tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38138566592775930712024-02-22T21:30:52.401+01:00The Beez' speaks..The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-79348062279681104162015-01-10T16:11:00.002+01:002015-01-10T18:10:06.721+01:00How to solve simple linear equationsIt may come as a surprise to some people, but in high school this guy was not good at math at all. The point is that while I'm pretty good in designing algorithms, my calculations are always a bit off. Nowadays that's not much of a problem: you just grab a calculator or (even better) a computer, but the school system in those days was focused on doing it by hand. It took ages to calculate and plot a graph manually, which in my case was already completely clouded by tiny calculation errors. On top of that, it was too time consuming to make only <i>one</i> graph, let alone a whole series of them, so I couldn't get a feel of the dynamics involved.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, that all changed when the computer came in. And then I started to understand all those things that had eluded me for years. Like solving linear equations.<br />
<br />
There are several methods to solve them. One involves eliminating terms by applying the same operation at both sides of the equation. When I was a youngster, that only resulted in more complex equations than the ones I started with. Sometimes it didn't even <i>resemble</i> the original equation. The other one is switching terms from one side of the equation to the other side, while changing the sign. That one is already much better and the foundation of the method I will be presenting here.<br />
<br />
You only need to fill in a simple table and then do some additions. If you manage to do that, you're left with one single division - and that's it. Let's take the following equation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">2x + 2 - 76 = -12x + 10</blockquote>
The table is a no-brainer. Make two columns and name the first one "<b>+x</b>" and the other one "<b>-n</b>". Got that? Note that even if you don't get the signs right, it's not a problem. Now, fill in the numbers associated with "<b>x</b>" in the left column and all others in the right column. If a number is on the right part of a subtraction, add a minus sign, e.g. "<i>12 - 4x</i>", will result in "<i>12</i>" in the right column and "-4" in the left column.<br/>
<br/>
Once you hit the "equals" sign, subtotal both columns. Now write two new labels, "<b>-x</b>" in the left column and "<b>+n</b>" in the right column. Then continue until you're done. So now we've got something like this:<br/><br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_b-_-NcdfNyLSxmmqbgJDpS45jXgnXfgHkFCBqTT20-TPGK-quydh5ksX-EoDS-vNXTBg9bzTscgf9H6F2VAgvZToYL5ovc_x-Ug8djEPC2198FJ1_hcTe0DMXwoFbgr9OdBZbPzNIJw/s1600/equation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC_b-_-NcdfNyLSxmmqbgJDpS45jXgnXfgHkFCBqTT20-TPGK-quydh5ksX-EoDS-vNXTBg9bzTscgf9H6F2VAgvZToYL5ovc_x-Ug8djEPC2198FJ1_hcTe0DMXwoFbgr9OdBZbPzNIJw/s1600/equation.png" /></a></div><br>
Now negate the number in the top right column and the bottom left column and add the subtotals in both columns:<br/>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">(2 + 12)x = 74 + 10 =><br/>
14x = 84</blockquote>
I promised you, you would be left with one single division. I didn't lie, here it is:<br/>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">x = 84/14 =><br/>
x = 6</blockquote>
That's it! It's so simple even a computer can do it. And that's exactly what I did in just <a href="http://sourceforge.net/p/forth-4th/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/4th.src/equation.4th">40 lines of Forth code</a> - and that includes the entire parser:<br/><br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtbTwD_1gARU-msY3V_faR3DxwJVUIn8c2zDuhJDqW4hkXMHUBm6TXO49CHWVSsYm6SMXO-0hwj9-iz6m1Ok-s7hBaXVhG6JqCCby85rIA9ii6Q8QfWTHIBS5JBpdgesJeQS6Mo3OWKZQ/s1600/equat4tH.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtbTwD_1gARU-msY3V_faR3DxwJVUIn8c2zDuhJDqW4hkXMHUBm6TXO49CHWVSsYm6SMXO-0hwj9-iz6m1Ok-s7hBaXVhG6JqCCby85rIA9ii6Q8QfWTHIBS5JBpdgesJeQS6Mo3OWKZQ/s1600/equat4tH.png" /></a></div><br>
Sure, you always risk making some errors while adding or dividing, but apart from that it's pretty bulletproof. So if your kid is eluded by linear equations, give it a try! Just make sure he (or she) understands that <i>equal</i> signs ("<b>+ +</b>" or "<b>- -</b>") make up a <i>positive number</i>, while <i>unequal</i> signs ("<b>+ -</b>" or "<b>- +</b>") result in a <i>negative number</i>.<br/>
<br/>
But I'm sure he (or she) will manage that - since I mastered that one too forty years ago! ;-)
The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-11049719841936896372013-10-20T16:32:00.001+02:002013-10-20T17:07:00.826+02:00Hardening your Raspberry Pi<p>When I had traded in my Microsoft box for a Linux box, I wanted it to look and behave like the large $100K Unix boxes I had had the pleasure to work with before. For instance, I bought a tape unit to make backups. It was terribly slow, but I kind of liked the whirring of the tape when you entered <tt>rewind</tt> at the console. That was <i>cool</i>.</p>
<p>So I was overjoyed when my brother came up with an old Wyse25 serial terminal. It took some fiddling with serial cables, <tt>inittab</tt> and settings, but somehow I got the beast to cooperate with my Linux box. It silently displayed kernel messages for years.</p>
<p>Sometimes, when my box hang, I logged in to shut it down properly. And at one time it started to spit out "Sense errors" from my SCSI drive. <i>That</i> got my attention. I backed it up and restarted - but it never came up again. Fortunately, my data was safe.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCIIkocDENZun14tfCM4FTtKbaDB5Vpf0Jv4a848TBM1dRkV2hygsD-EYJz1ZTCOS5eouafMAsnndtXKd9W0GUZoImuMPCS-hUoKBRp9EiZt_5Ejl_-paaqp93pqFb1_Y7-UlE1G-1FKJx/s1600/Wyse25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCIIkocDENZun14tfCM4FTtKbaDB5Vpf0Jv4a848TBM1dRkV2hygsD-EYJz1ZTCOS5eouafMAsnndtXKd9W0GUZoImuMPCS-hUoKBRp9EiZt_5Ejl_-paaqp93pqFb1_Y7-UlE1G-1FKJx/s320/Wyse25.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>But after a decade, the Wyse25 began to behave erratically. The screen blinked and became unreadable at times. Most of the time a good <i>whack</i> fixed it - until the moment that was no longer sufficient. Maybe it was the dust that had accumulated over time, I dunno. Anyway, I needed a replacement.</p>
<p>But nowadays <a href="http://wyse.vecmar.com/wyse_150.htm">these things are hard to get</a>. They are out of production and even a refurbished one would set me back a few hundred quid - and I needed it shipped overseas. That wasn't going to be cheap because these things are <i>heavy</i>, darn!</p>
<p>After a while I decided a Raspberry Pi and a cheap monitor would do the job just fine, setting me back about 200 Euros. I already had several parts lying around, like a keyboard and a mouse. It would not only allow me to show kernel messages, I could use it as a cheap workstation as well. That sounded like a good deal, so I ordered one.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpBaU5NNetna8SoreXlJUNMzJb4xl8ON8UDtey6ok4zvRNl3RW2PfsgKRmdZtnS26LGuRvQA5ca74C8kVUrfm3OHL5s3fN_m4mJvvDnx0d0K51IdE13bJF3A_1KejlSmUih7H5rpV-JDW/s1600/20130113_134532.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpBaU5NNetna8SoreXlJUNMzJb4xl8ON8UDtey6ok4zvRNl3RW2PfsgKRmdZtnS26LGuRvQA5ca74C8kVUrfm3OHL5s3fN_m4mJvvDnx0d0K51IdE13bJF3A_1KejlSmUih7H5rpV-JDW/s320/20130113_134532.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>It came in after a few days. Setting it up was a breeze (although I could not get it to accept the full 1080p resolution - but who cares) and within 20 minutes the kernel messages were scrolling down the screen. I pimped my 16G SD image with <a href="http://www.libreoffice.org/">LibreOffice</a> and a few other packages that seemed useful at the time and was quite happy with my low-cost workstation.</p>
<p>I put the monitor in "ECO-mode", so the whole contraption was using a mere 18W (which was 10W less than my Wyse25). Of course the Pi was on 24/7, because I wanted it to be available straight away - booting it every time would defeat the whole purpose. Problem solved. I thought.</p>
<p>After a few months I wanted to demonstrate the thing to a friend of mine, so I started up LibreOffice. Nothing. I rebooted it. It came up, but with errors. Fortunately <tt>ssh</tt> was still working, so it was not too big a problem. Until another reboot several months later when it just showed the dreaded <tt>kbd></tt> prompt. That was no good..</p>
<p>I started googling and found out I had become the victim of "SD card corruption". It seemed to be quite common. Fortunately, there are two partitions on a Raspi SD card and my <tt>config.txt</tt> was on the first VFAT partition, so I could refrain from setting up my monitor all over again. This time I used another, smaller class 10 card and concentrated on its primary purpose - which was a console. Within half an hour I was up and running again.</p>
<p>But where did this corruption come from? I had been using SD cards for years (e.g. on my EeePC 701) and had <i>never</i> experienced corruption. Good powersupply? Got it! Overclocking? Not me. Good quality SD card? Sure! Power failure? Not that I can remember. Pulling the powercord? Are you nuts - I was an system admin! Still, I didn't want to repeat that procedure over and over again. So what could I do?</p>
<p>There are several things I don't understand about the Raspbian distribution:<ul><li>Why is there no separate <tt>/home</tt> partition;</li><li>Why is there no separate swap partition;</li><li>Why use a journaling filesystem, EXT4.</li></ul>
With a bit of tinkering, one could even mount the root filesystem read-only and temporarily remount it read-write if one installed new packages. But - that was not the case. I had to work something out myself.</p>
<p>Note that these instructions are for the <b>2013-09-25 Raspbian</b> distribution, which has already been tweaked to minimize SD card corruption by setting <tt>noatime</tt> to the root filesystem and moving a whole lot of stuff to <tt>tmpfs</tt>. But more could be done.</p>
<p>The first thing was to remove the swapfile. A box that just does a little <tt>ssh</tt> would probably not need it. That was simple.</p><blockquote>sudo dphys-swapfile swapoff<br>
sudo dphys-swapfile uninstall<br>
sudo update-rc.d dphys-swapfile remove</blockquote><p>The next thing was to move <tt>/tmp</tt> to memory. Just issue:</p><blockquote>sudo vi /etc/default/tmpfs</blockquote><p>And then set this parameter:</p><blockquote>RAMTMP=yes</blockquote><p>Finally, I wanted the logfiles in memory too. Note that they quietly disappear every time you shutdown, so they are of very little use when your Raspi has crashed. Just issue:</p><blockquote>sudo vi /etc/fstab</blockquote><p>And make sure it looks like this:</p><blockquote>proc /proc proc defaults 0 0<br>
/dev/mmcblk0p1 /boot vfat defaults,noatime 0 2<br>
/dev/mmcblk0p2 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1<br>
logfs /var/log tmpfs size=10M,noatime 0 0</blockquote><p>However, this is not enough to get rid of all writes to the SD card. <tt>resolv.conf</tt> will still be rewritten each and every time - and of course, we still got the journal. But - it's not too bad for a start.</p>
<p>The Raspi has been working without a hitch for several weeks now. Rebooting was not a problem. But I still feel the whole story will pop up again some time or another, so I have been contemplating what my next move will be. The most painless one is to do what I suggested before: make the root filesystem read-only. There is even <a href="http://http://nutcom.hu/?page_id=108">a special Raspbian</a> for that one.</p>
<p>You could also try using a USB stick or USB harddisk as well. Just be sure that the Raspi gets enough power, which often means you need a powered USB hub. Another drawback is that you have to fork out a load of cash for this solution and that I've read reports about corrupted USB sticks as well. No guarantees here, so I can't really recommend that.<p>
<p>The bottom line is that the Raspi can boot from a whole bunch of devices, so you're free to make your own variant of Raspbian (e.g. on EXT2) or even try booting from <a href="http://www.whaleblubber.ca/boot-raspberry-pi-nfs/">NFS</a>. It's all not too difficult as I will show you in the next post, where I'll explain how to move Raspbian to another medium - and how to emulate it. Which I do as well, because I don't feel happy developing on a physical Raspi for obvious reasons.</p>
<p>Although some may claim I have given you the impression that the Raspi is unreliable or a money pit, be assured that is clearly <i>not</i> my intention. I think it's a very nice machine with an incredible value-for-money, but it may need some tinkering to make it work for you in a particular situation, especially if you use it for production purposes - like a server that has to run 24/7.</p>
<p>And that's the beauty of the whole concept: you can!</p>
The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-1056096178285849322012-05-04T13:32:00.000+02:002015-01-08T19:02:26.538+01:00My life with Coherent, part 2<a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-life-with-coherent-part-1.html'>In the first post</a> of these series I've shown you it's possible to make Coherent 4.2.10 run under the newest version of QEMU. Now it's time to take it one step further.<br><br> I've had permission from Robert Swartz himself to distribute the <u>first perfectly legal</u> Coherent 4.2.10 QEMU image as long as you comply with the following conditions:
<br />
<blockquote>
You may use the software on this image free of charge for personal, non-commercial use. You may <b>NOT</b> redistribute this image or the software it contains without written permission from the copyright holder. The
software is provided on an "as is" basis without warranty of any kind.</blockquote></br>
<b>Getting started</b><br />
<a href="http://thebeez.home.xs4all.nl/4tH/Coherent-4.2.10-image.tar.gz">Download and unpack the archive</a>. Included are two images, <tt>coherent.public.img</tt> and <tt>fat16.dd</tt>. The first one contains the Coherent image, the second one an empty floppy. If you want to, you can start them right away:
<br />
<blockquote>
qemu-system-i386 -hda coherent.public.img -fda fat16.dd -m 16</blockquote>
First, don't try to crank up the amount of memory, Coherent won't use it - at least not <i>this</i> kernel. Second, you just <i>have to be patient</i> to attempt this, because it may take up to 10 minutes before Coherent is up and running. The good news is that you can monitor how far it is by pressing <tt>[CTRL]-[ALT]-2</tt> in QEMU and typing:
<br />
<blockquote>
info blockstats</blockquote>
If <tt>rd_bytes</tt> reaches 600,000 you can probably login. There are two login entries, the obvious <tt>root</tt> with password <tt>rootroot</tt> and a normal user named <tt>habe</tt> with password <tt>habehabe</tt>. Pick any one.
<br><br>
When you've logged in you might want to try the usual stuff like <tt>ls -l</tt> or <tt>ps -eaf</tt>, maybe you're even so bold to start up <tt>vi</tt> or <tt>cc</tt>. In any case, you will find that everything is <i>painfully slow</i>. If you want to get out, you can do so, but you'll have to be root in order to do it properly. Just issue:
<br />
<blockquote>
cd; /etc/shutdown halt 0</blockquote>
<u>Note it doesn't shutdown immediately!</u> You'll <i>have</i> to wait until Coherent tells you it's safe to power down. Be patient! You can also exit QEMU without shutting down, but in that case you may have corrupted your image. And believe me, at these speeds you <i>do not</i> want to run <tt>fsck</tt>..<br>
<br>
So that's it? Coherent runs, but it is completely unusable? No, not quite. Coherent does some disk caching, so after a while it becomes responsive. That is: until you reboot. But how can you avoid a reboot? Well, it's quite simple. QEMU allows you to make snapshots, so if you need Coherent you don't boot it, but simply load the snapshot.<br>
<br>
QEMU only allows snapshots when you're using the so called "qcow2" image type, so we have to convert the files you just downloaded. That's not too hard, since QEMU comes with a handy utility for that. Just issue:
<br />
<blockquote>
qemu-img convert -c -O qcow2 coherent.public.img Coherent.dsk<br>
qemu-img convert -c -O qcow2 fat16.dd fat16.dsk</blockquote>
The latter may give you a warning, but don't worry, we'll only use it as a placeholder. Ok, we're done, let's start it up again:
<br />
<blockquote>
qemu-system-i386 -hda Coherent.dsk -fda fat16.dsk -m 16</blockquote>
Agreed, you're in for the same wait. Sorry for that. But I promise you next time it'll be much faster. Just stay with me for a little while longer. When Coherent comes up, log in as usual. Then press <tt>[CTRL]-[ALT]-2</tt> to enter the monitor. Now type:
<br />
<blockquote>
savevm test0</blockquote>
This will save the current state of Coherent in a QEMU snapshot, so you'll end up here next time you start it. Return to the emulation by pressing <tt>[CTRL]-[ALT]-1</tt> fiddle around a little bit, start up your favorite commands a few times and then save a new snapshot:
<br />
<blockquote>
savevm test1</blockquote>
Shutdown Coherent properly and start it again, but this time with the command:
<br />
<blockquote>
qemu-system-i386 -hda Coherent.dsk -fda fat16.dsk -m 16 -loadvm test1</blockquote>
Ok, that's more like it, isn't it? Ok, shut it down again. This time you'll be able to start it up much faster. Let's try something fancy now and invoke QEMU with:
<br />
<blockquote>
qemu-system-i386 -hda Coherent.dsk -fda fat16.dsk -m 16 -serial telnet:localhost:4444,server,nowait -loadvm test1</blockquote>
Log in as root and type:
<br />
<blockquote>
enable /dev/com1l</blockquote>
Now start up a terminal session on your host and type:
<br />
<blockquote>
telnet localhost 4444</blockquote>
Yes, you can login to Coherent from your host Operating System. But that's about everything you can do as far as networking under Coherent is concerned.<br><br> There is a full TCP/IP stack available for Coherent, but you'll need a special kernel in order to make it work - which doesn't seem to be available. So I haven't succeeded to do much more in this area. If you have, <i>please leave a comment</i>.<br><br>
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<br>
<b>Installing Coherent</b><br />
Maybe you'll think this small system is so much fun that you want to give it a permanent place on your desktop. That is where the <tt>coherent.sh</tt> script comes in. It works with both KDE (KDialog) and Gnome (Zenity) and it makes it easier to launch the QEMU/Coherent combination. The only thing you have to do is to state where your disks are located:
<br />
<blockquote>
COHAT0A=/opt/qemu/coherent.dsk<br>
COHFD0=/opt/qemu/null.dsk</blockquote>
If you want to exchange files between Coherent and your host, you'll have to change <tt>/etc/fstab</tt> as well:
<br />
<blockquote>
/opt/qemu/fat16.dd /mnt/coherent msdos rw,user,noauto,loop 0 0</blockquote>
Note this is the <i>uncompressed</i>, original file! You can mount the <i>uncompressed</i> Coherent image as well (as <tt>sysv</tt>), but <b>you won't be able to write</b> to it. I don't think I'll have to tell you how to mount a floppy image, do I? Once the VM is up and running you can exchange the virtual, empty floppy for the raw version by switching to the QEMU monitor and issuing:
<br />
<blockquote>
change floppy0 fat16.dd</blockquote>
However, while the raw floppy is online you can't make a snapshot. When you want to take a snapshot you simply return to the dummy floppy by issuing:
<br />
<blockquote>
change floppy0 fat16.dsk</blockquote>
Ok, now we've cleared that one we can concentrate on the real issue here: how do we get any files from the floppy? That's not as difficult as you think. You'll only need to edit one file, <tt>/etc/default/msdos</tt>. Make sure the appropriate section reads:
<br />
<blockquote>
# This is for a system with a 3.5 inch A drive and a 5.25 inch B drive<br>
a=/dev/fva0<br>
a9=/dev/fqa0<br>
b=/dev/fha1<br>
b9=/dev/f9a1</blockquote>
And you're ready to rock 'n roll. There is a whole slew of MS-DOS related commands at your disposal like:
<br />
<ul>
<li>dosls</li>
<li>doscp</li>
<li>dosrm</li>
<li>dosrmdir</li>
</ul>
E.g. copying the <tt>/etc/default/msdos</tt> file to the floppy is simply:
<br />
<blockquote>
doscp /etc/default/msdos a:</blockquote>
And copying it back is done by:
<br />
<blockquote>
doscp a:/msdos /etc/default</blockquote>
Well, that ain't rocket science, is it? We can use it right away to fix some Y2K issues. Yes, this version of Coherent won't go past the 31st of December 1999, but it is easily fixed by <a href="http://www.amu.edu.pl/%7Eapopiele/ATclock.gz">ATclock</a> and <a href="http://www.amu.edu.pl/%7Eapopiele/date.gz">date</a>. Copy them to the <tt>/bin</tt> directory and reboot. That'll fix it.<br />
<br />
You may also be tempted to try another kernel. Several ones are available <a href="http://main4.amu.edu.pl/%7Eapopiele/embed.html">here</a>. Just copy it to the root and hard-link it to <tt>autoboot</tt>, e.g.:
<br />
<blockquote>
ln cohat0 autoboot</blockquote>
Note you can also select a kernel when starting up - just press <tt>[SPACE]</tt> immediately. Coherent will answer:
<br />
<blockquote>
If installing COHERENT, please type "begin".</blockquote>
But it is actually a prompt for the kernel name. Obviously, if you type <tt>autoboot</tt> it will boot the default kernel - just in case you don't know how to get out of there ;-)<br>
<br>
<b>Final notes</b><br />
<ul>
<li>Although Coherent comes with a full fledged C compiler, it won't compile your ANSI-C sources, since it is strictly K&R C. However, GCC - and all the GNU stuff that comes along with it - is available. Still, I like the little beast, since it makes small and fast compilants.</li>
<li>Coherent does have virtual consoles. Press <tt>[CTRL]-[NUM0]</tt>, <tt>[CTRL]-[NUM1]</tt>, etc.</li>
<li>The archives of <tt>comp.os.coherent</tt> are compelling reading, featuring Linus Torvalds on who's got the best OS.</li>
<li><i>Additional notes and links on the subject are appreciated</i>. Just leave them in the comments.</li>
</ul><br>
<b>Useful links</b><br>
Good sources for additional software are:
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://main2.amu.edu.pl/%7Eapopiele/embed.html">http://main2.amu.edu.pl/~apopiele/embed.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.landibase.com/coherent.html">http://www.landibase.com/coherent.html</a></li>
<li><a href="ftp://ftp.mayn.de/pub/really_old_stuff/coherent/">ftp://ftp.mayn.de/pub/really_old_stuff/coherent/</a></li>
<li><a href="gopher://telefisk.org/1/coherent">gopher://telefisk.org/1/coherent</a></li>
</ul>
Additional information can be obtained:
