DNS troubles

This is mildly interesting: if I include the OpenDNS servers in my internet configuration I can connect to my MSN Messenger account in Adium, but then I get DNS problems connecting to this subdomain, which means I can't view my own blog some of the time. If I remove the OpenDNS servers from my configuration I can connect to my subdomain just fine, but I am then left without connectivity to my MSN IM account.

I included the OpenDNS servers because I couldn't connect to MSN Messenger after installing MacOS 10.5 and found that solution after searching the symptoms of the problem. Now it looks like I might have to search again.

Posted in Technical | Comments Off on DNS troubles
Tags: adium, blog, computers, dns, IM

When will I learn?

I just finished THE CHEESE. It looked so tempting in the fridge, even with chocolate lying nearby! On the one hand, I should really have limited myself to at least half what was left, not the rest of it, even though it looked perfectly manageable, and on the other hand at least it's gone now.

I wonder what the odds are of it keeping me up at night again.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on When will I learn?
Tags: cheese, food

The Orange Box in Crossover Games

I tried to get Portal up and running in Crossover Games last night, after failing to do so the other day. It was peculiar because I managed to get it working in Crossover Mac before, so I saw no reason why it would stop working in the newer version of software designed specifically to run games.

I'm new to the Crossover software, and to Steam, but I applied what I had picked up to try to get Portal running. In CxM Portal needed the '-dxlevel 81' switch applied to the launch properties, but this wasn't working in CxG. I managed to get Portal up and running with the '-dxlevel 80' switch though, which was good. I also used the '-window' switch during my attempts so that I could easily switch out of the suspended game process back to CxG and restart the bottle, quitting the process. Without with '-window' switch I'd have had to force-quit CxG itself, which isn't tidy.

As Codeweavers advise, once I got the game running I removed the 'dxlevel' switch because apparently Steam remembers the last working setting, and not removing it prevents the game from saving any video settings that are changed.

I also got Half-life 2 running, using what I think was the '-dxlevel 81' switch. By 'running' I mean, in both cases, that the game got to the title screen correctly and I was able to interract with the menu options. I didn't have time to delve in to a new or continued game, and my main objectives were to get the games running, for when I had time to play, and to get my saved games copied across from the CxM to the CxG bottles. For the latter task it was a simple matter of navigating down the directory structure to find the 'SAVES' directory and copying that across to the appropriate place. A quick restart of Portal showed that the game saves were all intact, so I assume that the HL2 saves are as well. I'm all ready to continue... doing whatever I'm doing in HL2, and I can explore Portal a bit more too.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on The Orange Box in Crossover Games
Tags: computers, crossover games, crossover mac, first-person shooter, half-life 2, portal, steam

Tiger fur duvet cover

Months ago I was encouraged to try my hand at sewing. I personally need a tangible project to complete for me to get involved with a hobby, and I was able to come up with the idea of making a duvet cover from fake tiger fur to get me sewing. A duvet cover is rather large though, even if it isn't particularly ambitious overall, so I started smaller by making a pair of pillow cases out of fake tiger fur. They turned out pretty well, and I'm still using them. Despite this small success, which also added a personal touch to my home, I didn't get around to making the matching duvet cover.

With the four-day Easter weekend approaching and having no plans for the whole weekend I finally decided that I would make the duvet cover. I would have time and it would be good to be creative again. I got myself adequately organised, ordering enough fabric to make the cover in time for it to be delivered before the holiday weekend, and sat down on the Friday to stitch it all together.

The fake fur fabric is not wide enough for the duvet cover, so I needed to order over twice the length required and stitch two halves side-by-side, which was my first task. I then needed to trim the width, as it was too wide overall. After that, I pinned it to the plain white double sheet that I had bought months back to form the bottom of the duvet cover, and had been sitting unused all that time. It was hard work, mostly because I don't have room to lay a duvet cover flat in my home, and I had just about enough room to lay one edge flat at a time. Despite this, I managed to pin the fabrics together well enough to get stitching.

