Unbelievable that in Mac OS X (10.1.5 and older), there is no setting to change the default paper size to A4 (mine defaults to US Letter, of course). (In OS 9, for most apps, after changing to your preferred paper size you could hold the Option key down while clicking on OK in the Page Setup dialog box and that would set your default paper size.)
Well, thankfully, this freeware utility by Rod Yager will change your default paper size to A4 or US Letter in OS X: Paper Sizes 10.2. Download it off this page:
Thanks, Rod!
I hear that OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) WILL have a setting to change your default paper size.
Strange as it may seem, Justin giggles out loudly if others cough (or make cough-like sounds)! We discovered this about a week ago (accidentally, of course) when mommy choked on something and started coughing. Funny little guy!
Today Justin is now 4 months and almost 1 week old and for first time he turned over from on his back to on his tummy on his own — yay! He started sucking his thumb about a week ago too. Most of the time though, he still sucks all of his fingers instead. He's also pretty steady standing with someone or something supporting him a bit and his legs are noticably chubbier and longer. Oh, he started holding on to his feet as well.
Just before heading to the pool this past Sunday. He's got disposable Huggies swimming trunks on and is holding on to his new The First Years fish toy. In 2 days (on July 20) he'll be exactly 4 months old!
Spent much of the day battling an apparent new worm that infected a PC in our Malaysia office. The worm repeatedly (over 22 times!) sent a 6.8MB MPEG attachment to 2 group email addresses. Of course, this very quickly filled up the server's hard disk! Before I had realized what was happening, I'd free up like 200MBs of space on the server and then like 5 minutes later the hard disk would be full again! I used Timbuktu to remote control the Malaysia server from Hong Kong for the troubleshooting. Initially I could do nothing because for some odd reason, our firewall in Malaysia was dropping packets for ports that Timbuktu uses (407, 1417-1420, tcp and udp) even though previously we configured Timbuktu communication to pass through and it was working. With the help of our part-time IT guy there, Chris Chow, we eventually got it working again (had to remove the rule, remove the service, add the predefined service again, add the rule again). Tomorrow we have to figure out what kind of worm it is and then clean it out of the infected system (if it is in fact a worm). The worm is sending via Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 (as shown in the headers) and through our local mail server so it does not appear to have its own SMTP engine. The Outlook Express Sent Items folder does not contain any copies of the big message though.
Quick Note: I just updated Movable Type from version 2.11 to 2.21. Upgrade only involved FTPing updated files to my server, replacing any existing files and folders that have the same name. No real big changes from previous version. Major addition was ability to use MySQL to store data (instead of Berkley DB) and "TrackBack, a peer-to-peer framework for communication between weblogs".
I'm anxiously awaiting the "post via email" feature that I hear is currently in the works.
Through today's InfoWorld Ahead of the Curve e-mail newsletter I read the tragic story of brilliant programmer and peer-to-peer pioneer, Gene Kan, who took his own life. He was only 25 and suffered from clinical depression.
I had never heard of him before (I have heard of what he worked on, Gnutella, of course) but from what I've read about him just today, he has my utmost respect and admiration. His is an amazing, sad, and moving story.
Read more about Gene Kan:
Here's a letter I wrote that got published today in the South China Morning Post's Letters to the Editor section. (The South China Morning Post is Hong Kong's main English newspaper.) I wrote it in response to a letter that was published just this past Sunday in the same section. Well here's the edited, improved version of my letter that they published (thanks, Editor!):
SMOKING BAN WOULD ACTUALLY BE GOOD FOR BUSINESS
I refer to the letter by Laura Ruggeri headlined ''Ban on smokers must be up to individual restaurant owners'' (South China Morning Post, July 13).
I disagree with Ms Ruggeri's suggestion that instead of the government implementing a total ban on smoking in restaurants, the owners of each restaurant should decide. The owners have always been free to make this choice, so if Ms Ruggeri had her way things would never improve.
Recent surveys, which were fair and objective, have proved that the majority of Hong Kong residents and even visitors prefer a smoke-free restaurant environment and that business for restaurants would increase, not decrease, if a smoking ban was implemented. Of course, the tobacco lobby always claims otherwise, without any hard facts or figures to back up their claims.
What many smokers fail to realise is that in any restaurant their smoking habit always makes non-smokers around them extremely uncomfortable.
Non-smokers choke in the smoke-filled air.