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.coherent">Coherent OS newsgroup</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29">Wikipedia</a></li>
<li><a href="http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-life-with-coherent-part-1.html">My life with Coherent, part 1</a></li>
</ul><br>
<b>Update</b><br>
There have been consistent reports on Coherent being considerably faster on QEMU 1.7 and up. Well, I tested it and even if there may be some truth to it, it's not very significant nor consistent. If you can deal with it, convert your QCOW2 image to a raw one, because that will give you the required speedup.<br><br>
But the biggest drawback is that your C compiler will go haywire, spitting out errors on perfectly fine include files. This behavior was still present on the QEMU 2.0.2 version, although slightly less prominent.<br><br>
The last QEMU version known to work flawlessly is 1.4.<br>
<br>
<b>Update</b><br>
Coherent is <a href="http://www.nesssoftware.com/home/mwc/source.php">Open Source</a> now (thank you, Jason Stevens)!The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-14070537194162613162012-02-25T15:19:00.011+01:002012-02-26T12:14:52.141+01:00Hollywood still doesn't get itThe Dutch Anti-Piracy organization "Brein" has <a href='http://vrritti.com/2012/02/23/brein-taking-providers-upc-kpn-t-mobile-and-tele2-to-court-expects-them-to-block-the-pirate-bay-too/'>decided to sue</a> ISP's UPC, KPN, T-Mobile and Tele2 after their recent victory in court. I really don't understand why. First of all, blocking a handful of IP addresses hasn't had any effect at all.<br /><br />But most of all, if you <i>really</i> want to fight piracy you got to have support from the public. And that <a href='http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120203/00520517643/hollywood-still-doesnt-realize-that-internet-drives-popular-culture-now.shtml'>support is crumbling</a> with each and every effort to <i>enforce</i> compliance to that <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEeaxI0OPU&feature=player_detailpage'>10 minutes of pesky messages</a> you get when you insert a "legal" DVD. Yeah, you name them all: SOPA, PIPA, ACTA or whatever they may be called. Crowds are cheering on the streets and can't <i>wait</i> to have them ratified.<br /><br />Metallica, once one of the most fierce fighters of piracy, has seen <a href='http://torrentfreak.com/metallica-frontman-pirates-his-own-album-090305/'>the sign on the wall</a> and <a href='http://mashable.com/2008/09/04/metallica-ok-with-piracy/'>radically changed its position</a>. These guys are not stupid. They <i>know</i> their stand on piracy affected their popularity, so they took the only decision they could take.<br /><br />I've never been a downloader. I simply don't like the hassle that comes with it. But I have friends who are. One of them is a gray haired hippie, who also happens to be a record collector. Consequently, a burned CD has little value to him. But he is also a great fan of vintage science fiction movies. You hardly find those movies in the local stores and when you do the prices are <i>outrageous</i>. So every now and then he ordered one at Amazon. When you add all the additional costs they're not quite cheap either.<br /><br />So when he wanted "to go on the Internet" in the early 2000's I told him to buy a Mac and get XS4ALL. A whole new world opened up to him. One night when we were having an beer and he told me how hard it was to get a decent copy of "Jason and the Argonauts" for a reasonable price. So I introduced him to the world of torrents, clearly stating that although downloading wasn't illegal in the Netherlands, it wasn't quite legal as well.<br /><br />"Unlawful" isn't black and white down here, but has quite a few shades of gray. E.g. contrary to popular belief marijuana isn't legal here, it's just not.. completely illegal. It's - as we Dutch say - "condoned", which means you aren't prosecuted.<br /><br />We quickly found a viable torrent and started downloading. It trickled down at about 10 kB/s, but he wasn't in a hurry. And a day or so later it was there. The weeks that followed he went into a kind of download frenzy, but then it settled down. I mean, they don't make movies like that anymore and the more recent ones you can get in the shop.<br /><br />We met on the street a few weeks ago and we quickly landed on the subject of the <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/02/venn-diagrams-intersection-of-morons.html'>recent Ziggo/XS4ALL verdict</a>. He was furious. "Who are they to tell me where I can or cannot surf?!" he said. I told him he still could. I told him to take a look at my blog and <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/01/surf-naar-de-pirate-bay-in-5-minuten.html'>simply follow the links</a>. <br /><br />That evening he phoned me to say everything worked fine and he was currently downloading "Captain America, the first avenger". "I'm gonna boycott them!" he said "I spend about 20 Euros a week on DVD's and if this is how they're treating me, they're gonna lose a customer! That thing is in the store for about 15 Euros - that's too expensive for my taste, but I'm gonna watch it tonight! You won't believe the download speed I'm getting, about 500 kB/s!! It's even got Dutch subtitles!"<br /><br />I wasn't surprised. Everyone knows that the more popular a title is, the more seeders and leechers are offering it, which really helps to speed up the download. He had already downloaded "The Thing 2", "The Green Lantern" and I'm sure more were coming. So that is in effect what Mr. Kuik, spokesman of "BREIN", achieved. And he's making himself more popular by the minute.<br /><br />The point is that the entertainment industry seems to be unable to listen to their best customers. They want the world to play by their rules, but every enterpreneur knows that's a very bad business model. <a 'href=http://mashable.com/2012/02/13/online-piracy-box-office/'>Studies prove</a> that the entertainment industry can survive and <a href='http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/how_kill_movie_piracy_charge_1_movies_and_50c_episodes'>even make money</a>, but they simply have to start to use their brains ("BREIN" means "BRAIN" in Dutch).<br /><br />One of these pioneers is "<a href='http://www.ironsky.net/site/'>Iron Sky</a>", that partly uses "crowd funding" to raise money. And they will offer the movie for download once it has been in the theatres. Now <i>that's</i> creative thinking. I won't say it will work, but at least they're trying. Most importantly, they have the support of the community.<br /><br />In contrast, the music industry have tried to tie down their customers with DRM. Needless to say they failed miserably - <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/07/drm-is-almost-dead.html'>as I predicted</a> - and nowadays it is very hard to find a CD or download with DRM. It simply doesn't work that way, despite state-of-the-art technology and elaborate schemes to "hide" the disadvantages from DRM to the public.<br /><br />Now they're relying again on technology to fight piracy, but this time the technology is not in their hands, so it is even easier to find a way around it. Technology has always been a double edged sword for Hollywood. The introduction of the TV almost brought it to its knees, CGI on the other hand, produced some of its most famous blockbusters.<br /><br />However, it has to realize that the Internet is nothing more than the 21st century equivalent of the TV. It can't be controlled and you can't legislate it away. Hollywood will have to change its game. Mikhail Gorbachev once said "Those who come too late will be punished by life itself".<br /><br />Hollywood may not realize it, but the Internet is not the last challenge it has to face. In 15, 20 years, may be sooner, every kid with a computer will be able to create his own <a href='http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323925/'>Hollywood grade movies</a>. There will be <a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiX5d3rC6o'>digitilized Marilyn Monroes</a>, James Deans, Humphrey Bogarts, landscapes from all over the world, cars from every era. Of course, most of these movies will be very, very bad. But some of them will be great. Most important of all: they will be free. And when they're not ready for the Internet, they aren't prepared for that.<br /><br />With the turn of the millennium I expected "20th Century Fox" to change its name. It didn't. Now I understand why.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-6260574356062232702012-02-08T18:32:00.009+01:002012-03-05T22:41:25.735+01:00My life with Coherent, part 1In the early 1990ies my company switched from an <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/36'>S/36 system</a> to a Unix system. No one had any knowledge of that "alien" platform, so I became the expert to be. It was not entirely voluntary: I either made it work or I was fired. <br /><br />Needless to say I spend lots of time behind the terminal, but it just wasn't enough. Working behind a $100,000 machine on a root account while barely knowing what you were doing was kind of intimidating. I was simply too reluctant to perform the necessary experiments.<br /><br />In order to get more time and a less intimidating environment I started looking for alternatives, but I quickly found out there were few options. There were some MS-DOS based products that allowed me to write shell scripts, but that just wasn't the real deal. <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix'>Xenix</a> and <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_UNIX'>SCO</a> were too expensive. And then I found out about <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29'>Coherent</a>.<br /><br />Coherent is a full fledged Unix that runs on a simple 386 with a few megabytes of memory - incredible, but true. The kernel is just a few hundred KB, so it boots in an instant. It lived happy together with MS-DOS in its own 40 MB partition. But the best thing was its price: only $100. Needless to say I spend a lot of hours with that little beast, porting my C programs and <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP'>UUCP</a>ing with that "monster" machine back at work.<br /><br />But every machine comes to a grinding halt at some moment in time. Getting a new PC wasn't a problem, but when I tried to reinstall Coherent I found that it didn't support my new <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA'>IDE drive</a>. Too bad, but since I had become a proficient Unix system admin I really didn't need it anymore.<br /><br />Still, with every new release of <a href='http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page'>QEMU</a> or <a href='http://www.vmware.com/'>VMware</a> I tried to reinstall it - with little result. That is, until QEMU 0.14 was released. After the arduous task of installing Coherent it bombed out just before the final reboot. But the Dutch don't throw away things that easily. I didn't delete the image, instead I simply waited for the next iteration of QEMU.<br /><br />When I started it, it seemed it hang right away, but the QEMU monitor told another story. It was still alive. It was reading the disk, but <i>very, very slowly</i>.<br /><br />Hours later the login prompt appeared and I logged in. The whole thing worked, but it was very sluggish. After having worked with it for a little while it became a bit more responsive. It didn't take me too long to figure out it was the IDE emulation that was slowing it down, reading about 1K a second. But once a file was in cache there were hardly any performance issues. <br /><br />However, when starting up Coherent performed an '<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsck'>fsck</a>', which made booting a bit tiresome - I assure you that reading 7 megs at 1 KB/s is no fun. The easiest thing was to remove the 'fsck' check, which was easy enough. A quick edit of 'brc' was sufficient. Now I could login after Coherent had read only 150 KB, which was a significant improvement.<br /><br />But I still wasn't happy. Every time I rebooted I had an empty cache. There had to be another way. Yes, there was, but for that I had to turn to QEMU. QEMU allows you to make a snapshot of the whole virtual machine - memory, CPU, the whole shebang. That not only allowed me to "boot" instantly, but also with the disk cache intact. Ok, now we're talking!<br /><br /><object style="height: 300px; width: 430px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6M0yp1qQ7bs?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6M0yp1qQ7bs?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br />Since the standard Coherent C compiler only supports <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%26R_C#KRC'>K&R C</a>, almost all my C programs have a "-DARCHAIC" switch, which enables K&R prototypes. Even after 15 years I still maintain them, so porting my <a href='http://freecode.com/projects/4th'>4tH compiler</a> shouldn't be very difficult. It wasn't. In these 15 years after more than doubling the code base I had only made about 10 syntax errors, which were quickly fixed.<br /><br />But still there was a problem. Sure, I could use a raw floppy image to exchange files between the host and the VM, but since you can't make a snaphot of a raw floppy I had to reboot the VM after each and every transfer, which kind of defeated the sense of making snapshots.<br /><br />The solution was to startup the VM with a QCOW2 floppy, which served no other purpose than to define a floppy device in the VM. You can not easily mount a QCOW2 image and so it is consequently not very well suited for file transfer. <br /><br />Once the VM is up and running you can exchange this virtual floppy for a raw version by switching to the QEMU monitor and issuing:<blockquote>change floppy0 fat16.img</blockquote>When you want to take a snapshot you simply return to the dummy floppy by issuing:<blockquote>change floppy0 dummy.dsk</blockquote>And subsequently save the snapshot by issuing:<blockquote>savevm test0</blockquote>After that I was ready to rock 'n roll. It took me about an hour or so to port my compiler and transfer the executables back to the host. Furthermore, I installed another more modern kernel, applied some Y2K patches and customized my Coherent 4.2 installation.<br /><br />In the next part of this series I will describe this in more detail and - even better - give you the opportunity to try it for yourself. All perfectly legal, that is..!The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-32995990454498698782012-02-01T22:53:00.023+01:002012-05-14T08:41:55.457+02:00Venn diagrams: the intersection of morons and judgesFew people know it, but the Internet as we know it, has its roots in military technology. It's predecessor was called ARPANET, which was funded by the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA'>Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency</a> of the United States Department of Defense. Some of its <a href='http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/internet-51/history-internet/brief-history-internet'>design objectives</a> were:<br /><ul><li>Providing for host-to-host "pipelining" so that multiple packets could be rerouted from source to destination at the discretion of the participating hosts, if the intermediate networks allowed it.</li><li>Gateway functions to allow it to forward packets appropriately. This included interpreting IP headers for routing, handling interfaces, breaking packets into smaller pieces if necessary, etc.</li><li>Each distinct network would have to stand on its own and no internal changes could be required to any such network to connect it to the Internet.</li><li>Communications would be on a best effort basis. If a packet didn't make it to the final destination, it would shortly be retransmitted from the source.</li><li>There would be no global control at the operations level.</li></ul>During the Gulf war the US army wondered why it was so difficult to take out the Iraqi network. What were these guys using? Later they found it were just off the shelf hardware and software components, stuff any ordinary consumer could get his hands on.<br /><br />A few years later politicians thought it was a good idea to unleash this military grade technology onto the world, just like they thought it was a good idea to introduce the Euro. In both cases, without thinking about the consequences. The impact of a decentralized, open architecture has become clear now - and they don't like it. And worse, they are unable to keep up.<br /><br />Yes, Pandora's box is wide open and they are struggling to contain the monster. But they try and manage to make themselves ridiculous and less credible with every step of the way. You can't complain about states censoring the Internet - for different reasons, agreed - and proposing similar legislation at the same time. In the US you have SOPA, PIPA and ACTA and in the Netherlands we have judges like mr. P.H. Blok, mr. R. Kalden and mr. M.P.M. Loos.<br /><br />They decided not only that IP addresses 194.71.107.15, 194.71.107.18 and 194.71.107.19 had be blocked by ISP's, but also gave BREIN (the Dutch equivalent of the MPAA) the <i>authority to add any IP address they want</i> to that list, which means that in principle they can take out any website at will without ever having to go to court again. Needless to say that these judges not only proved they are completely clueless about the nature of the Internet, but they also violated every rule in the book.<br /><br />Imagine there was a bookstore selling counterfeit books, would those same judges give a plaintiff the authority to simply close up any bookstore he wants? Of course not! As a matter of fact, they gave BREIN the possibility to <i>change</i> the verdict of the court. Which - by the way - is in conflict with <a href='http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php/internet-trials/720-sabam-v-scarlet-court-rules-that-isps-cant-be-asked-to-filter'>European jurisdiction</a>. Speaking of Europe, Neelie Kroes, the grand lady who got Microsoft on its knees, commented: "Speeding is illegal too: but you don't put speedbumps on the motorway".<br /><br />That the court came to this decision was no big surprise. One of the judges, P.H. Blok, is also <a href='http://www.kenniscard.nl/cl3/application-context/SOO/index.jsp?gc=WKNL-KL-PNP-SOO-GC-PRINT&sc=WKNL-KL-PNP-SOO-PRINT&productId=WKNL-KL-PCK-SOO-10125706&gc_print=WKNL-KL-PNP-SOO-GC-PRODUCTINFO&sc_print=WKNL-KL-PNP-SOO-PRODUCTINFORMATION-DISPLAY&fctActionType=SAVE'>employed</a> (for a fee) by <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolters_Kluwer'>Wolters Kluwer</a>, one of the largest publishing companies in the world. Why he was wasn't <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitution_%28law%29'>substituted</a> by another judge is anybodies guess. If this isn't a conflict of interest, what is?<br /><br />But we cloggies don't take such violation of our rights laying down. In the days that followed, tutorials popped up on how to <a href='http://www.ikwilthepiratebay.nl/'>install TOR and VPN networks</a> or <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/01/surf-naar-de-pirate-bay-in-5-minuten.html'>use proxies and anonymizers</a>. <a href='http://www.depiratebay.nl/'>Mirrors</a> were created, <a href='http://all4xs.net/'>proxies</a> installed, by the time the "offical" site went on black there had never been <a href='http://www.bright.nl/zo-omzeil-je-de-pirate-bay-blokkade'>so many ways</a> to reach the Pirate Bay.<br /><br />Tim Kuik, spokesman of BREIN, <a href='http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/tech/2012/02/ziggo_blokkeert_geen_pirate_ba.html'>commented</a>: "Smart hackers will always find ways to circumvent measures like this." So according to Tim Kuik, if you're able to <a href='http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://thepiratebay.org'>click this link</a>, you're an accomplished hacker.<br /><br /><object style="height: 300px; width: 430px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kcxQP7NZ7Qo?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kcxQP7NZ7Qo?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br />What were these guys thinking? Either they knew that their measures were ineffective and consequently merely symbolic or they were completely ignorant of what the Internet is and how its community acts on threats. Either way, it is unworthy of a judge who considers himself to be an <a href='http://www.bol.com/nl/c/nederlandse-boeken/p-h-blok/1931729/index.html'>expert on the field of IT and law</a>.<br /><br />So what's next? Outlaw links to proxies and anonymizers? Outlaw access to proxies and anonymizers? Outlaw sites who offer proxies, anonymizers, TOR or VPN? Outlaw technologies like proxies, anonymizers, TOR and VPN? Outlaw <i>writing</i> about proxies, anonymizers, TOR and VPN? Maybe I should emigrate to North-Korea or China. As long as you leave politics alone, you can at least <i>blog</i> about technology!<br /><br />Of course it doesn't stop there. The weakest link in the current torrent architecture are the centralized torrent repositories. However, other technologies will emerge that eradicate this flaw as well and become completely decentralized. All that is left then is deep packet inspection, a technology that ironically has recently been banned by that same juridical system.<br /><br />End of story.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> One of the blocked IP addresses: <a href='http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://194.71.107.18/'>a list of computers</a>. The other one: the word "<a href='http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://194.71.107.19/'>Yeah</a>". This proves how little the verdict has to do with the actual content of a site. There is nothing <i>illegal</i> down there. It has just been taken down because they are in the IP range of the Pirate Bay. And yes, you XS4ALL and Ziggo subscribers can click too..<br /><br /><object style="height: 300px; width: 430px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZqHhRm0Nrpc?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZqHhRm0Nrpc?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br />
<b>Update:</b> This almost forces me to change the title of this post: it turns out that we're dealing here with blatant corruption. Read <a href='http://falkvinge.net/2012/05/12/dutch-judge-who-ordered-pirate-bay-links-censored-found-to-be-corrupt/'>this</a> and <a href='http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/2010/06/rechter_in_zaak_ftd_vriendje_v.html'>this</a> (Dutch).<br /><br />