I ironed all the seams, and was ready to turn the cover inside-out to see the almost-finished item. Hey, it looked pretty good! Some of the stitching doesn't bear close scrutiny, but it was holding together and was the right shape. I took the duvet out of my current cover and stuffed it in the newly created one, and threw the tiger fur duvet cover on to my bed. I thought it was perhaps a little baggy at first, but it seems to be just the right fit. The edges and corners aren't devoid of duvet and the whole items lies nice and flat, not bunching up anywhere. I think the previous cover was a little tight in comparison. The white undersheet contrasts really well with the tiger fur, and makes the duvet cover light enough not to overheat me during the night.

I need to add a couple of finishing touches still. I will add some snap fasteners to the open edge, where the duvet is inserted, and I need to add a seam to that edge of the fur too. I was just pleased with the result I got that I left it like that initially. I hope to get around to completing it this weekend, but at the moment it is another lovely addition to my home.

Posted in Creative, Personal | Comments Off on Tiger fur duvet cover
Tags: sewing, tiger

Outlook's envelope notification

A little while back I received an e-mail at work that I didn't care to read right away, but also didn't want to delete. However, I wanted to reset the new mail envelope notification in the systray so that I would be aware of further new mail when it arrived. I could have opened and closed the new e-mail, marking it then as unread, but that seemed kludgy. Instead I right-clicked on the systray envelope and selected 'hide' from the menu that came up.

Oh, silly mistake. It didn't hide that instance of the notification, it hid the notification completely. I then couldn't find a way to get it back, reducing the utility of e-mail by having to check whether I got new e-mail manually, which wasted time too often. I tried looking in as many options within Outlook as I could, with the only success being finding a way to display a notification on the desktop. As this desktop notification was brief it relied on my being at my computer to know if any e-mail arrived, which didn't help when coming back from getting a drink, going to the toilet, or working for however long in the lab.

I imagine it was my unfamiliarity with Windows terminology coupled with not knowing where or what option to look for that stymied my efforts in getting the envelope notification back. But don't ask me why I didn't simply hit the search engines to find the answer. Maybe it was just my being stubborn, refusing to accept that I didn't know my way around a Windows box, but it was pretty dumb in retrospect. A quick search, and a couple of refinements to the original terms, brought up a result that details how to get the new mail envelope notification to display again. In a burst of common sense I even sent myself a test e-mail to test that the option is once again on, instead of waiting for it to show or not, and this let me also see that I needed to change the option for it to be 'always shown' instead of hidden. Arr, it's working again. Splendid!

Posted in Technical, Work | Comments Off on Outlook's envelope notification
Tags: computers, e-mail, stubborn

Hellgate: London, on a Mac!

I was made aware of Codeweavers' project Crossover Mac somehow, and it looked like an excellent way to enjoy some more computer game entertainment without having to muck around with dual-booting or having different machines, or what have you. With Portal getting so much interest, and the compatibility database showing that it pretty much worked okay, I decided to buy the Orange Box and give Crossover Mac a go. In what is becoming a cliché, it was a huge success. I got Portal, Half-life 2, and Team Fortress 2 all running on my Mac with only a little fiddling required. They don't run perfectly, but they are certainly good enough. And by 'good enough' I mean that they run just fine most of the time, at full resolution and framerate, they just have the occasional quirk to be tolerated.

Satisfied with this, I bought a licence for Crossover Mac and registered my copy. Lo, the very next day an announcement comes through e-mail that Codeweavers have introduced Crossover Games, a gaming-specific version of their Crossover software, which promises to be compatible with more games at the cost of perhaps some stability. As I am only really going to be using the software to run Windows games on my Mac this is the version that I am after. The good news was that a free subscription to Cx Games was being offered to all registered Cx Mac users, otherwise I might have been a bit miffed considering the timing.