They often lose their appetite, and are forced to rush out of the restaurant. Over time, exposure by non-smokers to second-hand smoke can lead to serious health problems as well. Indeed, smokers infringe on the rights of others by just lighting up, whether in a restaurant or on the street.
If the ban was in effect for restaurants, non-smokers would undoubtedly be less exposed to harmful carcinogens.
A total ban is not an ''absurd'' idea. California introduced a ban in restaurants in 1994 and then in bars in 1998. The results have been positive.
Hong Kong should adopt the same policy. Bring in a ban in restaurants as soon as possible and, at a later date, consider extending the law to bars. The well-being of the non-smoking public should not continue to be compromised for the sake of the smoking minority.
Those who do not indulge in this bad habit have suffered for long enough. The situation will not improve in restaurants until a smoking ban is enshrined in legislation.
DEREK TOM
Wanchai
Direct link on SCMP's online site: http://focus.scmp.com/focusnews/ZZZNRNMNM3D.html
(Premium View subscription required though.)
Shift-Command-3 captures your entire screen and saves the screenshot on your Desktop.
Shift-Command-4 changes your mouse pointer to a crosshair (+), after which you click and drag (from upper left corner to bottom right corner of area) to select an area of your screen to capture. Screenshot is saved on your Desktop.
(Note: Command key = Apple key, next to space bar)
Default format is TIFF.
To change format to JPEG (or PNG or PICT), open a Terminal window, type in the following line and hit Enter:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleScreenShotFormat JPEG
For PNG or PICT (or back to TIFF) format, just substitute for JPEG in the above command.
Took Mac OS X out for a few spins over the past several months but was turned off by the unfamiliar user interface and presumed poor performance and compatibility issues with OS 9 applications. So I stuck with OS 9. Well now I've been using OS X for 3 days straight and am pleasantly surprised. All the OS 9 ("Classic") applications work flawlessly in OS X with no noticeable degradation in speed (amazing!) and I am now more comfortable finding my way around the new system. With the Classic environment running within OS X, it's like having 2 computers in 1!
There's one essential OS 9 utility I use that is keeping me from using OS X versions of all my applications: EZNote. EZNote allows me to instantly store, name, categorize, and retrieve text/notes from within any application using just a couple of keyboard shortcuts. I use it to store interesting or important tidbits of information that I glean mainly from within my email program, Eudora, or my Web browser, Internet Explorer. The info can be just a few paragraphs or an entire story or email... EZNote is fantastic! An OS X version of EZNote is supposedly in the works but until then, for compatibility, I'm using OS 9 versions of Eudora and Internet Explorer. Switching between OS 9 applications and OS X applications is totally transparent, which I find amazing.
The migration to OS X has prompted me to upgrade to OS X versions of the following applications:
Whoa!... Yes, I've been slacking at updating this blog. Sorry. We've been busy. Have had a lot of out-of-town guests the last several weeks. You can see most of them in a new photo album I put up (only 23 photos though). I've got more photos to add but have not had the chance yet to select, resize, optimize, and upload.
Hmmm... Any other notable things? Well, at work a fan that cools 2 SCSI hard disks burnt out so Alex and I replaced it. During the process, we improved the case airflow by removing two 5.25" drive bay covers and using duct tape to funnel air into the new fan. I'll try to put up a photo of the work. On another of our servers, the power supply's fan burnt out so I replaced the power supply. Oh, oh, oh... how could I forget?!... our Malaysia office had their Internet connection down for like 3 days. The ISP, Jaring, which is pretty much a monopoly, claimed the problem was with the leased line provider, Telekom Malaysia. Well on the 3rd day, they said the line was up and everything was fixed but we still weren't getting Internet access. Turned out that our firewall's configuration had gotten corrupt — probably as the result of repeated cycling of the firewall's power by our part-time IT guy, Chris, to try and get the connection working. In the end, over the phone I walked Chris through the process of wiping our firewall's firmware, uploading new firmware and then reconfiguring the firewall again from scratch. Thank God that did the trick! BTW, if you're looking for a good firewall, I recommend SonicWALL's products.
Just the other night we had dinner with my old neighbor, Eric Loo, and an old grade-school classmate, Gifford Chang, who were visiting from Hawaii. Well, they were visiting Hong Kong with the Hawaii Narcissus Court which I think is sponsored by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. So, we had dinner with the whole tour group (minus the court!) at Grace's Garden in Time's Square, Causeway Bay. Was a fun night and good to catch up with the two guys whom I hadn't seen in like 15+ years! Got a few photos of that night which I'll put up later.