<b>Update:</b> I wondered several times why the lawyers of the ISP's didn't try to substitute the judges. Well, as a matter of fact, <i>they did</i>! But they were turned down, because "there just aren't enough judges". <a href='http://tweakers.net/nieuws/81238/pirate-bay-zaak-brein-tegen-providers-krijgt-geen-andere-rechter.html'>Go figure..</a> (Dutch).The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-4071466222711228482012-01-20T08:48:00.005+01:002012-01-21T12:36:50.008+01:00Fight SOPA/PIPA, change your licenseAll over the free world, government laws and court decisions are limiting our access to free Internet. Not that these measures are very useful, most of us hackers are able to circumvent them within minutes. But in essence, these counter measures are simply work-arounds - they do <i>not</i> eliminate the root cause.<br /><br />The root cause are the big media moguls who successfully lobby our governments and judges to adopt unconstitutional new laws and regulations. Consequently, they are by definition an anti-democratic force. No, it's not about the artists (as a matter of fact, most of them can be considered victims of this industry), it's not about IP (they violate IP laws themselves on a daily basis - just count the lawsuits), it's just about <b>MONEY</b>. Think about it: these industries are obviously willing to trade in our most fundamental civil rights just for a little extra cash. No, they're not the kind of people only a mother can love - they already <i>sold</i> their mothers.<br /><br />Our politicians are no better. Instead of defying the pressure of a dying industry they have chosen to simply sell out their voters. Often without even having any idea which consequences their decisions may have on their citizens, their own information industry or even the very reputation of the nations they should represent. Ignorance may be a bliss, but not in this case.<br /><br />So far the community has responded in a variety of ways:<ul><li>Shutting down their own websites in protest;</li><li>Petitioning;</li><li>Attacking government and industry websites;</li><li>Educating users on how to circumvent blocks;</li><li>Developing new ways to make it even more difficult to block free Internet access.</li></ul>However, there is one card we haven't played yet. The FOSS community has achieved complete independence from proprietary software. I predict the music and movie industry will follow in the next few decades. They won't disappear, but they will have to compete and one day we will win.<br /><br />In the meantime we will have to ensure that we will continue to have free and unlimited access to the Internet, our information highway. It is no secret that governments and even the music and entertainment industry itself have benefited from everything the FOSS community has produced. And we can stop that.<br /><br />GPLv3 was created to defeat any attempts to make free software less free. A new license may prevent governments and the industry to make the Internet less free. Simply don't allow them to use our software anymore. Change the license.<br /><br />I know that it is one of the pillars of Free Software - anyone may use it, no restrictions. But as I said, I don't consider it a permanent measure. Just until every attempt to restrict the Internet has ceased permanently. Just until the right to free access to the Internet is part of every international treaty and constitution.<br /><br />I don't know about you, but I just don't feel comfortable someone who denies me to exercise one of my most basic rights is happily using my software..The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-42990664185281055522012-01-12T18:45:00.005+01:002012-05-24T18:48:20.476+02:00Surf naar de Pirate Bay in 5 minutenVoor degenen, die geen zin hebben om een VPN of TOR in te richten en na het effectief worden van <a href='http://nos.nl/artikel/329820-ziggo-en-xs4all-moeten-the-pirate-bay-blokkeren.html'>de blokkade van Ziggo en XS4ALL</a> toch naar de Pirate Bay willen surfen zijn er een paar eenvoudige oplossingen - zelfs zonder iets te installeren.<br /><br />De eenvoudigste manier is om gebruik te maken van een zogenaamde "Anonymizer". Dat is een computer, die vanuit Nederland vrij te benaderen is en voor jou contact maakt met de Pirate Bay of welke andere computer dan ook. Een aardige lijst van gratis anonymizers is <a href='http://www.freeproxy.ru/en/free_proxy/cgi-proxy.htm'>hier</a> te vinden. Tegenwoordig zijn er trouwens een <a href='http://about.piratereverse.info/proxy/list.html'>groot aantal gespecialiseerde proxies</a>, zoals <a href='https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/'>deze</a>. Het gebruiken ervan is doorgaans erg eenvoudig: tik de URL in en de computer verbindt je door. Een klein voorbeeldje is <a href='http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://thepiratebay.org'>hier</a> te vinden. Voila!<br /><br />Een meer permanente oplossing is beschikbaar voor gebruikers van Firefox. De "Stealthy" <a href='https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stealthy/'>add-on</a> tovert een <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk'>F-117</a> naast de taakbalk, die bij het opstarten rood is. Klik 'm aan en hij wordt groen. Je kunt dan gewoon weer naar de Pirate Bay surfen. Lukt het eerst even niet, klik dan op het pijltje-naar-beneden naast de F-117 en klik op "Configure". Klik dan het vinkje "Something went wrong?" aan en druk op "Ok". Dat zou het een en ander op moeten lossen.<br /><br />
De meest briljante methode is toch wel gebruik maken van je bloedeigen <tt>/etc/hosts</tt> file (dat op Windows overigens <tt>c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts</tt> heet). Voeg daar de volgende regels aan toe:<blockquote>178.73.210.219 thepiratebay.se<br />
178.73.210.219 www.thepiratebay.se<br />
178.73.210.219 thepiratebay.org<br />
178.73.210.219 www.thepiratebay.org</blockquote>Ook deze truuk werkt met een proxy uiteraard, maar je merkt er gewoon niks meer van. Tenslotte kun je ook gewoon <a href='http://194.71.107.80/'><tt>http://194.71.107.80</tt></a> intikken, maar waarschijnlijk is die URL alweer geblokkeerd als je dit leest.<br/><br/>
Waarom ik dit met u deel? Omdat het zoveelste een bewijs is van de debiliteit van zowel de klagers (de media concerns) en vooral ook de Nederlandse rechterlijke macht. "Content" is allang niet meer gebonden aan het medium, waarop het opgeslagen is en ondanks het feit, dat deze ontwikkeling al twintig jaar gaande is, is de industrie er nog steeds niet in geslaagd om een business model te vinden, dat hierbij aansluit.<br /><br />Nee, nog steeds klampt ze zich krampachtig vast aan een paradigma, dat de facto allang achterhaald is. Een industrie die zo dom is, verdient het gewoon ten onder te gaan. Ter vergelijking: voerden bioscopen in de jaren '50 en '60 processen tegen TV maatschappijen? Laten oliemaatschappijen electrische auto's verbieden?<br /><br />Naief is dat de rechtbanken van Nederland zich voor het karretje van deze concerns laten spannen en maatregelen eisen, die technisch gezien neerkomen op het slaan van spijkers in een wegdek. Weliswaar zullen er een paar mensen met een lekke band eindigen, maar na verloop van tijd rijdt iedereen er omheen.<br /><br />Nog triester is, dat dat de rechter aangeeft dat er nog meer spijkers in het wegdek geslagen mogen worden als "dat nodig is". Trekken we deze uitspraak in "extremio ad absurdum" verder dan eindigen we met een weg, die zo vol spijkers zit, dat zij niet meer de functie van weg kan vervullen.<br /><br />Daarom vertel ik dit u.<br /><br />
<b>Update:</b> Het linken naar deze pagina <a href='https://depiratenpartij.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/brein-wint-democratie-verliest/'>is illegaal geworden</a> in Nederland. Overigens ook de links naar het "Tor" netwerk en zelfs naar de Opera webbrowser.<br /><br />
<b>Update:</b> Een paar nieuwe methoden toegevoegd. We blijven scherp!The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-30554790153649253222011-04-16T14:51:00.054+02:002012-03-04T15:27:09.860+01:00The biggest PR clanger in the history of the WWF<blockquote><i>We will, wherever possible, seek dialogue and avoid confrontation.</i><br><i>We will record and respond to criticisms we receive, in order to learn from, and avoid repeating mistakes.</i><br><br>From: WWF <a href='http://wwf.panda.org/who_we_are/organization/ethics/'>Code of Ethics</a></blockquote><br />In the past, the WWF has had its fair share of controversies. Condoning and even <i>promoting</i> <a href='http://www.wickedwildlifefund.com/test.html'>animal testing</a> and <a href='http://www.wickedwildlifefund.com/abuse.html'>hunting</a> (the former chairman of the WWF, the late <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Bernhard_of_Lippe-Biesterfeld#Project_Lock'>Prince Bernard of the Netherlands</a>, was known to take a shot every once in a while himself), interfering in the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Fund_for_Nature#Cambodia_controversy'>internal affairs of sovereign states</a>, deporting <a href='http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no7/76-78.html'>indigenous peoples</a>, <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Club'>neo-colonialism</a>, collaborating with <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Fund_for_Nature#Work_with_business'>large companies</a> like <a href='http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/coca_cola_and_w.php'>Coca Cola</a>, <a href='http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/07/02/241557/WWF-turns-to-Microsoft-to-cut-costs-and-carbon.htm'>Microsoft</a>, <a href='http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?12035-WWF-supports-animal-testing-and-hunting'>Proctor & Gamble</a>, <a href='http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/emea/presscentre/'>Hewlett-Packard</a> and <a href='http://www.wnf.nl/nl/home/bedrijven/strategische_partners/eneco/'>Eneco</a> in order to - you won't believe it - "protect the environment", <a href='http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/10/world-wildlife/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+wired%252Findex+%2528Wired%253A+Index+3+%2528Top+Stories+2%2529%2529'>not being so green</a> all of a sudden when it comes to <a href='http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/the-money-trail/6628-wwf-hopes-to-find-60-billion-growing-on-trees'>raising cash</a>, <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Fund_for_Nature#Round_Table_on_Responsible_Soy_.28RTRS.29'>supporting genetically modified crops</a>, <a href='http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7870359/Climategate-Amazongate-when-will-the-truth-be-told.html'>manipulating scientific research</a>, and finally: making <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/viral-marketing-truth-behind-wwf-format.html'>not very tasteful adds</a>.<br /><br />With a list of controversies like that you start to wonder how they survived. Well, very easy: by having a very good PR department. Whenever a controversy pops up WWF acts like a turtle. It minimizes communication as much as possible and hopes the whole thing blows over. It tries to silence, marginalize or intimidate its critics, but in such a clever way that it doesn't make too many waves. <a href='http://www.printweek.com/news/1047152/WWF-Germanys-saveaswwf-PDF-anti-printing-campaign-exposes-internal-rifts/'>Disputes between its chapters</a> are <a href='http://getsatisfaction.com/wwf/topics/ecosia_associated_with_wff'>kept indoors</a> <a href='http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/debate-2-0-wwfs-new-unprintable-file-format/'>as much as possible</a>. Bluntly lying - if required - is an accepted practice.<br /><br />Being <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-wildlife-fund-wwf-format-cracked.html'>one of the opponents</a> in their latest controversy - the infamous <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWF_%28file_format%29'>WWF format</a> - I experienced these tactics first hand. This is my story.<br /><br />When the "<a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/'>Save as WWF</a>" campaign was launched, WWF Germany created a <a href='http://facebook.com/saveaswwf'>Facebook page</a>. I guess they never expected that it would cause so much controversy, because critics like me could vent their objections freely and add all the links and pictures we wanted.<br /><br />The first indication that something fishy was going on came on December 21st when Jon Fenell reported that some contributions were missing. WWF denied everything, saying that were not censoring the site. They had just changed the settings.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimakJI9zQGahR2G93zz3_225yJKYpcbWI8UCV65r-gKOMKGHeHG0j0fg2gJZWte3es4H3qoaRq3w1XWi1jF76FtX5MJZy2t2ccRFC1mH_n1GYB9C8NKLYO23aoMDiYdt2TzIYMgZJAJMRj/s1600/20101221WWFCensor.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 273px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimakJI9zQGahR2G93zz3_225yJKYpcbWI8UCV65r-gKOMKGHeHG0j0fg2gJZWte3es4H3qoaRq3w1XWi1jF76FtX5MJZy2t2ccRFC1mH_n1GYB9C8NKLYO23aoMDiYdt2TzIYMgZJAJMRj/s320/20101221WWFCensor.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596163963571374194" /></a><br /><br />In short, <i>only</i> the contributions of "Save As WWF" were shown by default, which meant that each time you had clicked a link, you would have to reset it again. It made browsing, let's say, a little uncomfortable. WWF pulled off that trick <i>several times</i>, changing layout and settings with some <i>bizarre</i> defaults, although - admittedly - Facebook made changes to the page in the meanwhile as well. The first thing going (of course) was the "links" section.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaSUfJBnnjdBlfKJfSwUcVPtAQMKAvRZqzutqY4Col_YqMMUMNxVoRgqp23GArdOXki0ytI6gcWp2P7zajWLwYnPcF3cMM6rR76Jy87lYXlojmsUaLQKIyN1_XovMxSG1QW-4NkmbG12j-/s1600/20101216WWFLinuxComplex.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 74px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaSUfJBnnjdBlfKJfSwUcVPtAQMKAvRZqzutqY4Col_YqMMUMNxVoRgqp23GArdOXki0ytI6gcWp2P7zajWLwYnPcF3cMM6rR76Jy87lYXlojmsUaLQKIyN1_XovMxSG1QW-4NkmbG12j-/s320/20101216WWFLinuxComplex.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596164491476846482" /></a><br /><br />In the first week of January I released the <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a>, which the WWF initially seemed to applaud. Maybe later they realized that this terribly simple piece of software allowed conversion <i>both ways</i> or maybe it was because they had tried to make their audience believe that supporting Linux was incredibly complex, I don't know. Anyway, after that everything changed.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF80HywBpP27w7jUpaVkJZ8YmjccxQrHp9J6zdCEy1sjSNd1d2KTaUwI1GI8ZOCiH0rmK6iV8p-w51Aauvx6DgsEF0_LuK9vAU4c_ny4O5fPnFZRjULS5nbNy4JWo4hBBzyPqsnX5FPo4B/s1600/20110105WWFHappyWithToolkit.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 116px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF80HywBpP27w7jUpaVkJZ8YmjccxQrHp9J6zdCEy1sjSNd1d2KTaUwI1GI8ZOCiH0rmK6iV8p-w51Aauvx6DgsEF0_LuK9vAU4c_ny4O5fPnFZRjULS5nbNy4JWo4hBBzyPqsnX5FPo4B/s320/20110105WWFHappyWithToolkit.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596164792067624706" /></a><br /><br />Sabine Schikorra-Känder tried to convince me that is was all about cuddly panda bears - and who is against that. Of course, I didn't buy that and repeated my arguments again. Note that my objective was to get the WWF around the table and discuss their actions. Despite the <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-wwf-has-to-learn-about-foss.html'>many letters and invitations</a> from various organizations and individuals that never happened, but at that moment I was still optimistic. Sabine Schikorra-Känder remained polite, which could not be said of Romy Mlinzk. She called me a troll and despite my efforts to discuss the issue at hand, she persisted in her behavior.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJh5K5gDr_ghQzKw_PiB5TfIv-VZhlT8gin6p8bY-yYgTE0MGPhbQTZeZAhbFVQW6ab7A2O8nternhK1Uei0a2_h2RJn8z371iJNCy-hr3tMdHCj64qJuREd7dSHSJBIsNiwkkGNdTX0E/s1600/20110107WWFTroll.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 162px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJh5K5gDr_ghQzKw_PiB5TfIv-VZhlT8gin6p8bY-yYgTE0MGPhbQTZeZAhbFVQW6ab7A2O8nternhK1Uei0a2_h2RJn8z371iJNCy-hr3tMdHCj64qJuREd7dSHSJBIsNiwkkGNdTX0E/s320/20110107WWFTroll.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596165007783442146" /></a><br /><br />So I set out to find who Romy Mlinzk was. After working my way through many <a href='http://posterous.com/people/5ALw9wm0HIFr'>uninteresting personal pages</a> with many flagrant spelling errors, I found out that she was in fact a professional. Not a very good one though, because she should know as a self-proclaimed "social media expert" that it is not wise to leave so many intimate personal details lingering in cyberspace. But I also found <a href='http://www.xing.com/profile/Romy_Mlinzk'>the smoking gun</a>: at the time she was working for Dederichs Reinecke & Partner, the company that handles the social media for "Save as WWF". If that isn't enough evidence for you, here is <a href='http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kYbgjYOnTmkJ:www.formspring.me/snoopsmaus%3F_escaped_fragment_%3Dstart%3D157080026959868718+Volont%C3%A4rin+Social+Media+Dederichs+Reinecke+saveaswwf&cd=1&hl=nl&ct=clnk&gl=nl&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.nl'>a message she left</a> <i>admitting</i> she was <i>directly</i> involved with the "Save as WWF" campaign.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrqeaI_H0Zq9wW_oQhcir2FPrmEmZvhJa-sORXt7iow2MkN1Qrdsko1eRROq5z0bp4x6SOcxxIFppGYKfXiEJjU6DV1n1nivsCHZgvlwGOlNOwZCkVv13qezV5BOHw-CANsgYO80MpITK/s1600/WorkingForWWF.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 197px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrqeaI_H0Zq9wW_oQhcir2FPrmEmZvhJa-sORXt7iow2MkN1Qrdsko1eRROq5z0bp4x6SOcxxIFppGYKfXiEJjU6DV1n1nivsCHZgvlwGOlNOwZCkVv13qezV5BOHw-CANsgYO80MpITK/s320/WorkingForWWF.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596165499851213778" /></a><br /><br />There even is a presentation of her on the internet, where she describes her experiences with this campaign in detail and has the nerve to call me her "favorite troll" - obviously miss Mlinzk has neither a clue of what the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29'>definition</a> of a <a href='http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_troll%3F'>troll</a> is nor of what "social media" (her so-called "expertise") are all about: interaction. Even with those who don't agree with you.<br /><br /><div class="prezi-player"><style type="text/css" media="screen">.prezi-player { width: 430px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }</style><object id="prezi_tltoaifm1fhu" name="prezi_tltoaifm1fhu" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=tltoaifm1fhu&lock_to_path=0&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0"/><embed id="preziEmbed_tltoaifm1fhu" name="preziEmbed_tltoaifm1fhu" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="430" height="300" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=tltoaifm1fhu&lock_to_path=0&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0"></embed></object><div class="prezi-player-links"><p><a title="non-profit campaign "Save as WWF" as a Social Media case; reaching blogs; surviving trolls" href="http://prezi.com/tltoaifm1fhu/social-media-case-save-as-wwf/">Social Media Case "Save as WWF"</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com">Prezi</a></p></div></div>As if insulting me wasn't enough, "Save as WWF" threatened me the very same day to kick me off their Facebook page. Things were getting ugly. In the final weeks of January I was cranking out new releases of the .wwf toolkit by the minute, getting lots of feedback of obviously satisfied users. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9jVS1R5tyi29aKIMPI1n7jKjcsLMp_jKOqPzajSQbaKpv6TrWep3oyEqynWvVjuQ5Xe91QNnRn-Ud99EfQ-xHISXafojtXZS7qSiiGiSojFjv3oxGt__EEcFi3DATMk5dkB0PyyG8aDt/s1600/20110107KickedWWF.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 203px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9jVS1R5tyi29aKIMPI1n7jKjcsLMp_jKOqPzajSQbaKpv6TrWep3oyEqynWvVjuQ5Xe91QNnRn-Ud99EfQ-xHISXafojtXZS7qSiiGiSojFjv3oxGt__EEcFi3DATMk5dkB0PyyG8aDt/s320/20110107KickedWWF.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596165713969765346" /></a><br /><br />In the meanwhile, the paper industry had launched their own "<a href='http://www.fopap.org/'>green initiative</a>" which was a <a href='http://www.fopap.org/will_wwf_new_file_save_a_tree.html'>direct response</a> to the "Save as WWF" campaign. <a href='http://www.wwf.it/client/render.aspx?content=0&root=6488'>WWF Italy</a> started a collaboration with forest managers to "develop awareness on the issues of sustainable management of forest resources" and "<i>promote (..) the purchase of forest products</i>"!<br /><br />I was quietly hacking .wwf tools to make them work under Windows as one of my users had requested. Since "Save as WWF" had initially shown so much enthusiasm for my initiative, I decided to post several links and pictures at their site - just to see that they disappeared almost instantly! Wow.. I thought they didn't censor or was I being a bit too naive?<br /><br />So I decided to take my business elsewhere and <a href='http://getsatisfaction.com/wwf/topics/unpalletable_wwf_format'>complain at a site</a> which another user accurately described as "the place where WWF complaints go to die". This is where the WWF channels all criticism. You are kindly treated by a spin doctor who gives you a lot of credit for your remarks, let's you blow off some steam and that's it. I'd rather be talking to <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA'>ELIZA</a>, she's a much better listener. To give you some idea of how this works, here is a little sample:<blockquote>Thanks for the heads up on this. We're in the process of correcting it to give credit where credit is definitely due. Apologies for the oversight.<br /><br />I see you have also posted your comments there. Many thanks for doing that. It is good to have your point of view in there.<br /><br />But it is great that you air these opinions and get the opposite point of view across. We link to Get Satisfaction from every page on our site - so people can find this string and weigh up the arguments for themselves.<br /><br />Thanks for giving your input. I know it may seem easy to say, but truly: it is valued and it is heard.