so I decided to write an Oberon wrapper for it.
I just finished the basics but it’s already usable for day-to-day outputs, containers/lists/instances and exit codes.
The source is at antranigv/voclibxo and here’s a screenshot of what it can do.
Next, I will be wrapping libucl in Oberon.
See you soon 🙂