I downloaded the new software and reinstalled the Orange Box. I tried to get Portal running, wondering if I could get my save games across to the new installation, but didn't succeed. That was disappointing, considering that it worked in the old CxM software, and I'll be trying again. But the reason I installed it right away was to test it out on something different. I had checked the compatibility database and saw that Hellgate: London hadn't been tested, and as all The Kids are playing it I thought I'd find a demo and give it a go. The game downloaded and installed without a problem, putting it in to a WinXP 'bottle'. It started up and looked like it was going to work. And it kind of did.

The title screen came up and I could select options with the arrow keys, but the mouse movements and button clicks were not registering. That was unfortunate. Even so, I was able to select a new game and enter, albeit as the default character as I couldn't change any options without the mouse. The game started, and it ran smoothly and flawlessly. Well, flawlessly if you ignore the mouse problem. I ran forwards and backwards and swung my swords to chop down a few zombies. It all looked quite positive. But it was surprising just how soon the game demanded the character to look around with the mouse, even taunting me with the tutorial tips to move the mouse to turn a corner. Ah well, it was good to give it a go at least.

I filed a quick bug report, to keep the developers up to date and maybe remove the 'not tested' tag on the game in their database. I got an e-mail reply, stating that the problem with the mouse is a known issue and potentially affects many games, for technical reasons that aren't worth my trying to explain in any kind of knowledgable manner. The problem is high priority, but whether it can be fixed quickly or will take a large rewrite of code is unknown, so I shouldn't hold my breath.

Maybe I'll give EVE Online a go next, when I need a break from World of Warcraft.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: computers, crossover games, crossover mac, hellgate, mmorpg

Cheese gives me nightmares

I quite fancied some cheese yesterday, so I popped in to the shops on my way home and picked up a tasty chunk of Cambozola and Wensleydale with cranberries, as well as a bit of pepperoni and some crackers. By golly, it was tasty. The Cambozola was smooth and creamy, with a tang of blue, and the Wensleydale was fruity. I was tempted back for seconds, despite my better judgement telling me I'd had enough.

Oh, I should have listened to my better judgement! I woke up at some point during the night, writhing in discomfort, feeling thoroughly queasy. Why does cheese punish me so? This happened the night after I got the Jimmy legs shortly after getting to sleep, waking me up and keeping me up for a while. I need a good night's rest.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments »
Tags: cheese, food, jimmy legs, sleep

Kenickie meets the snow

It snowed over the Easter weekend, occasionally enough to settle for an hour or two, but nothing particularly serious. It was still quite pretty and I think it's the first snow we had this year. I imagine it will be the last too, unless it snows in June again like it did a year or two back.

For Kenickie, who is really just a kitten still, it was probably the first time he had experienced snow. He surely must have been too young to have been let outside last winter, and as noted above this was the first snowfall of the year. I wondered what he would make of it, remembering how other family cats coped initially. Henry was fun, and he had a full snowfall to frolic around in, unable to walk properly in a foot of snow and bouncing along like a lamb. But this was just a sprinkling, although it was falling steadily on occasions.

Kenickie was fun when he first was let out, as he would rush back in and lick his paws like crazy, wondering what on earth had soiled his lovely pink feet so! He got used to it pretty quickly, and enjoys being outside. As for the snow, he didn't know what to make of it. It seemed that he didn't mind it at all when he was outside, as I suppose it wasn't wet like rain and didn't really affect him at first. But when he came in he was all a-fluster as the snow flakes that had landed on him started to melt and he got a little cold and wet. He started licking the melting snow off, wondering where the wetness was coming from.

I don't think Kenickie got a good chance to walk through any snow, as it melted pretty quickly, so he still has some excitement ahead of him in another year when we get a proper snowfall. It may be a photo opportunity, a cat's first time in snow, except that being a white cat means he would be naturally camoflaged in a snowy terrain.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Kenickie meets the snow
Tags: kenickie, kitty, weather