</blockquote><br />I had also pointed out on Facebook that most users <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-wwf-has-to-learn-about-foss.html'>didn't like the WWF drivers</a>, so "Save as WWF" decided to spike the results by asking their friends to push "the green thumb" button, a method well known by the readers of the Dutch "<a href='http://www.geenstijl.nl/'>Geen stijl</a>" blog, who are known to sabotage just about <a href='http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/2010/11/rob_stenders_in_het_glazen_hui.html'>every single poll</a> in the Netherlands - <a href='http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/2010/12/toll_ein_poll_stem_op_iris.html'>and abroad</a> if they get the chance. Not something you would expect of the respectable WWF, wouldn't you?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeeT5vU5FgrzeDwAa1XZ3e24J5qvaVd6qS64OwFqFzVZYk21QsFmEFbeEQC_2Ty-mo94pvdEYN2UgiL3T0O1GtqUkM5WbIW6ApUwvLOZNehRrAw16D-WPcjNukUCBP6mmy0EFY39pJDHt/s1600/20110302RiggedVoteSAW.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeeT5vU5FgrzeDwAa1XZ3e24J5qvaVd6qS64OwFqFzVZYk21QsFmEFbeEQC_2Ty-mo94pvdEYN2UgiL3T0O1GtqUkM5WbIW6ApUwvLOZNehRrAw16D-WPcjNukUCBP6mmy0EFY39pJDHt/s320/20110302RiggedVoteSAW.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596166007439588562" /></a><br /><br />Until recently, most of the criticism came from <a href='http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-12/03/wwf-file-format'>information technology blogs</a> and the paper industry. But even <a href='http://grafikide.com/blog/controversy-of-the-new-green-file-format-wwf/'>advertising agencies</a> have started to pick up the "Save as WWF" debacle. Also the <a href='http://blogs.forbes.com/markgibbs/2011/03/22/green-only-cause-its-not-ripe/'>mainstream media</a> are slicing and dicing the initiative, saying the people behind it "have an arrogance that doesn’t help their cause" and that "whole concept of unprintable files is ridiculous" in itself.<br /><br />The latest scam of "Save as WWF" was exposed by Marco Fioretti who showed that WWF Germany is still frantically trying to save face by <a href='http://stop.zona-m.net/2011/03/what-are-the-original-wwf-tips-on-paper-efficiency/'>slightly modifying publications</a> of WWF International. Still, the influx of "friends" at their Facebook page has been <a href='http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/saveaswwf.com?ref=safesearch&client_ver=FF_28.0_6276&locale=en-US&premium=false&aff_id=0'>reduced to a trickle</a>. Although "Save as WWF" have promised to come out with a new version shortly - as they have numerous times - the question is: will anybody remember or even care enough to make it worth the effort? Or does it even make it <a href='http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/soft/4968165/'>through the virus scanner</a>?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ElQFR32VB5y4jPmCuyBHs8n1WcTPNMdGy_9xh5-M2fKD72Pc7TcxpN147iJKj0PZzP-0JMC_MICT2u2E9r5ZRY7u4YAbqgTlrF7AibdAa4TwJ1Aom3K5NuBvo0lutPgHrStohYLD8w-z/s1600/20110216WWFReleaseDates.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 249px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ElQFR32VB5y4jPmCuyBHs8n1WcTPNMdGy_9xh5-M2fKD72Pc7TcxpN147iJKj0PZzP-0JMC_MICT2u2E9r5ZRY7u4YAbqgTlrF7AibdAa4TwJ1Aom3K5NuBvo0lutPgHrStohYLD8w-z/s320/20110216WWFReleaseDates.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596316486691806786" /></a><br /><br />It seems that what has been called "the biggest PR clanger in the history of the WWF" is slowly coming to an end. Finally. Rest in peace.<br /><br />In the end, where was the FOSS all about, after over 12,000 Facebook friends and these "<i>hundreds of thousands</i>" of downloads? 394 documents. Yes, that's it: 394 documents. <a href='http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=64N&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&as_qdr=all&q=filetype%3Awwf&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=#hl=nl&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&as_qdr=all&q=filetype:wwf+-alt.pro-wrestling.wwf+-wiki&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=ec200a332407067d'>Count them</a>.<br /><br />And yeah, a handful of them are mine. Go figure..<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Even though the "Save as WWF" campaign was nominated <a href='http://2011.prreportawards.de/fileadmin/domains/prreportawards/2011/bilder-und-dokumente/downloads/Shortlist_PRR_Awards_2011.pdf'>twice</a> it don't win any of <a href='http://2011.prreportawards.de/#'>these awards</a>. I wonder why..<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Jung von Matt won the <a href='http://www.sazone.de/the-adc-grand-prix-2011-goes-to-save-as-wwf-save-a-tree/'>ADC Grand Prix 2011</a>, I'm not going to deny that - nor attempt to hide my astonishment. I don't know where these people live, it must be a different planet.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Still, the WWF <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck_for_Forest'>won't go all the way</a> to preserve forests:<blockquote>In its first year of existence, the organisation's website netted over $100,000 for rain forest protection through the sale of paid memberships. In their first six months of existence the group received seed funding from the government of Norway. They are the world's first eco-porn organization. However, the organisation's unorthodox methods have made it difficult to distribute the money it makes. The Norwegian chapter of the Rainforest Foundation Fund <b>as well as the WWF both in the Netherlands and in Norway have refused to accept donations from FFF</b>. As a result, F**k for Forest is working on a project to work directly with indigenous communities in Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.</blockquote><br />At least the members of this organization are doing it to each other: not to their donors or indigenous people. The link is environmentally safe: it points to Wikipedia.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Those who think I've simply thrown all the dirt I could find to the WWF, think again. Recently, the German WDR network <a href='http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=7495082'>released a documentary</a> which <a href='http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,770184,00.html%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D798%26prmd%3Divns&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&twu=1&u=http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,770184,00.html&usg=ALkJrhjJtnx-f-ZWmUcM_Eq3jsB2WhutAg'>proved</a> I didn't even have to search <i>that</i> long. It caused a major embarrassment to the WWF in Germany, causing it to lose many donors. Try to print yourself out of that one!<br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kp25_ujKviY?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kp25_ujKviY?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/slyScJrmLn8?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/slyScJrmLn8?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hT_CUILj3kQ?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hT_CUILj3kQ?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/i72f6YqgiuQ?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/i72f6YqgiuQ?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object><br /><br /><b>Update:</b> This comment was published <a href='http://www.swiss-miss.com/2011/02/save-as-wwf.html'>here</a>. It is allegedly written by someone working at Jung von Matt. Although I have been unable to confirm it, it gives a unique insight on how these marketing agencies think and operate:<blockquote><b>(Disclaimer: This is an idea which originated in an advertising agency from Germany and was later brought forward to the WWF. I work for that agency, but had nothing to do with the project.)</b><br /><br />WWF is available for Windows, but it's only prominently presented for OS/X on the website. Of course a roll-out covering all OS's would be great, but that's unfortunately not how advertising agencies work. While the idea is in it's core great for the planet, the motifs are mostly utilitarian. "Clever" ideas like this score high at award shows and push the agency up in the creative rankings. Therefore it's important for the agency to pump out projects like this onto the market, just developed enough to be regarded as a "real" product which can be entered into award shows. <br /><br />But upon detailed inspection these ideas are often still lacking in execution. In this case it was important to launch as quickly as possible and just having an Mac version (which was easiest to produce) was good enough. Oftentimes that's where development stops and when the awards are won the projects will no longer be cared for. In the case of .wwf the agency <i>had</i> to provide a Windows version just because people demanded it and the WWF probably said so. That's why the layout for the website hasn't changed to accompany prominent buttons for both Mac and Windows versions, but just received a measly text-link update.<br /><br />This of course is a pretty f**ked up way of seeing things and I totally disagree with it. I have always tried to put real meaning into the advertising I co-create, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. The big and established advertising agencies have an insanely hard time to part with their (long gone) successes of showing the message on to the consumer. They just don't get that the Internet is a completely new way for people to communicate and that consumers want to be talked to like intelligent people with a will of their own.<br /><br />But all is not bleak. There is a new generation of insanely talented and motivated people who see the need to change this old thinking really quickly, or risk a great fall.<br /><br />Anyways, that's the reason why the project feels as if it's not completely thought through and will probably not grow any bigger. At least not as long as someone else than the agency is in charge.</blockquote><br />Well.. That explains a lot! The WWF page, their Facebook page and the software themselves have <i>never</i> been updated after they collected their prizes - despite all their lofty promises. Again: as I predicted.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> LOL! I announced the <a href='http://freecode.com/projects/wwf-toolkit'>minor update</a> of the .wwf toolkit in the "Save as WWF" <a href='http://www.facebook.com/saveaswwf'>Facebook page</a>, which hadn't been updated for months. Next day, the "Discussions" tab was removed. Obviously, nobody needs support anymore. You're on your own!<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> It seems there are two winners here: the advertising industry and the <a href='http://www.widepr.com/press_release/31060/fopap_claim_moral_victory_over_wwf_and_its_unprintable_file_format.html'>printing industry</a>. Losers are the WWF, who really took a beating last year and the poor users who believed an organization that never seriously considered to support them. Net result: lots of frustration and some broken machines. Pity.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> A <a href='http://tierschutznews.ch/kunterbunt/kategorien/kunterbunt/861-wer-ist-der-wwf.html'>list of over 50 incidents</a> concerning WWF (German). When you're contemplating to give this rather murky organization another dime.. I wonder whether Doutzen Kroes is aware of that or whether she's just in it for the money.<br /><br /><object style="height: 300px; width: 430px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/x8I_Z5lVdg0?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/x8I_Z5lVdg0?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="430" height="300"></object>The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-51038224744717055012011-02-13T17:51:00.008+01:002011-02-13T19:48:34.105+01:00Using original WWF artwork on your Linux box<u>Disclaimer:</u> <b>This information is for educational purposes only. If you perform the procedure described here, you assume full responsibility for any and all consequences, including legal action from the copyright holder.</b><br /><br />Of course you can create original artwork for .wwf on your Linux box, but wouldn't it be nice if you can use the professional artwork <a href='http://www.jvm.com/'>Matt von Jung</a> created for this? But how do you obtain it? Very simple: use the OS/X package. First, download it. Then unzip it:<blockquote>unzip SAVE_AS_WWF_1.0.pkg.zip<br />cd SAVE_AS_WWF_1.0.pkg/Contents<br /></blockquote><br />The next step is to decompress the .pax archive:<blockquote>gzip -d Archive.pax.gz<br /></blockquote><br />This seems like a dead end, but it isn't. The .pax archive is simply a <tt>cpio</tt> file:<blockquote>cpio -i < Archive.pax<br />cd 'SAVE AS WWF.app/Contents/Resources'<br /></blockquote><br />We need the .icns files. That seems like a dead end as well, but not quite. We're almost ready. If you want to extract the icons on your own machine you have to install <tt>icns2png</tt>, which can be obtained <a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/icns/'>here</a>. Installing it is pretty straight forward:<blockquote>tar -xzvf libicns-0.7.1.tar.gz<br />cd libicns-0.7.1<br />./configure<br />make<br />su<br />make install</blockquote><br />It prefers you install <a href='http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams/jasper/'>Jasper</a> or <a href='http://www.openjpeg.org/'>OpenJPEG</a>, but <a href='http://lists4.opensuse.org/opensuse-bugs/2010-08/msg05360.html'>I didn't have much luck</a> with that. You don't need it either unless you want to extract the high resolution icons. After you've installed it, enter:<blockquote>icns2png -x wwf.icns<br />----------------------------------------------------<br />Reading icns family from wwf.icns...<br /> Saved 'is32' element to wwf_16x16x32.png.<br /> Saved 'il32' element to wwf_32x32x32.png.<br /> Saved 'it32' element to wwf_128x128x32.png.</blockquote><br />Done! You can also extract the icons <a href='http://iconverticons.com/'>online</a>. It depends on what you prefer, the result is the same.<br /><br />If you need still another format, use <a href='http://www.imagemagick.org'>ImageMagick</a> better known to some as <tt>convert</tt>. Now install the icons in the appropriate directory (that depends on your desktop environment) and you're done. Enjoy!The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-56064217822083178162011-02-07T12:52:00.049+01:002011-02-08T19:22:24.200+01:00How to reheat 30 year old spaghettiA long time ago, when I was still a student, I got my hands on a very fascinating book called "<a href='http://www.scribd.com/doc/29663948/The-Effects-of-Nuclear-Weapons-U-S-Atomic-Energy-Commission-June-1957'>The effects of nuclear weapons</a>" from the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Atomic_Energy_Commission'>Atomic Energy Commission</a>. It was filled with diagrams and tables and enabled you to calculate the effects of a nuclear attack. After five long hours, I got my first results. And it was 4 AM. I knew when I stayed on working and calculating, I was gonna lose a lot of sleep.<br /><br />However, it was 1981 and at my college we had a highly modern machine: a real <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11'>PDP-11</a> with a massive memory of 256 kB and two (floppy) disk drives. Those were the days of the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Double-Track_Decision'>NATO Double-Track Decision</a>, which <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollanditis'>large parts of the Dutch population opposed</a>. I decided this program was going to be my contribution to that discussion. I called it TEONW (The Effects Of Nuclear Weapons). It is full of cynic puns against the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Ronald_Reagan'>Reagan administration</a>.<br /><br />I spend nights digitizing the graphs in that book, and coding them in BASIC V10B-02. I had never heard of structured programming and to debug the program I needed a room as long as the listing. If the program said <tt>GOTO 5670</tt> I really crawled to line 5670! I never got all the bugs ironed out.<br /><br />After I had finished college I no longer had access to a computer, but I printed a listing which I entered line by line in the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum'>Sinclair ZX Spectrum</a>. I also added some assembly to mimic the green-on-black terminal of the PDP-11.<br /><br />When the Z80 Spectrum emulator of <a href='http://wwwfgu.anat.ox.ac.uk/~gerton/'>Gerton Lunter</a> came out, I took the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Disk_Interface'>Betadisk</a>, wrote BDDE (<a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/download.html'>BetaDisk Dump Extractor</a>) and transferred the program to a .Z80 file, <a href='http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008878'>which may still be found</a> on the Internet. Ten years had gone by.<br /><br />The .Z80 file was moved from MS-DOS to Linux. I extracted the code with <a href='http://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net/'>FUSE-utils</a> "listbasic" and made it run under "<a href='http://blassic.org/'>blassic</a>". By then twenty years had passed.<br /><br />In the meanwhile, I had been busy writing my <a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/'>4tH compiler</a>, which is a highly portable <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytecode'>bytecode</a> <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_%28programming_language%29'>Forth</a> compiler. A few years ago, I added floating point support. What had begun its life as a little toy was now powerful enough to run a program like TEONW. Thirty years later.<br /><br />TEONW is a relatively small program, just 13 kB source, but it is such an <i>awful</i> mess that I was barely able to understand and code the entry of the basic parameters: yield, altitude and population density. If I ever wanted to convert this program I needed some help. <i>Badly..</i><br /><br />TEONW consists of about 500 lines, each with its own line number. Since it is written in <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC#Unstructured_BASIC'>Minimal BASIC</a>, every <tt>IF</tt>-statement is followed by a <tt>GOTO</tt>. No <tt>ELSE</tt>, sorry. In order to expose the structure, I needed to get rid of all superfluous labels, i.e. the labels which were not jumped to by either a <tt>GOSUB</tt> or <tt>GOTO</tt>. For that I wrote a simple 4tH program, the "uBasic unlabeler" or <tt>ubulabel.4th</tt> for short. It parses the BASIC program, makes a list of all <tt>GOTO</tt> and <tt>GOSUB</tt> labels and then removes all unused labels. That reduced the number of labels to about 100.<br /><br />But I had still very little insight in the structure of the overall program. Comment was scarce and terse. Instead of making a flow diagram myself, I decided to let the computer do that for me. If you talk about generating diagrams, you talk about <a href='http://www.graphviz.org'>Graphviz</a>. This indispensable tool has saved my life more than once - and it would save it once again.<br /><br />Generating Graphviz code is trivial. I had written Graphviz converters before and I didn't doubt for a moment that I could pull off this one. 4tH excels in parsing text and I didn't even need a full parser here. Just <tt>REM</tt>, <tt>GOSUB</tt> and <tt>GOTO</tt>. Since 4tH also features a conversion program template, all I needed to do was to fill in the blanks. <tt>ub2dot.4th</tt> was born.<br /><br />It is basically a very simple 50-lines program. It keeps track of the line it is parsing and when it encounters a <tt>GOSUB</tt> or <tt>GOTO</tt> it generates a Graphviz line. Of course, if no <tt>GOSUB</tt> or <tt>GOTO</tt> is encountered, it simply executes the next line. That had to be taken into account as well. But this rule has an exception as well: if the last statement is a <tt>GOTO</tt> or <tt>RETURN</tt>, the next line will never be reached from that point.<br /><br />I generated the diagram from the .DOT source, which resulted in this diagram. The black lines are jumps, the red ones are subroutine calls and the blue ones represent normal program flow.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipS5Eux9oM6oBKjwwj2yP5jqzqILUUx61JmmQcJ-Egp3_elBO4sLXPiHEnGfXLYyY7WevwXUrUXBUSaqeQ7KeOFWa4Q7FTYzH-qIslHWc-am0Pt4hJZ5yFmz4qgn58lthf8Aprp-af-F1T/s1600/teonw.dot.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 203px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipS5Eux9oM6oBKjwwj2yP5jqzqILUUx61JmmQcJ-Egp3_elBO4sLXPiHEnGfXLYyY7WevwXUrUXBUSaqeQ7KeOFWa4Q7FTYzH-qIslHWc-am0Pt4hJZ5yFmz4qgn58lthf8Aprp-af-F1T/s320/teonw.dot.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570947735401911410" /></a><br /><br />That may not give you much insight at first glance, but when you look carefully, you see some patterns arise. E.g. the code to present the results of the calculation are at the bottom. You can clearly see the different sections for underground explosions and air blasts. At least it helped to chop up the code into manageable chunks.<br /><br />Since the underground explosions took the least effort, I decided to code that one first. At least it allowed me to set up a basic structure for the program and test it. But first I had a few design decisions to make. <br /><br />Since this was an all floating point program I decided to use the 4tH Preprocessor (<tt>pp4th</tt>). <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point'>Floating point</a> support is coded in high level 4tH, which is not supported by 4tH itself. This meant the code would be rather unreadable. The preprocessor however <i>does</i> offer special floating point facilities, like the entry of floating point numbers without tedious conversions.<br /><br />4tH offers <i>two</i> floating point libraries. One is rather bulky and fast with a high precision and its own floating point stack, the other is lean and slow and uses the standard data stack. The latter stores the numbers on the stack in standard form, i.e. <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significand'>mantissa</a> and <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponentiation'>exponent</a>, which is easy to read - if you know what you're looking at. Another added advantage is that it is easier to convert to the dedicated floating point stack version than the other way around.<br /><br />Forth is a language that is centered around a data stack. It is considered good style to use as few variables as possible. There are non-trivial Forth programs that use only one or two variables or even none at all! However, given the complexity of the task at hand, I decided to use the stack as little as possible and revert to the BASIC variables instead, 25 in all. I never regretted that decision.