Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

NO… not the liquid variety of Wine… the “Wine Is Not an Emulator” type. The software for Linux that allows you to run many Windows apps. Cool!

Latest Version of Wine

“This is release 0.9.22 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on Unix.

What’s new in this release:
– The usual assortment of MSI improvements.
– Several bug fixes to the various common controls.
– Pixel shaders enabled by default in D3D.
– Various improvements to the build process.
– Many translation updates.
– Lots of bug fixes.”

I loved EvokeTV… a way to see your TV listing and interact with them via a calendar. It was awesome! But now it is gone… unless they find a venture capitalist… will someone step up? I want my EvokeTV!

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Every month, where I work, we have a “Maintenence Weekend” in which we have to get all our “off-line” computer work done. This past weekend was our Maintenence Weekend! I was totally “geekified” all weekend and had ZERO time to do the Podcast. In fact, I had to move six Dell 1850 servers from one computer room to another, and get them all online and operating in production… among other things!

Sigh! However, worry not! I shall do the Podcast as soon as is humanly possible! (I don’t want anyone going into withdrawl!)

So… there you are using Linux… you are using “cat,” and “sort,” and “tail” happily! Then you move over to your Windows box, and, “Ack!” You get frustrated not having the same power to control your text files there!

Or, in scenario two, you WANT to be able to sort a text file, and eliminate duplicate lines while doing so. Sigh! What to do?

Get the TextUtils for Windows!

GNU TextUtils for Windows

Download the file called, “textutils-2.1-1.exe”, and click on it to install the GNU TextUtil for Windows utilities. Then, go to “Start -> Control Panel -> System and click on the “Advanced” tab. Click on the “Environment Variables” button at the bottom of that screen, and then highlight the “System Variable” called “path” and click on the “Edit” button. Add this string to the very end of the line that is there:

;C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin

Note the “;” (semi-colon) at the beginning of the string! Click “OK,” then “OK,” and then “OK.” Now, you can use the command below, for instance, to solve the second scenario I used an example above:

sort file.txt | uniq > newfile.txt

This will take the contents of “file.txt” and sort each line, then eliminate duplicate lines, and then output the new data to a file called “newfile.txt” … how’s that for cool and geeky!?!

Steve Gibson, on a special edition of his “Security Now!” Podcast, is spreading the word about two VERY serious Windows security issues. Check out his website for full details:

Two Serious New Windows Problems

One is a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Vector Markup Language that can allow remote code execution on your system! The other is for folks running ANY flavor of Windows 2000. This is a “bad” patch that Microsoft pushed out that effects any compressed files that are larger than 4 kilobytes, which may then be corrupted when you create or update those files. This serious “regression” error was introduced into last month’s (August 2006) security patches for Windows 2000 systems. The error can cause corruption of NTFS-compressed files on systems that have had Microsoft Security Update 920958 (MS06-049) applied.

These are both VERY bad problems! Be sure to take the measures that Steve recommends!

This is just too cool! It is so geeky I gotta get one!

Philips “Lumalive” Fabric

“Lumalive fabrics feature flexible arrays of colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that make it possible to create dynamic messages, graphics and constantly changing color surfaces — while the cloth itself remains soft and flexible. Philips Research is looking for partners to bring the textiles to market in the form of jackets, t-shirts, drapes, cushions and sofa covers. Lumalive fabrics only become obvious when they light up to display vivid colored patterns, logos, short text messages or even full-color animations. Fabrics like drapes, cushions or sofa coverings actually illuminate in order to enhance the observer’s mood and positively influence his or her behavior.” (From Dr. Joseph Mercola’s Blog)

Very neat stuff!

Your computer would be faster if it ran its data over light comparing to wires. So, let’s use light! That’s what Intel has done in conjunction with UC Santa Barbara. This was featured on NPR news yesterday.

Intel, UC Santa Barbara announce laser chip breakthrough

“Intel Corp. said Monday that researchers from the company and from the University of California, Santa Barbara, have jointly built the world’s first electrically powered hybrid silicon laser using standard silicon manufacturing processes. Santa Clara-based Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) said the development ‘addresses one of the last major barriers to producing low-cost, high-bandwidth silicon photonics devices for use inside and around future computers and data centers.’ Intel said researchers were able to combine light-emitting properties of indium phosphide with light-routing capabilities of silicon into a single hybrid chip. When voltage is applied, light generated in the idium phosphide enters the silicon waveguide to create a continuous laser beam that can be used to drive other silicon photonic devices. Intel said a laser based on silicon could drive wider use of photonics in computers because the cost can be greatly reduced by using high-volume silicon manufacturing techniques.”