<br /><br />Note I had digitized a lot of graphs and these now popped up as clusters of jump instructions, e.g.:<blockquote>587 IF J2<=-5 THEN GO TO 2007<br />590 IF J2<=0 THEN GO TO 690<br />600 IF J2<=5 THEN GO TO 730<br />605 IF J2<=12.5 THEN GO TO 770<br />610 IF J2<=25 THEN GO TO 810<br />630 IF J2<=40 THEN GO TO 840<br />640 IF J2<=55 THEN GO TO 880<br />650 IF J2<=62 THEN GO TO 920<br />660 IF J2<=84 THEN GO TO 960</blockquote><br />These were restored to their original table form:<blockquote>create calc-under<br /> 620 , ' under>62 ,<br /> 550 , ' under>55 ,<br /> 400 , ' under>40 ,<br /> 250 , ' under>25 ,<br /> 125 , ' under>12.5 ,<br /> 50 , ' under>5 ,<br /> 0 , ' under>0 ,<br /> -50 , ' under>-5 ,<br /><br />:this calc-under does><br /> >r begin fdup r@ @c s>f f% 10e f/ f<=<br /> while r> cell+ cell+ >r<br /> repeat<br /> fdrop r> cell+ @c execute<br />;</blockquote><br />The second entry in the table is a pointer to function, in short: a jump table. The greatest challenge however, was to recreate the spaghetti program flow in structured programming, e.g. from this:<blockquote>1592 IF J2>=-5 THEN GO TO 1594<br />1593 GO TO 1596<br />1594 IF J2<=0 THEN GO TO 1980<br />1595 GO TO 1600<br />1596 IF -J5/(J1^.4)>200 THEN GO TO 1600<br />1597 IF M(1)>M(2) THEN GO TO 1980<br />1599 IF M(2)<200*(J1^(.4)) THEN GO TO 1980<br />1600 LET S5=INT ((((((M(2)/1000)*(M(2)/1000))*PI)-(S4/J3))*(J3*.75))+S4)</blockquote><br />To this:<blockquote> J2 f@ f% -5e f<<br />if<br /> height f@ fnegate yield f@ f% 0.4e f** f/ f% 200e f><br /> if<br /> S4 f@ density f@ fover fover f/<br /> 1 m f@ f% 1000e f/ fdup f* pi f*<br /> fswap f- fswap f% 0.75e f* f* f+ ftrunc S5 f!<br /> else<br /> 1 m f@ 0 m f@ fover f> >r <br /> yield f@ f% 0.4e f** f% 200e f* f< r> or<br /> if casualty-corrections then<br /> then<br />else <br /> J2 f@ f% 0e f><br /> if<br /> S4 f@ density f@ fover fover f/ <br /> 1 m f@ f% 1000e f/ fdup f* pi f*<br /> fswap f- fswap f% 0.75e f* f* f+ ftrunc S5 f!<br /> else<br /> casualty-corrections<br /> then<br />then</blockquote><br />I must admit, sometimes I was so desperate that I took refuse to some unconventional techniques in order to get an idea what for Petes sake I was trying to do - thirty years ago.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihRxdg7r3Jn0sDz5GEZ3c1_hYHP-GD_RSueO3ECMrHZ6NdgaGmVBLWt5otDDI5NnaSjGSvlPUjjs-RnUYxoaFFX63pIEwRv8YJOdHRvaGwNVFED-km0cvP3gAWPzgPP3xU2o7PGr6ZGP4E/s1600/finalword.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 131px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihRxdg7r3Jn0sDz5GEZ3c1_hYHP-GD_RSueO3ECMrHZ6NdgaGmVBLWt5otDDI5NnaSjGSvlPUjjs-RnUYxoaFFX63pIEwRv8YJOdHRvaGwNVFED-km0cvP3gAWPzgPP3xU2o7PGr6ZGP4E/s320/finalword.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570943077753479010" /></a><br /><br />When I first ran it, it failed obviously. The tedious task of debugging was about to begin. I quickly decided that I would need some special debugging aids in order to complete this task, so I wrote a short routine in both BASIC and Forth that allowed me to examine the variables at certain stages of execution:<blockquote>9000 PRINT "yield=";J1;" J2=";J2;" density=";J3;" J4=";J4<br />PRINT "height=";J5<br />PRINT "P1=";P1;" P2=";P2;" 210J=";R1;" 42J=";R2<br />PRINT "crater-radius=";S1<br />PRINT "crater-depth=";S2;" crater-rim=";S3;" S4=";S4;" S5=";S5<br />PRINT "V1=";V1<br />PRINT "V2=";V2;" V3=";V3;" V4=";V4;" V8=";V8<br />PRINT "W1=";W1<br />PRINT "W2=";W2;" W4=";W4;" Z1=";Z1;" Z2=";Z2<br />PRINT "Z4=";Z4<br />FOR N=1 TO 5: PRINT "M(";N;")=";M(N);" "; : NEXT N: PRINT: RETURN</blockquote><br />Now you understand why I was so happy that I kept with the original variables instead of going for the full Forth conversion! All in all the basic conversion proved to be pretty good. Only one piece of code needed a full rewrite.<br /><br />Am I finished yet? No, debugging takes a lot of time - but I'm not in a hurry. At some point in time I will have enough confidence to send it into the world. Hopefully, I will have given it another thirty years of useful life. Time, it wouldn't have had if I had left it in this state.<br /><br />And that would have been a pity, because it is the oldest program of my hand that survived this long. The rest was left decaying on an ancient 8" floppy. Missing in action, presumably dead. But even if they had survived, would I be likely to repeat this exercise? No, probably not.<br /><br />Reheating spaghetti takes a lot of time. It's better to cook some fresh pasta. ;-)The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-87845233426097863662011-02-03T09:21:00.015+01:002011-02-04T11:54:16.516+01:00Running shellscripts under WindowsAlthough many programmers look down on shell scripts, they can be an effective way to quickly realize the required functionality in a minimal amount of time. Especially if you want to tie several already available utilities together.<br /><br />So when I set down to make a FOSS equivalent of the <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-wwf-has-to-learn-about-foss.html'>abysmal</a> and closed source <a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/'>WWF drivers</a>, shell scripts seemed the way to go. I already got PDFtk, Ghostscript and the Poppler utils, so all I needed was a bit of glue between them.<br /><br />The people at the "Save as WWF" Facebook page wanted a GUI, so I had to throw one in. That wasn't much of a problem either, because we got KDialog, <a href='http://live.gnome.org/Zenity'>Zenity</a> and <a href='http://hightek.org/dialog/'>Dialog</a>, which cover pretty much all the desktop environments around. Starting with a skeleton script I had once posted I was able to release the first version at <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>Freshmeat</a> within a single day. Several releases followed after the first enhancement requests came in. Until that day..<br /><br />A user asked me whether a Windows port was possible. Wow.. MS-DOS batchfiles are so crippled that converting them was not an option and I am unfamiliar with the newer Windows scripting facilities like <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell'>PowerShell</a>. Since I use Windows very little I didn't feel like learning that one. So I asked myself the question, can I run the scripts within Windows?<br /><br />Running them within Windows means you have to fool them into thinking they're running in a Unix environment. Since it seemed pointless to let users install hundreds of megabytes just to run a couple of shellscripts I settled for <a href='http://www.mingw.org/wiki/msys'>MSYS</a>. MSYS is just a few megabytes and offers almost all the Unix commands and facilities you're familiar with. Furthermore, it does a pretty good job of silent conversion between the Unix and Windows <tt>PATH</tt> conventions.<br /><br />The next question was, can I get Windows ports of all the utilities required. The answer is <i>yes</i>, <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/installing-wwf-toolkit-under-windows.html'>there are ports</a> of Zenity, WGET, Poppler utilities, Ghostscript and the PDF toolkit. All bases are covered, now let's rock 'n roll!<br /><br />To my surprise the installation script almost worked out of the box. The only thing was that <tt>whoami</tt> is not part of MSYS. I know that you use <tt>id -un</tt> nowadays, but that wasn't much help, because although <tt>id</tt> correctly returns my Windows login, I used <tt>whoami</tt> to see if the script was running with root privileges. I decided to make my own <tt>whoami</tt> in <tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>, doing a simple <tt>echo</tt>. That didn't seem like much of a problem, because if the Windows user in question <i>wasn't</i> running with admin privileges, he wouldn't come that far anyway.<br /><br />The second thing I had to fix was the <tt>#!/bin/bash</tt> line. MSYS doesn't "have" <tt>bash</tt>, only <tt>sh</tt>. Since <tt>sh</tt> is simply a link to <tt>bash</tt>, I decided to change it to <tt>#!/bin/sh</tt>. A few unquoted environment variables posed another problem, but that was quickly fixed. Finally, Ghostscript comes with a whole lot of Unix shellscripts, which I decided to use. Unfortunately, there are two annoying problems:<ol><li>Ghostscript isn't added to the <tt>PATH</tt>;</li><li>The Ghostscript shellscripts assume <tt>gs</tt> is installed, which isn't.</li></ol>The first one was fixed by adding the <tt>lib</tt> directory of Ghostscript to the <tt>PATH</tt> and the second was fixed by scanning for the Windows executable and create a small <tt>gs</tt> shellscript in <tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>. Then it ran like a charm.. from the prompt!<br /><br />The Windows version of Zenity is very good, installing it is a breeze. It adds the Zenity executable to the path automatically. But in order to make it run as advertised you have to wrap the whole thing in an MS-DOS batchfile. Since the shellscripts are installed in <tt>/usr/local/bin</tt> I needed that path in the <tt>PATH</tt>, which you achieve by adding the <tt>--login</tt> switch to <tt>sh</tt>.<br /><br />I decided to generate all these tiny scripts and batchfiles from the Windows installation script and that was the moment I really stumbled into the annoyance of Windows backslashes. The backslash is Unix' escape character, which makes it particularly difficult to handle. To write a Windows batchfile I decided to use the following sequence:<blockquote>echo -n "bg_start ..\..\bin\sh.exe --login -c wwf2pdf" > /usr/share/wwftk/bg_wwf2pdf.bat<br />echo -e "\r" >> /usr/share/wwftk/bg_wwf2pdf.bat</blockquote><br />The <tt>-n</tt> switch suppresses the terminating linefeed, while the <tt>-e</tt> switch <i>enables</i> the expansion of special control sequences. Which in this case results in the familiar <b>carriage return-linefeed</b> sequence.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6mYjhyitdETVMTXRa6rP4nKpZVFjCV58cL09OjObsvAHxGX613gHnA7bCFrGoygsEnV5GxYEAGb7t8YOK2RudJiADDvvkxlm3OT3tpz4FXm9nvuYpjVCI4e14k-HcahCVGuPv7c3hdRi/s1600/WWFInstall.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6mYjhyitdETVMTXRa6rP4nKpZVFjCV58cL09OjObsvAHxGX613gHnA7bCFrGoygsEnV5GxYEAGb7t8YOK2RudJiADDvvkxlm3OT3tpz4FXm9nvuYpjVCI4e14k-HcahCVGuPv7c3hdRi/s320/WWFInstall.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568398751915125058" /></a><br /><br />The BGstart utility is required to suppress the launching of the <tt>sh</tt> window, which is featured so prominently in some ported FOSS programs. A few shortcuts and we're done. The icons for the shortcuts were converted <a href='http://iconverticons.com/'>online</a>. Quickly and painlessly. And then <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/wwf-driver-gets-competition.html'>it ran</a>. Or did it?<br /><br />The backslashes were back with a vengeance. Zenity returns a Windows path, which is gracefully handled by MSYS, but when it was displayed all backslashes disappeared or made the messagebox look very queer.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfVcJZ17KlJOScX2aeEM1FSODxiiEAhVT4ZCAXEGdCiqe1HM7phqjq5CD30AvTWt5fY_SuyUThExwdlxv3BqLJESl6ZvlqNhtI-L87VPBkbZk9mTKXafsB8PPqfiFFtNQcg6Uw7k9ZgsU/s1600/WWFSuccess.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 181px; height: 157px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfVcJZ17KlJOScX2aeEM1FSODxiiEAhVT4ZCAXEGdCiqe1HM7phqjq5CD30AvTWt5fY_SuyUThExwdlxv3BqLJESl6ZvlqNhtI-L87VPBkbZk9mTKXafsB8PPqfiFFtNQcg6Uw7k9ZgsU/s320/WWFSuccess.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566278636579029362" /></a><br /><br />I never wanted special Windows versions of the scripts, the idea was that one version runs anywhere. So, how could I transparently handle this one? The answer was one single line:<blockquote>SHOW=`echo "$3" | sed 's|\\\\|/|g'`</blockquote><br />This one converts any embedded backslashes to slashes. Why slashes, you may ask. Well, first it settles the matter once and for all and second, it reminds the Windows user he owes this functionality to a Unix script.<br /><br />Of course, there are many things that could be improved. A true Windows installer may make it all much easier for the casual user, but again, I'm not prepared to put so much effort into a skill I rarely use. Furthermore, if people think it is important they will step up and solve it. Because this is FOSS.<br /><br />I'm now looking for someone who does the port to OS/X, so we cover the entire spectrum. If only to prove that the community does a better and faster job than a <a href='http://www.7-seas.de/ceemes/page/show/die_beste_loesung'>closed source company</a>..The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-8119285721773020212011-01-31T15:18:00.031+01:002011-02-03T18:46:45.542+01:00Installing the .wwf toolkit under Windows<b>Introduction</b><br />Converting a PDF file to .wwf is so trivial under Linux that a <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>bunch of shell scripts</a> is enough to perform that task. When a user asked me whether it could be <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/wwf-driver-gets-competition.html'>ported to Windows</a> I was bewildered. Running Unix shell scripts under Windows means you have to trick Windows in thinking it is running a Windows program and the shell scripts in thinking they're running in a Unix environment. But all components were available for Windows, so I decided to give it a try. Note I tried Win98 as well, but that didn't work. You will need WinXP at least.<br /><br /><b>Preparation</b><br />First, you have to download all components:<ul><li><a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/MSYS/BaseSystem/msys-core/msys-1.0.10/MSYS-1.0.10.exe/download'>MSYS 1.0.10</a></li><li><a href='http://users.ugent.be/~bpuype/cgi-bin/fetch.pl?dl=wget/wget.exe'>WGET 1.11.4</a></li><li><a href='http://www.outsch.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/poppler-utils.zip'>Poppler-utils 0.15</a></li><li><a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/files/GPL%20Ghostscript/9.00/gs900w32.exe/download'>Ghostscript 9.00</a></li><li><a href='http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk-1.44-win.zip'>PDFtk 1.44</a></li><li><a href='http://www.placella.com/software/zenity/downloads/zenity-2.28.0_win32-3.exe'>Zenity 2.28.0</a></li><li><a href='http://www.placella.com/software/bg_start/bg_start-0.0.1.exe'>BGstart 0.0.1</a></li><li><a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/wwftk-1.7.tar.gz'>.wwf toolkit 1.7</a></li></ul>If you don't know what your Windows directory is issue this at the prompt:<blockquote>echo %windir%</blockquote><br />You can get a prompt by starting <tt>cmd.exe</tt>. I will refer to the Windows directory as <tt>C:\WINDOWS</tt>. <br /><br /><b>Installing WGET</b><br />Place the executable in <tt>C:\WINDOWS</tt> - or whatever your Windows directory may be. <br /><br /><b>Installing Poppler-utils</b><br />Unzip the archive and place all executables in <tt>C:\WINDOWS</tt>.<br /><br /><b>Installing PDFtk</b><br />Unzip the archive. You will only need the files in the <tt>bin</tt> directory. Place <tt>pdftk.exe</tt> in <tt>C:\WINDOWS</tt> and <tt>libiconv2.dll</tt> in <tt>C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32</tt>. <i>Be sure not to overwrite previous versions!!</i><br /><br /><b>Installing Zenity</b><br />Simply accept all defaults, <i>including the path</i>. Install it on the C:-drive if you can, it will make your life much easier.<br /><br /><b>Installing BGstart</b><br />Simply accept all defaults, <i>including the path</i>. Install it on the C:-drive if you can, it will make your life much easier.<br /><br /><b>Installing MSYS</b><br />You may also take the newer 1.0.11, but note that version has packaging errors. Simply accept all defaults, <i>including the path</i>. Install it on the C:-drive if you can, it will make your life much easier.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixDuoDaqDbR0S60NNJz56OIXGvdTD1ct9oZkoX0OlVqyIG9Ds0mY5_0kbIfAySYUkLbzAje3YNPzIhAQE2EaiAQ4_pQJM5zklE7IUMYO9FA8xfXbsWnED9KhwkRyGruVM0By4r-6wvtoJ4/s1600/InstallMSYS.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 177px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixDuoDaqDbR0S60NNJz56OIXGvdTD1ct9oZkoX0OlVqyIG9Ds0mY5_0kbIfAySYUkLbzAje3YNPzIhAQE2EaiAQ4_pQJM5zklE7IUMYO9FA8xfXbsWnED9KhwkRyGruVM0By4r-6wvtoJ4/s320/InstallMSYS.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568363398693933778" /></a><br /><br />Finally, a console will pop up, posing you two questions:<ol><li>Will you continue the postinstallation <b>[YES]</b></li><li>Have you installed MinGW? <b>[UNLIKELY]</b></li></ol>If you installed MinGW before (which is a C-compiler) you probably already have MSYS anyway.<br /><br /><b>Installing Ghostscript</b><br />Simply accept all defaults, <i>including the path</i>. Install it on the C:-drive if you can, it will make your life much easier.<br /><br />The Windows-version of Ghostscript fortunately comes with Unix scripts of the major utilities. They are all located in the <tt>lib</tt> directory. You have to add this directory to the path so MSYS can find them. That's not very hard. Simply click the "My computer" icon, then click "Control Panel" and finally "System".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJlf9pZRKi5IKONzC-TK_6HlT0k143bjva-PZj66VlvvuJKya0CkHULZo8aUBbW0Hs25j3cAApvDQ7mhFdmqy2itGRV5sXzERNd0_-auyDGvtdnCiw0ZeLNlLZcFZ9W97hGseT-oYwBaIy/s1600/WWFEnVar1.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJlf9pZRKi5IKONzC-TK_6HlT0k143bjva-PZj66VlvvuJKya0CkHULZo8aUBbW0Hs25j3cAApvDQ7mhFdmqy2itGRV5sXzERNd0_-auyDGvtdnCiw0ZeLNlLZcFZ9W97hGseT-oYwBaIy/s320/WWFEnVar1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568390828064351650" /></a><br /><br />Choose the tab "Advanced" and click the button "Environment variables":<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRW5RtcNKdD5VSLqHapVf3naops658UEA2LpHQ8sFPR3UP-H_2nkXEuJXDfxiB3ngSMdB-14AoSX2zb59aFKDNdtSiG_huGdZqv5T9S8Tkjwb5oLza7KCLYQ4Gntq9iAn57G3Ejy0Mc81y/s1600/WWFEnVar2.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 285px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRW5RtcNKdD5VSLqHapVf3naops658UEA2LpHQ8sFPR3UP-H_2nkXEuJXDfxiB3ngSMdB-14AoSX2zb59aFKDNdtSiG_huGdZqv5T9S8Tkjwb5oLza7KCLYQ4Gntq9iAn57G3Ejy0Mc81y/s320/WWFEnVar2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568394893299730722" /></a><br /><br />Choose "System variables", then "Path" and add the directory in question up front. Usually, this will be something like <tt>C:\Program files\gs\9.00\lib</tt>.<br /><br /><b>Installing .wwf toolkit</b><br />MSYS has left an icon on your desktop. Click it. Then navigate to the <tt>wwftk-1.7.tar.gz</tt> archive. You can use <tt>cd</tt> as usual, no need to change drives. Note backslashes become slashes and drives become directories, e.g. <tt>H:\download\wwftk-1.7.tar.gz</tt> becomes <tt>/h/download/wwftk-1.7.tar.gz</tt>. If the path contains embedded spaces, enclose it with double quotes. Assuming the archive is located at <tt>H:\download</tt>, issue:<blockquote>cd /h/download<br />tar -xzvf wwftk-1.7.tar.gz<br />cd wwftk-1.7/Windows<br />sh installwin.sh c<br /></blockquote><br />If Ghostscript wasn't installed on the C:-drive adjust accordingly. If all goes well, you'll see the following screen:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6mYjhyitdETVMTXRa6rP4nKpZVFjCV58cL09OjObsvAHxGX613gHnA7bCFrGoygsEnV5GxYEAGb7t8YOK2RudJiADDvvkxlm3OT3tpz4FXm9nvuYpjVCI4e14k-HcahCVGuPv7c3hdRi/s1600/WWFInstall.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6mYjhyitdETVMTXRa6rP4nKpZVFjCV58cL09OjObsvAHxGX613gHnA7bCFrGoygsEnV5GxYEAGb7t8YOK2RudJiADDvvkxlm3OT3tpz4FXm9nvuYpjVCI4e14k-HcahCVGuPv7c3hdRi/s320/WWFInstall.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568398751915125058" /></a><br /><br />After that, .wwf tools is installed.<br /><br /><b>Post installation</b><br />You probably want to start the .wwf tools from the screen. All you have to do is to make two shortcuts. First, click right on the desktop and select "Shortcut":<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj7ys5VZF07W-gAwGAICOXvB1XTb_pAv3NzUFZAlA0hYSutiKUG3D0VE2qWUM9AtyO8lrv_FwF_cNr4g0ne8JR6sgJk94agoR4jCuEmxSMdoGB7Ttg75e1hrTbawFRQT7hlT_469UzsOj2/s1600/WWFShortcut1.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj7ys5VZF07W-gAwGAICOXvB1XTb_pAv3NzUFZAlA0hYSutiKUG3D0VE2qWUM9AtyO8lrv_FwF_cNr4g0ne8JR6sgJk94agoR4jCuEmxSMdoGB7Ttg75e1hrTbawFRQT7hlT_469UzsOj2/s320/WWFShortcut1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568399763555035538" /></a><br /><br />Second, choose "Browse" and navigate to <tt>C:\msys\1.0\share\wwftk\bg_pdf2wwf.bat</tt>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtFwb-w1J15lnInY5NCVyUOrBJup9M9B3j99DRs1EGIu2feHE91Y-lQ3NEgWbfonwi3oAz04OInwgIbFUMIAjLb4QgAa5OdT1bCnbu3XfwlahlSSsuYReEKDdm1rk5wiIfxkHuZp4DUFaC/s1600/WWFShortcut2.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 306px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtFwb-w1J15lnInY5NCVyUOrBJup9M9B3j99DRs1EGIu2feHE91Y-lQ3NEgWbfonwi3oAz04OInwgIbFUMIAjLb4QgAa5OdT1bCnbu3XfwlahlSSsuYReEKDdm1rk5wiIfxkHuZp4DUFaC/s320/WWFShortcut2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568402049288708418" /></a><br /><br />Third, choose a name for this shortcut. I prefer <b>PDF2wwf</b>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhdzKLX450MIa2wJijtU-OA_DBSg57i1g2_7Fdwl3wu-fG7jDVr8i1czwB6KFbZJmAUL5gIbYJta37YLktLBt_ent9wLfvrNhAo5OnkrN_38_FKCXkFaUgh4sOdFze7b6BY9rONq4qDDK/s1600/WWFShortcut3.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 235px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzhdzKLX450MIa2wJijtU-OA_DBSg57i1g2_7Fdwl3wu-fG7jDVr8i1czwB6KFbZJmAUL5gIbYJta37YLktLBt_ent9wLfvrNhAo5OnkrN_38_FKCXkFaUgh4sOdFze7b6BY9rONq4qDDK/s320/WWFShortcut3.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568402340959416210" /></a><br /><br />Basically, the shortcut has been created now, but it is not very attractive. Right click it and choose "Properties".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBc2m-X33wU2KzzEiTayDei4zQDn_ScuCsNdR257ywoTsWYw-EgUVxDR8lLG3yMOPYDuIJrAjsiS0cyGzQ7W9T3NkN6wbLfV7MisOy0FTEYYCE-K2wRnF4K5eehcqUOmlNONByWCvRbPo-/s1600/WWFShortcut4.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 206px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBc2m-X33wU2KzzEiTayDei4zQDn_ScuCsNdR257ywoTsWYw-EgUVxDR8lLG3yMOPYDuIJrAjsiS0cyGzQ7W9T3NkN6wbLfV7MisOy0FTEYYCE-K2wRnF4K5eehcqUOmlNONByWCvRbPo-/s320/WWFShortcut4.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568403015633030178" /></a><br /><br />Click "Change icon" and "Browse".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiJEdrKk5dxN8iPV0OuB7utOssDU_Vm-FwXoP9GDI-2fNgdFchYKRrre1R6kjvtKiF6NaBi5Hgj1uaAVH70KdYHWN8u9_2BVXru_ScPei-m4oYNVPv25EMLB77N8DHf3-ORMWTY3gAjxNS/s1600/WWFShortcut5.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiJEdrKk5dxN8iPV0OuB7utOssDU_Vm-FwXoP9GDI-2fNgdFchYKRrre1R6kjvtKiF6NaBi5Hgj1uaAVH70KdYHWN8u9_2BVXru_ScPei-m4oYNVPv25EMLB77N8DHf3-ORMWTY3gAjxNS/s320/WWFShortcut5.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568404413356193906" /></a><br /><br />Navigate to <tt>C:\msys\1.0\share\wwftk</tt>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRBkvsHSyvjTxwxygMZ5CJPeJSI5uOblOzYhOz8fFwQZx4HzKxOdZrZGOEe3GCmNVRaGT2pjoRp7lqYR-TJ5PVj8FueTAoKCxhPcAOSfYIItb3RZ_lNkc_SrNn2f7ZN4CYrnTseQhfbCp/s1600/WWFShortcut6.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRBkvsHSyvjTxwxygMZ5CJPeJSI5uOblOzYhOz8fFwQZx4HzKxOdZrZGOEe3GCmNVRaGT2pjoRp7lqYR-TJ5PVj8FueTAoKCxhPcAOSfYIItb3RZ_lNkc_SrNn2f7ZN4CYrnTseQhfbCp/s320/WWFShortcut6.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568404951707979602" /></a><br /><br />Select <tt>wwf128.ico</tt>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTel8plUu8xKyUa03z2O5eRjfoD1aslZW0QvHarPhwdOKxE7KV6kjqNL9J4Nv3TCjgxF3eu-7nYrjS4lp-eRKH4c8jqVQdo941ANdHGB5pSuoZhtt_XZ4Pb9a8Ic-TNhfFyc5Hv9iiRs9/s1600/WWFShortcut7.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 316px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTel8plUu8xKyUa03z2O5eRjfoD1aslZW0QvHarPhwdOKxE7KV6kjqNL9J4Nv3TCjgxF3eu-7nYrjS4lp-eRKH4c8jqVQdo941ANdHGB5pSuoZhtt_XZ4Pb9a8Ic-TNhfFyc5Hv9iiRs9/s320/WWFShortcut7.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568405216387036802" /></a><br /><br />Select the appropriate icon and press "Ok". Repeat the same procedure for <tt>wwf2pdf</tt> and you're done.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-73515615723806812862011-01-26T00:39:00.011+01:002011-02-03T10:46:14.038+01:00The WWF driver gets competitionA user on the "Save as WWF" Facebook page asked me whether <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/benny.skjold.tordrup/posts/171492329560414'>I could port the .wwf toolkit</a> to Windows. It took some research, because emulating a Unix environment on Windows is very quirky, but I did it. I posted some screenshots this morning, but they were not amused. Within hours they were taken offline, despite <a href='http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=165289783514002&id=559011707'>their promise not to censor</a>. Obviously, they don't like the competition. And for good reason..<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmxYTGiyZg1STJe548luky_0uISBAZL4l4mDYV-w6SrWFUamkAYxOgZ2vCSEr_9PISUR-dANqHVBpgHX1WQrRM81DTr1uxsTOuHEcAoTmjhNF1BtjKPIyS1WcaDCEcvm6S5chZTR76I_Zg/s1600/WWFIcons.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 147px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmxYTGiyZg1STJe548luky_0uISBAZL4l4mDYV-w6SrWFUamkAYxOgZ2vCSEr_9PISUR-dANqHVBpgHX1WQrRM81DTr1uxsTOuHEcAoTmjhNF1BtjKPIyS1WcaDCEcvm6S5chZTR76I_Zg/s320/WWFIcons.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566276608621526898" /></a><br /><br />First, the <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf tools</a> allow you .pdf to .wwf conversion. And vice versa. That is by design. Second, you can choose whether you want that banner or not. The WWF driver <i>always</i> appends that free <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/viral-marketing-truth-behind-wwf-format.html'>WWF advertisement</a> to each and every document it processes. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPCack1Tu0UMdjIIZbiGiDCH3KV3hGf9v7IaFYDDy24sG-13BT-ryGa4uZWOgXIL_48YnURb_ar9dz1E_sPc0CSjNzr9NU2K0wlFTkhYxKci_3cRZj7o8D7-rwnMWzSnDYlbCCSgZTpMB/s1600/WWFQuestion.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 208px; height: 157px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPCack1Tu0UMdjIIZbiGiDCH3KV3hGf9v7IaFYDDy24sG-13BT-ryGa4uZWOgXIL_48YnURb_ar9dz1E_sPc0CSjNzr9NU2K0wlFTkhYxKci_3cRZj7o8D7-rwnMWzSnDYlbCCSgZTpMB/s320/WWFQuestion.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566278455399675282" /></a><br /><br />And despite some rumors, <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=169970936379220&id=100001358229896'>it cannot be disabled</a>. That is by design. Third, the .wwf tools produce <a href='http://www.blog.racken.de/archiv/wwf'>much smaller files</a>. Finally, <a href='http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=161943237181990&id=1230651534'>it doesn't phone home</a>. Feel free to examine the code.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNMutQVMzvDxOSR0XaLmTbFuFzgvAo5h9H5Zoj_7YjB8_p67nGttIz7MNtmn6spD6In-NJfkmuT_3IWjyGLHsXSkAqjSLMX6l1OyzGnxRfEJHD_OVyweN_P_Iq34CEtRXQ_qrBXUMBQzCT/s1600/WWFSelect.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNMutQVMzvDxOSR0XaLmTbFuFzgvAo5h9H5Zoj_7YjB8_p67nGttIz7MNtmn6spD6In-NJfkmuT_3IWjyGLHsXSkAqjSLMX6l1OyzGnxRfEJHD_OVyweN_P_Iq34CEtRXQ_qrBXUMBQzCT/s320/WWFSelect.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566276864207337762" /></a><br /><br />In the meanwhile, the WWF <a href='http://getsatisfaction.com/wwf/topics/unpalletable_wwf_format'>have acknowledged</a> they are violating the BSD license which comes with the OS/X PDF reader "<a href='http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/'>Skim</a>". They promised a new version. Yeah, right.. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfVcJZ17KlJOScX2aeEM1FSODxiiEAhVT4ZCAXEGdCiqe1HM7phqjq5CD30AvTWt5fY_SuyUThExwdlxv3BqLJESl6ZvlqNhtI-L87VPBkbZk9mTKXafsB8PPqfiFFtNQcg6Uw7k9ZgsU/s1600/WWFSuccess.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 181px; height: 157px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfVcJZ17KlJOScX2aeEM1FSODxiiEAhVT4ZCAXEGdCiqe1HM7phqjq5CD30AvTWt5fY_SuyUThExwdlxv3BqLJESl6ZvlqNhtI-L87VPBkbZk9mTKXafsB8PPqfiFFtNQcg6Uw7k9ZgsU/s320/WWFSuccess.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566278636579029362" /></a><br /><br />Their <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-wwf-has-to-learn-about-foss.html'>bug ridden Windows driver</a> is still at v1.03. Release Candidate, that is. I'd rather use a beta of .wwf tools.. ;-)The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-91019891221649019472011-01-14T19:00:00.013+01:002011-01-25T23:46:34.524+01:00The .wwf format in practiceThis week I promised myself to put <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-wildlife-fund-wwf-format-cracked.html'>the .wwf format</a> to the test. So, I sent a .wwf file to my girlfriend at work and I distributed all documents at work that I didn't find worth printing in the .wwf format. These were the reactions I got:<ol><li>My girlfriend wasn't even able to open it, because the MIME-type wasn't known in her Vista installation.</li><li>I p*ssed off a very expensive consultant at work who ordered me to send a printable version or I'd have to look for another assignment.</li><li>A colleague of mine who prints virtually <i>everything</i> sent it to another nerd colleague of mine who returned a printable version of the document using my "<a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-print-or-unlock-wwf-file.html'>cracking</a>" pages.</li></ol>I asked them whether they had become more "<a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/faqs.html'>aware</a>" of the issue at hand. Most thought it was merely a nuisance, others said they would never donate a dime to the WWF anymore.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> For some reason unknown, <a href='http://www.wwf.it/client/render.aspx?content=0&root=6488'>WWF Italy</a> is now collaborating with forest managers to "develop awareness on the issues of sustainable management of forest resources" and "<i>promote</i> (..) <i>the purchase of forest products</i>"!<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> As I predicted, the <a href='http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=26744588'>WWF violates FOSS licenses</a>.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> The <a href='http://getsatisfaction.com/wwf/topics/unpalletable_wwf_format'>WWF have promised</a> to comply to the "<a href='http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/'>Skim</a>" BSD license. As always, I'm not holding my breath. Even with a <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-wwf-has-to-learn-about-foss.html'>buglist the size of your arm</a>, their Windows driver is still the same old v1.03 Release Candidate.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-81623103639296756652011-01-07T10:19:00.077+01:002011-01-23T23:59:52.663+01:00How to use the .wwf toolkit<u>DISCLAIMER:</u> <b>This software does <i>NOT</i> originate from the <a href='http://www.worldwildlife.org'>WWF</a>. It is neither <i>supported</i> nor <i>approved</i> by the <a href='http://www.worldwildlife.org'>WWF</a> in any way, shape or form.</b> <br /><br />The <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a> is a very simple, but versatile piece of software. If you don't want to use a GUI, you can simply run it from the prompt:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-gh03-zDiXo6uz7kFY5kFIRuH7CKbyyGMylLJU1AIovqqDizXvLx3LxWgfs7OSXwebBGqaw1O2iBSN18DC_STbxv_kd5dtBesJJ1C1SrDarX_pozlI_OhK5V6NrT7zs9wzmUTT_DU5G_/s1600/wwfcli.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 116px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-gh03-zDiXo6uz7kFY5kFIRuH7CKbyyGMylLJU1AIovqqDizXvLx3LxWgfs7OSXwebBGqaw1O2iBSN18DC_STbxv_kd5dtBesJJ1C1SrDarX_pozlI_OhK5V6NrT7zs9wzmUTT_DU5G_/s320/wwfcli.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559371881707717810" /></a><br /><br />Which is fine if you want to include it in another shell script or do some batch conversion. You can add the <tt>-n</tt> switch to override the default banner settings or <tt>-q</tt> if you go for the highest quality PDF possible. The flip side of using this option is that conversion is slower, it generates slightly larger files and worst of all: it may not always work for you.<br /><br />If you want to integrate it in your GUI, you have to install either KDialog (included in KDE) or <a href='http://live.gnome.org/Zenity'>Zenity</a> (Gnome). I'm (still) using KDE3, but I'm sure there are similar facilities in other desktop environments. The best way to run them from there is to include them in the menu:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKLVMdLFm3GbRoQAn2KIrksncbbAuYXeyG02O1TACo_Vx2x229YVGGYrdfSFXZq__eIVGO6WohjLsQWIJE2WOYBgpIm6Zia10fBe4-mWzEwdZhm2QHSQI2oGTRsYtDYQax9gMOY2Gm-HvT/s1600/MenuEdit.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKLVMdLFm3GbRoQAn2KIrksncbbAuYXeyG02O1TACo_Vx2x229YVGGYrdfSFXZq__eIVGO6WohjLsQWIJE2WOYBgpIm6Zia10fBe4-mWzEwdZhm2QHSQI2oGTRsYtDYQax9gMOY2Gm-HvT/s320/MenuEdit.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559372838092220578" /></a><br /><br />Now the only thing you have to do is to select it:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ZTVZ-A9Lq-C4gL2XxjMMqMJRRqRFpmihdajetENSF4uq7oeymRamv9SdW3ld9Jvv2Qi4PyB6ETMJqz0KuQWdn3KnxF3jE8c6h5yHCYbq4OBXQDg_b-bokCqTcQl1f3wdyVJBNOl3f8mG/s1600/wwftk.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 123px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ZTVZ-A9Lq-C4gL2XxjMMqMJRRqRFpmihdajetENSF4uq7oeymRamv9SdW3ld9Jvv2Qi4PyB6ETMJqz0KuQWdn3KnxF3jE8c6h5yHCYbq4OBXQDg_b-bokCqTcQl1f3wdyVJBNOl3f8mG/s320/wwftk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559373377703091538" /></a><br /><br />You can also add .wwf as a mimetype and associate <tt>wwf2pdf</tt> with it:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8qz9MVhJJCLBMotbaDAz_WDmx-cNyx3Q-kERL3fxUgTdYR5M-FP-yCZWuH-nphUr6f8rFrwvTsck5uVqYLgniV-21Eyhj9yynzsD8HPWS2Fc2GsW6Q_silMqTQoWsnZ-qJ8UyKQ_scTL/s1600/WWFMime.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8qz9MVhJJCLBMotbaDAz_WDmx-cNyx3Q-kERL3fxUgTdYR5M-FP-yCZWuH-nphUr6f8rFrwvTsck5uVqYLgniV-21Eyhj9yynzsD8HPWS2Fc2GsW6Q_silMqTQoWsnZ-qJ8UyKQ_scTL/s320/WWFMime.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559373983099110738" /></a><br /><br />Now open your filemanager and navigate to the .wwf file in question. Select <tt>wwf2pdf</tt> and click it:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqGFI-eA9OfXXOVQvfOmQi_WAeLGUEojWyQD3oKL3yM1XW5t1AdNGSQIJNcBkbj6P733Y0YCrSNueY_YreA5oKtgVaYSE3cO8Yeu972uP-_rbskMP_28HqzUUlGtOFX764YCx6dHxecdq/s1600/ClickingWWF.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 215px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqGFI-eA9OfXXOVQvfOmQi_WAeLGUEojWyQD3oKL3yM1XW5t1AdNGSQIJNcBkbj6P733Y0YCrSNueY_YreA5oKtgVaYSE3cO8Yeu972uP-_rbskMP_28HqzUUlGtOFX764YCx6dHxecdq/s320/ClickingWWF.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559374506945678178" /></a><br /><br /><tt>wwf2pdf</tt> will start and create an unprotected PDF file on the fly, which you can open right away.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN4ZDDMOfja8RbC1Te33ppomVVxpNqr2HeAATsSzAFLM65F9jKBetz89sGujkz-DEd-QFhcBrxNTAKK2mvsB4BLcuFL9yyk7A381p0u6wp80_2QJQspoduDsOR4n-MKT4-Dw1nS0hnxe4E/s1600/ConvertedWWF.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN4ZDDMOfja8RbC1Te33ppomVVxpNqr2HeAATsSzAFLM65F9jKBetz89sGujkz-DEd-QFhcBrxNTAKK2mvsB4BLcuFL9yyk7A381p0u6wp80_2QJQspoduDsOR4n-MKT4-Dw1nS0hnxe4E/s320/ConvertedWWF.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559374935200650018" /></a><br /><br />This way, converting those .wwf files into something useful will take only a split second of your life. Of course, you can do the same thing for <tt>pdf2wwf</tt> as well.<br /><br /><b>Legal stuff</b><br />A question I've been getting a lot lately is, "do I have to conform to the WWF "<a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>terms of use</a>" when I produce a file with your toolkit?"<br /><br />Well, first of all: <b>I'm not a lawyer, this is <i>NOT</i> legal advise, so you better consult a professional before willfully violating the <a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>WWF terms</a></b>. I can give you a few general guidelines, but the short answer is: <i>yes</i>.<br /><br />The official WWF drivers for Windows and OS/X are copyrighted material, so if you use them you are bound to the <a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>WWF terms</a> by default, because they are part of the license. It doesn't matter whether you agreed to the license or not - the license is the <i>only thing</i> that gives you the right to use the software. Period.<br /><br />If you use the .wwf toolkit (with all its GPL components), you're obviously not bound to the WWF <i>software</i> license, but you may <i>still</i> be bound to the "<a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>terms of use</a>", as I will explain later on.<br /><br />The files the .wwf toolkit produces are industry standard PDF files. PDF files are an <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format'>open standard</a> (ISO/IEC 32000-1:2008) and even if the WWF driver would add some proprietary stuff to its files, it isn't included in the files the WWF toolkit creates.<br /><br />Well, the WWF might argue that the <i>combination</i> of extension <i>and</i> PDF format is their invention and consequently proprietary, but that is a <a href='http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/trivial-patent.html'>long stretch by any measure</a>. <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=170036773039303&id=1230651534'>As far as I know</a> no patents have been filed.<br /><br />The only part left is their copyrights and trademarks. <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark'>Trademarks</a> are <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-conventional_trademark'>the most troublesome</a> thing here, because it's also the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_distinctiveness'>least tangible</a> kind of intellectual property. Even engine sounds (Harley Davidson), smells or colors (BP, T-Mobile) can be trademarked.<br /><br />As far as I know, there has <i>never</i> been issued a trademark or any other intellectual property protection <a href='http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100518/2343349484.shtml'>for a file extension alone</a>. Furthermore, the .wwf extension is already in use and has been in use for a long time:<ul><li><a href='http://www.jakkspacific.com/'>WWF Rant Pakk Sound File</a> <i>(dead link)</i></li><li><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=5D61409E-1FA3-48CF-8023-E8F38E709BA6&displaylang=en'>Windows Workflow Foundation</a></li><li><a href='http://www.wasp.dk/Support/FAQ/WebHelp/FileFormatofWWF.htm'>Wind Farm File</a></li></ul>However, if you include <i>any</i> of their trademarks in your files, you're bound to <a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>their terms</a>. That means, the panda bear, the "Save as WWF, save a tree" slogan or their "Save as WWF" tree icons. Note that even a simple uppercase "WWF" is protected, so choose your names carefully!<br /><br />That is, <i>if they exist</i>. Neither a search with the <a href='http://www.swissreg.ch'>Swiss trademark organization</a>, nor the <a href='http://register.dpma.de'>German trademark organization</a>, nor the <a href='http://oami.europa.eu'>European trademark organization</a> gave <i>any</i> hits for "Save as WWF". As a matter of fact, <i>no</i> <a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/WWF_trademarks.pdf'>trademarks have been entered</a> after August 4th, 2010 for "One Planet MBA".<br /><br /><a href='http://www.jvm.com/'>Matt von Jung</a>, WWF's advertising agency in Germany, has <i>applied</i> for several figurative marks (3020100743719, 3020100743727, 3020100743735 and 3020100743743) on December 18th 2010 at the German Trademark Office (DPMA). Since they are still just applications, the trademarks itself are still unspecified.<br /><br />Thus, the "<a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>terms of use</a>" are in fact a <i>license to use their trademarks</i>. Nothing more, nothing less. The .wwf toolkit license (<a href='http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html'>GPLv3</a>) has <i>nothing</i> to do with it.<br /><br />There is no © sign or "Copyright" text on their banner, <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice'>which is required in some countries</a> - but not the US. And here is where <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_copyright_law'>local legislation</a> comes in, which makes this issue legally particularly fuzzy, especially when "<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_%28copyright_law%29'>moral right</a>" is concerned. But again, it boils down to trademarks.<br /><br />In those countries (where a © sign is required) you could <i>probably</i> get away with your own banner as long as you don't use <i>any</i> of their trademarks, so it is <i>perfectly clear</i> to a casual observer that:<ol><li>It doesn't originate from the WWF;</li><li>The word ".wwf" is only used to identify the file type and its properties.</li></ol>My advise? The WWF is known for <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wrestling_Entertainment#Name_dispute'>aggressively defending its trademarks</a>, so why take the risk? Most users will <i>never</i> produce files that remotely violate the "<a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/terms-of-use.html'>terms of use</a>" stated. And if you do, simply don't add the banner. Or even better: make it a PDF. Same thing, different extension.<br /><br /><a href='http://mattblr.tumblr.com/post/2398562665/wwf-file-format-stupidity'>Admitted</a>, it is rather scary that a company can decide what you can and may produce with their software. Imagine Microsoft, stating in its EULA that you cannot use Internet Explorer to surf to porn sites?<br /><br />Fortunately, there is always FOSS between you and the proprietary world. And that is a comforting thought..The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-21110631579608742722011-01-06T11:29:00.024+01:002011-02-03T00:51:16.695+01:00What the WWF has to learn about FOSSThe WWF must have understood by now that you cannot enter the realm of software development without finding the <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/saveaswwf/posts/153726984677483'>FOSS community on your way</a>. Where and when software is concerned, FOSS is a force to be reckoned with.<br /><br />For example, the French <a href='http://www.april.org'>April organization</a>, dedicated to the promotion of FOSS and open standards, <a href='http://www.april.org/sites/default/files/20101208_courrier_wwf.pdf'>sent a letter to the WWF</a>, voicing the same objections as <a href='http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/31330/'>Tracy Anne</a> of LXer and other members of the FOSS community:<blockquote>Re: request for a meeting concerning your campaign "Save as WWF, Save a Tree"<br /><br />Madam President,<br /><br />The April organization is dedicated to the development and promotion of free software. It tries to make people aware of the dangers of leaving certain information and knowledge in the hands of private enterprises. Free software - like GNU / Linux operating system and OpenOffice.org office suite - is designed to ensure that users have control over their own computer.<br /><br />It was with some surprise that we learned of the WWF initiative to create a new file format, which is just a PDF using DRM to disable printing.<br /><br />We understand the need of the WWF to draw attention to the ecological impact of computers and even support it. However, we regret the the WWF have resorted to DRM for this purpose. In effect, the WWF format is merely a PDF format with restricted functionality, designed to constrain the user.<br /><br />DRM is not only ineffective but are also detrimental in many ways (technical, economical, cultural). These issues were recently addressed in an <a href='http://www.april.org/synthese-drm-dispositifs-de-controle-dusage'>April publication</a>, which I've included.<br /><br />However, although the goals themselves are laudable, the form this initiative has taken is regrettable for several reasons. The fact that this format is based on DRM, a secret format locked by means of cryptography, makes it impossible to read with free software. Moreover, the WWF disregards users of free software, since the software in question is only available to proprietary systems like Apple MacOS X and has not been released under an Open Source license.<br /><br />In addition, WWF should note that the lack of interoperability is a major contributor to obsolescence. Obsolescence is in the interest of the manufacturers, since it promotes consumerism, which causes many environmental problems if not properly controlled. This initiative is therefore catastrophic. For example, if I want to read a WWF file and I can not get the software required to read it, the only thing I can do is to buy a new computer that does. Because computers are so quickly outdated and consequently so quickly replaced, the ecological impact of these "gadgets" is particularly detrimental.<br /><br />Finally, it is regrettable that WWF seeks to address social problems by means of coercive technology. Because DRM is primarily there to enable publishers to interfere with the privacy of their clients.<br /><br />Because we really want to help you to make the public aware of the ecological impact of computer usage, I propose a meeting in order to discuss the subject. The WWF may approach the <a href='http://www.fsf.org/'>Free Software Foundation</a> on an international level. Couchet Frederick, Executive, and the team at April are available for more information.<br /><br />Madam President, I'm hoping to see you soon.<br /><br />Yours truly,<br /><br />Tangui Morlier<br />Chairman of April</blockquote><br /><a href='http://www.facebook.com/saveaswwf/posts/153726984677483'>The WWF have promised</a> to publicly address these concerns, but <a href='http://getsatisfaction.com/wwf/topics/unpalletable_wwf_format'>don't hold your breath</a>..<br /><br />In the meanwhile, there is not much help from the industry either. Rick Brown, senior director, product management, <a href='http://www.printweek.com/premedia/news/1047421/Unite-demands-WWF-meeting-unprintable-PDF-file-format/'>Acrobat Solutions said</a>: "Adobe Acrobat allows customers to create PDF with a range of security permissions, including the ability to disallow printing. The .wwf format is based on the PDF standard and it is great to see WWF leveraging PDF in creative ways. At this point, we don’t intend to support the .wwf file extension."<br /><br />As if that is not enough, the software itself is giving the WWF headaches as well. In addition to their OS/X driver the WWF recently published their Windows driver. It features the following annoyances:<ul><li>If you haven't installed .NET v2.0, you will have to install it first.</li><li>It requires a certain <a href='http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=164095803633400&id=100000476018366'>Windows driver</a>. If it is not installed, it will ask for your Windows CD.</li><li>It will install itself as <a href='http://www.facebook.com/focke.deparade/posts/169184086457905'>the default printer</a>.</li><li>Kaspersky Internet Security will prevent you from installing it, since <a href='http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=167384446637869&id=1579195152'>it triggers a virus warning</a>.</li><li>Other unidentified <a href='http://www.facebook.com/21CyberBoy/posts/164171533625827'>installation errors</a> have been experienced.</li><li>It has a problem with <a href='http://www.facebook.com/lightworker/posts/166270233415957'>large files</a>, printing only the first page.</li><li>There are issues with the <a href='http://www.facebook.com/saveaswwf/posts/181304531895708'>64bit version</a>.</li><li>Some people dislike the <a href='http://www.facebook.com/preisl/posts/165441730165474'>capitalization</a> of the printer: "SAVE AS WWF".</li><li>It is unclear whether it <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=161943237181990&id=1230651534'>phones home</a>. But I wouldn't be surprised.</li><li>The size of a PDF file saved with this driver <a href='http://www.blog.racken.de/archiv/wwf'>may increase sixfold</a>(!).</li><li>Adjustment of the settings to select a different resolution or an alternative color space <a href='http://www.blog.racken.de/archiv/wwf'>crashes the system</a> completely.</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy3BhP3JemU8HfAnhKIViDWBFc2bd1wjnbt2mSqYj6NGDdZs4yDx6x8Nj0ueh8uelVFkii9TGZnW18PbXlhIN3GkXrzl98MNyN2yHVvld2OXNG3zE1B9LhddJ5srNGDFLTXz9-nfWU-IV9/s1600/druckdialog.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 285px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy3BhP3JemU8HfAnhKIViDWBFc2bd1wjnbt2mSqYj6NGDdZs4yDx6x8Nj0ueh8uelVFkii9TGZnW18PbXlhIN3GkXrzl98MNyN2yHVvld2OXNG3zE1B9LhddJ5srNGDFLTXz9-nfWU-IV9/s320/druckdialog.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558827760239706210" /></a><br /><br />Consequently, as of January 5th an overwhelming majority of "<a href='http://www.chip.de/'>Chip</a>" readers <a href='http://www.chip.de/downloads/Save-as-WWF_46282806.html'>dislike it</a>. Note that the OS/X version has <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-wildlife-fund-wwf-format-cracked.html?showComment=1296227519944#c2606319396506074645'>its problems</a> too.<br /><br />It seems it will be some time before the WWF will release a Linux version. But wait a minute: <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>Linux is already supported</a>! Yes, a set of simple <tt>bash</tt> scripts was able to fill the gap, simply because the FOSS ecosystem is <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit/dependencies'>very rich already</a>. And it is performing very well. <br /><br />In a test performed by <a href='http://www.blog.racken.de/archiv/wwf'>Hermann Radeloff</a> <a href='http://projekte.racken.de/blog/ausgabetest.pdf'>this file</a> was printed using the WWF driver, which resulted in <a href='http://projekte.racken.de/blog/ausgabetest.wwf'>this file</a>. The same file generated by the Linux .wwf toolkit resulted in <a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/ausgabetest.wwf'>this file</a>. In short, a 104 KB file was bloated to a massive 686 KB file, while the Linux .wwf toolkit <i>reduced</i> it to a meager 95 KB. That is: <i>with</i> WWF banner.<br /><br />So WWF, why not release the mess you made under a free license and let the FOSS community take care of it? Why not work together? Or would you rather persist in continuing this public relations disaster?<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Well, it's come to this: the WWF have threatened to kick me off their Facebook page. Obviously, I've gone on their nerves. For those who want to make up their own mind, here is the <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/saveaswwf/posts/153726984677483'>full thread</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0CT3QVkaiiZoBAyg_Qn0LDcxTtcpI5PJv7mW4niFFEY6YYi3RohS3YbQzXXGSwad8I7ktqZPCQhsTo9SyINBtH-crK9iVBu6Y5rk16wChVaorwdQHAvXcWO3p7KE7k1GJMyOXH9lIh46/s1600/KickedWWF.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 203px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0CT3QVkaiiZoBAyg_Qn0LDcxTtcpI5PJv7mW4niFFEY6YYi3RohS3YbQzXXGSwad8I7ktqZPCQhsTo9SyINBtH-crK9iVBu6Y5rk16wChVaorwdQHAvXcWO3p7KE7k1GJMyOXH9lIh46/s320/KickedWWF.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559391650372307282" /></a><br /><br /><b>Update:</b> I've just released the <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a> manual <a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/WWFtools.wwf'>as .wwf</a>. FOSS style. ;-)<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Neither a search with the <a href='http://www.swissreg.ch'>Swiss trademark organization</a>, nor the <a href='http://register.dpma.de'>German trademark organization</a>, nor the <a href='http://oami.europa.eu'>European trademark organization</a> gave <i>any</i> hits for "Save as WWF". As a matter of fact, <i>no</i> <a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/WWF_trademarks.pdf'>trademarks have been entered</a> for the WWF after August 4th, 2010 for "One Planet MBA".<br /><br /><a href='http://www.jvm.com/'>Matt von Jung</a>, WWF's advertising agency in Germany, has <i>applied</i> for several figurative marks (3020100743719, 3020100743727, 3020100743735 and 3020100743743) on December 18th 2010 at the German Trademark Office (DPMA). Since they are still just applications, the trademarks itself are still unspecified.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-2600184358182041342010-12-19T17:45:00.014+01:002011-01-09T18:22:02.071+01:00Viral marketing: the truth behind the .wwf formatWhat really baffled me the last few weeks is why the WWF insisted on using <i>their</i> driver, although <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-create-wwf-without-that-driver.html'>I demonstrated more than once</a> that print-disabled PDF's can serve the same purpose. Why would they <a href='http://www.printweek.com/news/1047152/WWF-Germanys-saveaswwf-PDF-anti-printing-campaign-exposes-internal-rifts/'>alienate the paper industry</a> when there are more than enough really environmentally dangerous industries around. Why would they lie about its effects on rain forests - since most paper comes from tree farms.<br /><br />Well, it became clear to me when I watched this video:<br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Vf7d1nRjpo?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1Vf7d1nRjpo?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="430" height="300"></embed></object><br /><br />The driver does not just disable printing it also <i>adds an extra page to the end of the document</i>. They say it's there "just to inform the receiver", but I don't buy it. Marketing, that's what it is <i>really</i> all about. Every time you make and spread a .wwf file, you are making publicity for the WWF. Bottomline.<br /><br />It gives me an eery feeling. Does it just "phone home" in order to check for "updates" or does it report how many digital advertisements have been spread the last week? It makes you wonder..<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> According to <a href='http://www.gizmag.com/save-as-wwf-format-prevents-users-printing-docs/17282/'>GizMag</a> the WWF has <i>admitted</i> it is all about viral marketing:<blockquote>WWF Germany says that the campaign is meant to be viral and an extra page tagged onto each new format document will help introduce new users to the campaign and encourage awareness about how we use paper in our digital lives. If you don't want this extra page added to catalogs, official documents, CV's and so on then you'll need to choose another method of saving files and run the risk that such things may end up in a print queue somewhere.</blockquote><br />This also proves the WWF is not too shy to bluntly <i>lie</i>. As I have demonstrated numerous times it is perfectly feasible to create a PDF that cannot be printed.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> It's not the first time WWF has launched a disastrous campaign. Remember this beauty?<br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xadcfu_wwf-911-commercial_news?additionalInfos=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xadcfu_wwf-911-commercial_news?additionalInfos=0" width="430" height="300" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object>The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-32441984734366562242010-12-18T10:45:00.018+01:002011-02-03T00:49:49.235+01:00How to create a .wwf file (without that driver)<b>OpenOffice.org</b><br />Anyone with OpenOffice.org can make .wwf files <i>without</i> any additional software. Simply choose: <tt>File/Export as PDF</tt>. Then turn to the <tt>Security</tt> tab. Fill in a "permissions" password and disable printing:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4Qfcd-n3otmyn5ekLAhaHUQDAHQcS44ncxtRZDXesw9hDZJC9iaYQSVpGvG3xkgpBBH3N2wvarI17ZwwtwuTRHSyHaBWXkgZrQyz9UIR7WeBHC5htpfSeposV-lecsQIAawwsnNZUOW9/s1600/OOSecurity.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 253px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4Qfcd-n3otmyn5ekLAhaHUQDAHQcS44ncxtRZDXesw9hDZJC9iaYQSVpGvG3xkgpBBH3N2wvarI17ZwwtwuTRHSyHaBWXkgZrQyz9UIR7WeBHC5htpfSeposV-lecsQIAawwsnNZUOW9/s320/OOSecurity.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551181928615053954" /></a><br /><br />Generate your file as usual. Finally, rename it to .wwf.<br /><br /><b>Windows</b><br />You can make .wwf files by installing the <a href='http://www.pdflabs.com/docs/install-pdftk/'>PDF toolkit</a>. Generate your PDF file as usual. Then open a DOS window and issue:<blockquote>pdftk myfile.pdf output myfile.wwf owner_pw secret allow CopyContents</blockquote><br />For those who don't like to use the CLI, you can download my <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a>. The installation manual is <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/installing-wwf-toolkit-under-windows.html'>here</a>.<br /><br /><b>Linux</b><br />You can make .wwf files by installing the <a href='http://www.pdflabs.com/docs/install-pdftk/'>PDF toolkit</a>, but note that it is included in most distributions as well (<tt>pdftk</tt>). Generate your PDF file as usual. Then open a console and issue:<blockquote>pdftk myfile.pdf output myfile.wwf owner_pw secret allow CopyContents</blockquote><br />For those who don't like to use the CLI, you can download my <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a>.<br /><br /><b>OS/X 10.6 and above</b><br />You can make .wwf files by installing the <a href='http://www.pdflabs.com/docs/install-pdftk/'>PDF toolkit</a>. Generate your PDF file as usual. Then open a console and issue:<blockquote>pdftk myfile.pdf output myfile.wwf owner_pw secret allow CopyContents</blockquote><br />There have also been unconfirmed reports that you can create an "unprintable" PDF file by using the standard OS/X PDF printer and simply change the security settings. Makes you wonder why the WWF brought out an <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-wildlife-fund-wwf-format-cracked.html?showComment=1296227519944#c2606319396506074645'>OS/X version</a> in the first place..<br /><br />The <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a> can probably be ported to OS/X as well. If you want to help, please leave a message in the comments.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-74920225094175813072010-12-18T10:40:00.017+01:002011-02-27T19:25:45.213+01:00How to print (or unlock) a .wwf file<b>Online</b><br />You can unlock your .wwf files <a href='http://www.ensode.net/roller/dheffelfinger/entry/pdf_unlock_utility'>here</a> (up to 5 MB) or <a href='http://freemypdf.com/'>here</a> (up to 95 MB). <a href='http://www.printwwf.com/'>This one</a> is even dedicated to .wwf files, which is hilarious!<br /><br /><b>Windows</b><br />Install <a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/files/GPL%20Ghostscript/9.00/'>Ghostscript</a> on Windows and create this simple batchfile:<blockquote>set ttt=%1<br />set tt=%ttt:~0,-4%<br />gswin32c -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sFONTPATH=%windir%/fonts;xfonts;. -sPDFPassword= -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dPassThroughJPEGImages=true -sOutputFile="%tt%_noPW.pdf" "%1"</blockquote><br />Save it as <tt>crackwwf.bat</tt>. Now open a DOS window and issue:<blockquote>crackwwf protected.wwf</blockquote><br />Unconfirmed, but it makes sense. Please put any corrections in the comments. For those who don't like to use the CLI, you can download my <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a>. The installation manual is <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/installing-wwf-toolkit-under-windows.html'>here</a>.<br /><br />If you just want to print a .wwf you have to install <a href='http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/index.htm'>GSview</a> as well. Start it, load your .wwf file and simply print it.<br /><br /><b>Linux</b><br />Install <tt>Ghostscript</tt> and <tt>poppler-tools</tt> which most distributions carry. Then issue:<blockquote>pdftops Presseinfo_SAVE_AS_WWF_-_SAVE_A_TREE.wwf crack.ps<br />ps2pdf crack.ps crack.pdf</blockquote><br />You can also download my <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a>, which comes with a GUI. If you open it with <tt>KGhostview</tt> you can print it without any conversion at all:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViLwDS0SZp75AyMdtjSsClVFj7sZL6p5fD6FSrJyrsClR9n5_pjeyT2mrLZzU2rtbVQk9kdA9MnAQQsmcwSqQk0je1eCMR3T1SW9yKbkt5ThAGxYPh6HyG2KOOjTO0fX_vi3q_dbwRSVV/s1600/Printing.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViLwDS0SZp75AyMdtjSsClVFj7sZL6p5fD6FSrJyrsClR9n5_pjeyT2mrLZzU2rtbVQk9kdA9MnAQQsmcwSqQk0je1eCMR3T1SW9yKbkt5ThAGxYPh6HyG2KOOjTO0fX_vi3q_dbwRSVV/s320/Printing.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546799153273744258" /></a><br /><br /><b>OS/X</b><br />The <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a> can probably be ported to OS/X as well. If you want to help, please leave a message in the comments.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-88040471215911080632010-12-04T12:58:00.084+01:002012-06-15T18:55:15.303+02:00World Wildlife Fund .wwf format cracked!<i>(Quick links to <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-print-or-unlock-wwf-file.html'>printing</a>, <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-print-or-unlock-wwf-file.html'>unlocking</a> and <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-create-wwf-without-that-driver.html'>creating</a> .wwf files.)</i> <br /><br />I heard about the <a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/home.html'>new .wwf format</a> this morning. It is an initiative of the World Wildlife Fund to prevent people printing PDF files. As a matter of fact, it <i>is</i> an encrypted PDF format with the "printing" flag disabled. <br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MzY4SGgEB7g?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MzY4SGgEB7g?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="430" height="300"></embed></object><br /><br />Of course, everybody wants to save the environment. I, for instance, print <i>very</i> little. I have a Linux BeBook to carry my documents along when I attend meetings and my ancient HP Laserjet 4p is on its second cartridge.<br /><br />But <i>I don't like it</i> when people are forbidding me something. It is sending the <i>wrong</i> message. Just like that 10:10 campaign which suggested that if you don't participate, you're up for elimination <i>(yes, you can <a href='http://www.1010global.org/uk/2010/10/sorry'>try to eradicate this movie from the web</a>, but so far I've always been able to track it down again. But keep up the good work, I love outsmarting you!)</i>.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/15480412" width="430" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><br /><br />So I set out <a href='http://www.saveaswwf.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Presse/Presseinfo_SAVE_AS_WWF_-_SAVE_A_TREE.wwf'>to crack it</a>. First step, I simply opened it with <tt>KGhostview</tt>. You may use any GhostScript viewer for that matter, but this one was simply available. Surprise, I was able to print it right away.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViLwDS0SZp75AyMdtjSsClVFj7sZL6p5fD6FSrJyrsClR9n5_pjeyT2mrLZzU2rtbVQk9kdA9MnAQQsmcwSqQk0je1eCMR3T1SW9yKbkt5ThAGxYPh6HyG2KOOjTO0fX_vi3q_dbwRSVV/s1600/Printing.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViLwDS0SZp75AyMdtjSsClVFj7sZL6p5fD6FSrJyrsClR9n5_pjeyT2mrLZzU2rtbVQk9kdA9MnAQQsmcwSqQk0je1eCMR3T1SW9yKbkt5ThAGxYPh6HyG2KOOjTO0fX_vi3q_dbwRSVV/s320/Printing.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546799153273744258" /></a><br /><br />Still, this only fixes the problem for the receiver of the file. If you want to send it to someone else and enable him to print the file, the problem remains.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5oqgilh2O0NjMEHtSydvMyI1jYicjNmGQx1yGOlj5phgKsjqL_Ogd3e9Ik-ckiSEOmOWicV3WShHd6wTIakXdBUBjggzrabwSV7K0LbceFC5FMOqqm1IOwmbqT0YMz5AeNAo3kDA1Ryi6/s1600/CannotPrint.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5oqgilh2O0NjMEHtSydvMyI1jYicjNmGQx1yGOlj5phgKsjqL_Ogd3e9Ik-ckiSEOmOWicV3WShHd6wTIakXdBUBjggzrabwSV7K0LbceFC5FMOqqm1IOwmbqT0YMz5AeNAo3kDA1Ryi6/s320/CannotPrint.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546799721639827282" /></a><br /><br />Simply issue these commands:<blockquote>pdftops Presseinfo_SAVE_AS_WWF_-_SAVE_A_TREE.wwf crack.ps<br />ps2pdf crack.ps crack.pdf</blockquote><br />The resulting file is a true PDF and fully printable. In the meanwhile, I've embedded this procedure in the <a href='http://freshmeat.net/projects/wwf-toolkit'>.wwf toolkit</a>, so if you happen to use <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-use-wwf-toolkit.html'>Linux</a> <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/wwf-driver-gets-competition.html'>or</a> <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/installing-wwf-toolkit-under-windows.html'>Windows</a> you're lucky.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOkW9O8pgOmcaoxZ401VWRrmAUgQnL8mfGN6Ge0XiBhUtXrhnoG7r_0Gwce4zWToNzi8yysK23PwgHryxbOP-2xZRe-xlVK7QIAPAmnhy970-Rb7WImydxxa80um7bVIe-SqxXj3h_15RS/s1600/Cracked.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOkW9O8pgOmcaoxZ401VWRrmAUgQnL8mfGN6Ge0XiBhUtXrhnoG7r_0Gwce4zWToNzi8yysK23PwgHryxbOP-2xZRe-xlVK7QIAPAmnhy970-Rb7WImydxxa80um7bVIe-SqxXj3h_15RS/s320/Cracked.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546800953169581410" /></a><br /><br />Ok, now go figure another way to save the world. This is certainly <i>not</i> a good thing to spend your donors money on.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> This WWF gadget becomes more pathetic by the minute. Many wonder why they didn't bring out a Windows version. Easy, the output is generated by the default OS/X 10.6.4 Quartz PDFContext engine. Windows doesn't feature such an engine, so they would have to add one. The few FOSS Windows PDF writers I am familiar with all use the GhostScript engine, so keep your eyes open. We might have a GPL violation on our hands before we know it.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> The futility of this initiative is illustrated by this video:<br /><br /><object width="430" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4wS1dv3iat8?fs=1&start=445"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4wS1dv3iat8?fs=1&start=445" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="430" height="300"></embed></object><br /><br />I always loved Penn & Teller!<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Members of the FOSS community, who also participate in the WWF, have sent <a href='http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/31330/'>the following letter</a>:<blockquote>With regard to your WWF file format. You need to be aware that this "file format" is in fact merely an encrypted .PDF file, with the print flag set to false (so the document can't be printed).<br /><br />What you should also be aware of is that any documents saved in this document "format" are trivially printable.<br /><br />Yes, trivially printable.<br /><br />All one needs do is open the document use The Free Open Source Software application GhostScript on Linux, and print the document. GhostScript by default ignores the Print Flag, and allows all documents opened with it to be printed.<br /><br />You should also e aware that most of the free (as in no cost) PDF viewers for Mac and Windows, use the Free Open Source GhostScript back end, so they too will ignore the Print Flag.<br /><br />Because your so called file format is in actuality simply a PDF document with a different file extension it is also trivially easy to create documents that look like your so called document format, but which don't function in the same way (ie the print flag not being set to false), which could lead to further degrading of your good name... as if this bit of silliness, and gross waste of your supporters money has not already done so, at least among myself and my friends, who have up until now been strong supporters of WWF<br /><br />If you really want to make a strong statement about conserving trees, reducing landfill (with toxic waste, like old computer parts) etc. Start promoting strongly the use of Free Software (FOSS) and the Linux Operating System for personal Computers.<br /><br />Free Open Source Software and particularly Linux based Operating Systems (such as Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Mandriva, openSuSe, PCLinuxOS, etc) are exceptionally Eco Friendly, because unlike their proprietary counterparts they do not arbitrarily change in ways that require, for example; the purchase of a new computer, thus making the old on redundant, and no longer usable (and eventually having it scrapped, and the parts sent to landfills), because Linux based Operating Systems will still function well, often exceptionally, on computer hardware that is 5 or 10, or even more, years old - that's a lot of computer hardware that would otherwise have ended up in landfills, and it's a lot of computer hardware that doesn't need to be manufactured.<br /><br />Our (myself and my friends) support of WWF is now, in light of your wastage, and frankly, quite silly solution to reducing deforestation, contingent on your actually doing and recommending sustainable, and effective means of reducing deforestation and toxic landfill.<br /><br />Please consider this letter carefully.</blockquote><br />I honestly hope this is the end of this fruitless initiative.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Obviously, the administrator of the <a href='http://www.facebook.com/saveaswwf'>Facebook</a> page cannot distinguish between making it and breaking it. To prove my point, I posted <a href='http://www.xs4all.nl/~thebeez/4tH/demowwf.wwf'>a valid .wwf file</a>, made by using standard Linux tools. "Wired" <a href='http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-12/03/wwf-file-format'>also mentioned it</a>, not too favorably. Read the comments on that page for yourself.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> <a href='http://www.facebook.com/saveaswwf'>Proof</a> that the WWF was deliberately out to frustrate less savvy users (Translated from German):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHiFNtXhkCtd93-whmuXgR1avoOiYDmusnPkfYxiTOHDZEA0C8w_4vEBa7IeXVJxeYbFTTA9dGJP2CXFB1JumzAlMTEVO5j-JSnB6Sz8lwwfxY29H0gsn7krOZT_ZEErjsDzjpc1cXiy-/s1600/FacebookWWF.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 183px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHiFNtXhkCtd93-whmuXgR1avoOiYDmusnPkfYxiTOHDZEA0C8w_4vEBa7IeXVJxeYbFTTA9dGJP2CXFB1JumzAlMTEVO5j-JSnB6Sz8lwwfxY29H0gsn7krOZT_ZEErjsDzjpc1cXiy-/s320/FacebookWWF.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547687716658709682" /></a><br /><blockquote>That's what it's all about. Of course you can specify that a PDF cannot to be printed. However, many people are not familiar with this feature. But those who are not computer savvy should be made aware of their choices.</blockquote><br />It's about as ethical as a car manufacturer who disconnects a cable to "raise awareness" of carbon emissions. Real petrolheads can reconnect such a cable in an instance while ordinary users are left frustrated. Deliberately preying on the ignorance of people is simply despicable.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> People are wondering why I did it and why I'm so persistent.<blockquote>Everywhere charity organizations like WWF are getting less donations. Consequence is that they're getting more aggressive and are shoving their ideology down our throats.<br /><br />It may be obvious that the ideas of WWF in this respect and FOSS are incompatible. It is the duty of the FOSS community to expose this scam and provide alternatives to give users back the control over their computers, so they can use it in any way they see fit.<br /><br />Furthermore, it exposes how the WWF are using their precious funds for a cause that is highly debatable in itself. We hope this will deter other organizations to walk similar paths.</blockquote><br />That's why.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> There have been <a href='http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27821&id=158395667536747&ref=mf'>unconfirmed messages</a> on the Facebook page that the OS/X version of the WWF driver "phones home". Is the WWF spreading spyware? And if it isn't, why doesn't it ask permission first - like any decent program?<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> It <i>is</i> <a href='http://www.facebook.com/#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=161943237181990&id=1230651534'>confirmed by WWF</a> that the OS/X driver "phones home". Allegedly only to check for a new version. The program did <i>not</i> explicitly ask permission when it was installed, neither did it inform the user in any way, form or shape of this behavior. It <i>cannot</i> be disabled.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> The best tip of 'em all. How to remove the driver from OS/X. There's no uninstall option, but it's simple:<blockquote>Delete /Applications/SAVE AS WWF.app <br />Delete /Library/PDF Services/SAVE AS WWF</blockquote><br />Finished. The world is safe again. If you're <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-wildlife-fund-wwf-format-cracked.html?showComment=1296227519944#c2606319396506074645'>lucky</a>.. If not, maybe <a href='http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Printing/Conceptual/PDF_Workflow/pdfwf_concepts/pdfwf_concepts.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000167-TPXREF101'>this</a> helps.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Bad news for the "Save as WWF" campaign. According to <a href='http://www.printweek.com/news/1047152/WWF-Germanys-saveaswwf-PDF-anti-printing-campaign-exposes-internal-rifts/'>Printweek.com</a> it has caused a rift within the WWF itself. WWF International director of corporate relations Maria Boulos warned that the campaign was "misleading" and might "cost them a partnership in France". Boulos requested that the english-language site be shut down "immediately and temporarily" until the necessary amendments could be made.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Yup, it has entered <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWF_%28file_format%29'>Wikipedia</a>, featuring yours truly. Note I had nothing to do with it. Just added a few missing citations.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-43960923375813112010-11-21T11:55:00.021+01:002011-02-20T11:16:51.122+01:00"RTL Gemist" kijken op Linux<b>Update:</b> <i>Sinds 20 januari 2011 werkt deze truuk <u>niet</u> meer. RTL XL is overgeschakeld op een speciale iPad applicatie</i>.<br /><br />Sinds de overgang naar RTL XL kunnen Linux gebruikers geen video's meer bekijken van de RTL site. "RTL Gemist" is met een truukje echter wel te gebruiken. Daarvoor hoeft <b>geen</b> Moonlight geinstalleerd te worden!<br /><br />Als je naar de iPad site surft, wordt je automatisch doorgelinkt naar RTL XL. Dat komt doordat de site de "User agent" bekijkt, die iedere browser ongemerkt doorstuurt. Daardoor heeft de site door dat hij eigenlijk met de Linux versie van Firefox benaderd wordt en reageert overeenkomstig.<br /><br />Die "User agent" is echter te wijzigen. Download eerst <a href='http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/'>deze add-on</a>, de "User agent switcher". Herstart Firefox en ga naar het menu "Tools". Daar is nu een optie bijgekomen, namelijk de "Default User Agent". Kies "Edit User Agent" en druk op "New". Vul daarna het formulier als volgt in:<br /><table><tr><td valign="top"><b>Description</b></td><td valign="top">iPad</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><b>User Agent</b></td><td valign="top">Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><b>App Code Name</b></td><td valign="top">Mozilla</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><b>App Name</b></td><td valign="top">Netscape</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><b>App Version</b></td><td valign="top">5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><b>Platform</b></td><td valign="top">iPad</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><b>Vendor</b></td><td valign="top">Apple Computer, Inc.</td></tr></table><br />Laat <b>Vendor Sub</b> gewoon <i>leeg</i>. We zijn nu klaar om "RTL Gemist" te bekijken. Kies "Tools", "Default User Agent", "iPad" en surf naar <a href='http://www.rtl.nl/service/gemist/device/ipad/'>http://www.rtl.nl/service/gemist/device/ipad/</a>. Als je nu bij RTL XL terecht komt, is er iets mis gegaan. Zie je het scherm in de afbeelding, veel plezier!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxd8Njd5CFdZvEAjs3hg4z6_thU7IMNA_vInwrMC0jDFFGf8DPUQePekJZezyy7q8zb7RLDlweXtMx22RRLUZLTGCX-Ch9imOkr2BoAt_TbIva_reuvZKR1MCFjB8Jv0G2NC36QBXlOpAa/s1600/RTLGemist.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxd8Njd5CFdZvEAjs3hg4z6_thU7IMNA_vInwrMC0jDFFGf8DPUQePekJZezyy7q8zb7RLDlweXtMx22RRLUZLTGCX-Ch9imOkr2BoAt_TbIva_reuvZKR1MCFjB8Jv0G2NC36QBXlOpAa/s320/RTLGemist.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541963121231882530" /></a><br />Overigens werkt dit truukje ook perfect op <a href='http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/'>"Uitzending gemist"</a> van de publieke omroep. Je Linux bak wordt nu herkend als iPad.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> <a href='http://rtlgemist.jeffreywashere.nl'>Deze site</a> geeft de video's ook door, ongeveer in gelijke vorm als de iPad versie hierboven, maar dan zonder de hack. Voor zolang als het duurt, uiteraard!<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> "De Pers brengt vanmiddag een web app uit voor de iPad: <a href='http://www.i-pers.nl'>www.i-pers.nl</a> (werkt alleen op iPads)". Nee hoor!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioEN2OqzeCHHOnkVNXr4YOSe455BIfFrkYqsVEW1e774Rs46sTdDN6nm3dW1YBLUIitwcEs_xPlwXX_0-KpT4bOcU9f_VJTD4Xi7U9y4DfG3WcQ-KjG49trJfCGAx61WS7VPFYDlr-X-Fa/s1600/i-pers.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioEN2OqzeCHHOnkVNXr4YOSe455BIfFrkYqsVEW1e774Rs46sTdDN6nm3dW1YBLUIitwcEs_xPlwXX_0-KpT4bOcU9f_VJTD4Xi7U9y4DfG3WcQ-KjG49trJfCGAx61WS7VPFYDlr-X-Fa/s320/i-pers.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545387993410668466" /></a>The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-20736560287208370442010-11-20T13:06:00.024+01:002010-11-29T23:37:12.959+01:00Dutch treat: RTL XL's major FAILRecently RTL (a Dutch commercial television network) relaunched their website, moving entirely from classical Windows media to Microsoft Silverlight. On this site, you can not only play clips, but also watch their news reports and various other selections of their programs. Very handy and consequently quite popular. More so because with Firefox and a <a href='http://membres.multimania.fr/sethnakht/FAQ%20MediaPlayerConnectivity.html'>few</a> <a href='http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/'>additions</a> you could watch it on almost every platform - or even every browser.<br /><br />Silverlight, on the contrary, poses many problems. Few Linux users are able to play anything at all, even after installing the <a href='http://www.osnews.com/story/21586/Mono_Moonlight_Patent_Encumbered_Or_Not_'>patent-infested</a> <a href='http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight'>Moonlight plugin</a>. But also Windows users are experiencing problems, <a href='http://www.google.nl/support/forum/p/chrome/thread?tid=6ec4d9c2ee8c04fe&hl=nl'>especially with Firefox and Chrome</a>. The only combination that seems to work reasonably is Internet Explorer 8 with Silverlight 4.0. RTL has acknowledged this, but for the time being, there is no fix in sight.<br /><br />Since the use of Internet Explorer has fallen <a href='http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3906921/Internet-Explorers-Share-Dips-Below-50.htm'>below to the 50% mark</a>, they should experience a drop in the number of visitors. That should explain why they are advertising that much. Yes, RTL, I'd love to visit, but don't limit yourself to IE8/SL4 users. They are slowly becoming a minority.<br /><br />But your troubles are not over. Microsoft's strategy is changing. They are quickly moving <a href='http://mashable.com/2010/10/29/microsoft-silverlgiht-html/'>from Silverlight to HTML5</a>. So all that money you invested in a top notch website is simply wasted!<br /><br />Following the "market leader" is not a safe choice anymore, deal with it, you dummy RTL CIO's. Do your own research and look where the market is going. One thing is for sure, it is not going to be Microsoft. Microsoft is already a niche platform where tablets, cell phones and MP3 players are concerned. Microsoft was never a real player on the web. Apache <i>rules</i> and that is the way it has always been.<br /><br />Microsoft <i>is</i> in trouble. The man that should have given it a new direction <a href='http://blogs.computerworld.com/17185/ray_ozzie_leaves_microsoft_one_more_visionary_walks_out_the_door'>has left</a>. <a href='http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/229196.asp'>The CEO sells 2 billion in stock</a> (remember <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Online'>WorldOnline</a>?). Getting the message? A company in trouble is going to make strange moves. And making your whole technology strategy dependent on it is not a safe bet.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> I just found <a href='http://www.luistercijfers.nl/nieuws-tv-nederland/1468-rtl-xl-video-on-demand-dienst-van-rtl-nederland'>the "dummy" in question</a>: <a href='http://nl.linkedin.com/in/arnootto'>Arno Otto</a>, Managing Director Digital Media of RTL Nederland.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> From the <a href='http://www.rtl.nl/service/xl/support/'>RTL XL</a> FAQ: <blockquote>Warning!<br />Dear viewer, at this moment we're experiencing some problems with RTL XL, which is not compatible with Google Chrome at the time being. There are problems with the Silverlight plugin. We do our best to fix this error as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.</blockquote><br /><b>Update:</b> I've found a way to watch "RTL Gemist" <i>without</i> installing Moonlight. You can <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/11/rtl-gemist-kijken-op-linux.html'>get instructions here</a> (Dutch).<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> <a href='http://www.kijkonderzoek.nl/component/Itemid,47/option,com_kijkcijfers/file,ds-0-p'>Confirmed:</a> "Due to a technical problem there are temporarily no statistics collected from the RTL streams". If there is a problem that's bad enough, but maybe RTL doesn't <i>want to be bothered</i> with statistics right now. Go figure, if there is a sharp drop in the number of visitors that means their expensive project has failed miserably. Admitting that in the boardroom is hard enough, try admitting that in public..<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> Another indication that I'm on to something. What does Google suggest when you're searching for RTL XL?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5oV5Oi4P5fMNMyCxmQg2oEgQdGGBOyxBlhKWRHYKbGD9qNG9600MseE2Z5UznwnddTc3jlSzi8sEfZyHKJHzwQwVtPxlIrQNNeDWM02P5e_dUl_7Xop2qd5XAn16bZlMcH-tCguf-MIl/s1600/rtlxlwerktniet.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5oV5Oi4P5fMNMyCxmQg2oEgQdGGBOyxBlhKWRHYKbGD9qNG9600MseE2Z5UznwnddTc3jlSzi8sEfZyHKJHzwQwVtPxlIrQNNeDWM02P5e_dUl_7Xop2qd5XAn16bZlMcH-tCguf-MIl/s320/rtlxlwerktniet.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542005078891502610" /></a>Which translates to "<b>RTL XL doesn't work</b>".<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> RTL XL now <a href='http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/rtl-nieuws/id398467673?mt=8'>sells a dedicated iPad application</a> for only 79 eurocents. That's not very expensive. But what do the customers think?<blockquote>I relied on all the rave reviews but it is a setback with a vengeance. Probably the entire RTL editors left a positive review. E.g. a huge picture with just three lines of text, stating: "Click here to view video". You can click all you want, but no video pops up. It seems that the application is still in testing. The live stream is of a very low quality. All in all a waste of money, even for 79 cents. There are plenty of better alternatives to see the news.</blockquote><br />It seems my fellow countryman is wrong: it may take some time before my workaround is defeated.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-34999810022527531362010-09-11T11:18:00.025+02:002012-06-28T18:19:06.128+02:00An average Windows XP dayYou probably know by now that I don't touch anything but Linux in my private life. I got a Linux laptop, a Linux mini-laptop, a Linux eBook reader, a Linux television and an Android cell phone. However, in my professional life I do not have that choice.<br /><br />In the Netherlands virtually every single company uses Windows. Windows is not a very secure Operating System, so everything is bolted down. I cannot install new programs, I cannot kill system processes, I cannot add any buttons or change the menu. The whole thing usually boots from the network. So, don't comment that "this program adds that functionality" or "open up a settings menu and change this or that". It doesn't work.<br /><br />During the day, these are the annoyances I have to deal with:<ul><li>Bootup takes up to twenty minutes. It probably has to do with the fact that my entire profile has to be transferred to my workstation. That's stupid. Can't you just mount a <tt>/home</tt> directory with all my settings already there?</li><li>I get a message I cannot be logged in. I scroll down and see that the harddisk is full. I call the helpdesk, they log in and wipe all those useless profiles that have been accumulated over time. Half an hour later they're done.</li><li>The desktop comes up, but clicking desktop icons doesn't have any effect. I have to wait for an additional minute or two. In the meanwhile I've started and shutdown my Ben Nanonote over a dozen times.</li><li>Finally Outlook comes up. I have to wait an additional minute or two before clicking any folders has any effect.</li><li>Firefox comes up, I have to import all Explorer settings all over again. My passwords are lost. I have to reinstall and configure all add-ons all over again, including the FTP accounts of FireFTP.</li><li>I don't have any usable "notes" program, so I use the Outlook notes. Which moron designed this? It isn't even a regular window, so I can't scroll down.</li><li>Anything that Outlook considers to be a "dialog" blocks Outlook entirely. KMail does that a lot better. Why can't I copy an email address from the recipients dialog?</li><li>More Outlook woes. Using Excel to send the spreadsheet as an attachment freezes the entire desktop. I can't even save the file and do it manually. I kill both Excel and Outlook and start all over again.</li><li>Opening an RTF file attachment of 2K in Word takes minutes.</li><li>Copying and pasting items in a message changes the style over and over again. I change to pure ASCII text <i>again</i>.</li><li>Even pure ASCII text doesn't work the way it is supposed to be. More editing.</li><li>Clicking the box "The attachment is still open in [bladibla]. Do you want to close the message anyway?" for the zillionth time today.</li><li>If you <i>don't</i> get that message you may be even worse off. If you happen to open the attachment, manipulate it, save it and then close the email, you may get the message "Do you want to save it?" If you answer <b>YES</b>, your original attachment is lost. If you answer <b>NO</b> your changed file is lost. Yes, even if you saved it to disk. Which moron thought <i>that</i> was a good idea?</li><li>Mailbox full. I have to create a .PST file, copy all my messages there, put the .PST file on my memory-stick, fire up my laptop, import the .PST in Thunderbird, harvest the resulting file somewhere hidden in the bowels of the C: drive, copy it to Pegasus Mail, rename it, transfer all the messages in the correct folders and delete the .PST file.</li><li>I copy a template SQL statement in the braindead Notepad editor. Now I have to fill in the parameters. Although my desktop is quite cluttered, I cannot minimize all windows, nor open a new desktop and transfer one of the windows there, nor tell one window to stay on top of all the others.</li><li>I've copied one of the parameters, but when logging in to PHPadmin, I forgot all my passwords were lost. Since there is no Klipper, I have to open up my password file (sorry, no KDE Wallet, it's an ASCII file), copy and paste the password in the appropriate box, open up the message again and copy the parameter again.</li><li>When selecting a file in the file dialog, it has forgotten all my settings. I want a detailed list, sorted by modification date. I'm not even mentioning the fact I have to resize the window each and every time, nor that it seems to forget all the time what my default directory was for that program.</li><li>While editing a Word document, it changes styles all the time for no obvious reason. I have to correct that all the time. God, I miss WP 5.1..</li><li>While creating a table of contents it inserts empty pages. The table of contents itself doesn't honor the margin settings. Trying to correct that, well, you catch my drift.</li><li>Word document looks really good now. I save and reload it, only to find that my images are all over the place now, partially overlapping the text.</li><li>It fails while trying to generate a PDF file, simply because I have the previous version still open in Adobe Reader.</li><li>It seems unable to remember my default printer, not even for this session. When I'm too hasty, it sends my output to the printer in the first floor. Hurray! Fortunately, I'm not working on the top floor of the Empire State Building.</li><li>It fails to mount my memorystick, because it overlaps a network drive. Another memorystick works fine. The same memorystick mounts flawlessly on another Windows machine.</li><li>Windows seems to freeze for the zillionth time today. I frantically press <tt>[CTRL]-[ALT]-[DEL]</tt> because clicking the taskbar doesn't work anymore. The virusscanner has obviously kicked in, eating away between 25% and 50% of my CPU. Can't kill it. Work becomes virtually impossible, since the machine takes seconds to comply after each and every command.</li><li>Windows asks me for the zillionth time, how it has to open a simple ASCII file. Yes, try to find the appropriate program on the web, you moron. Can't select an alternative editor because it has been installed as an .MSI.</li><li>Notepad garbles my file, because it can't deal with Unix ASCII. I have to save it and reopen it with Wordpad.</li><li><tt>[CTRL]-T</tt> doesn't work in Explorer v6. I have to open a menu, select a new window and enter the link. More clutter on the desktop.</li><li>Explorer explains to me for the zillionth time that it is very dangerous to open a .SVG file. I have to open the options, allow it and then it will finally show me what I want. I made a small error and have to open the file again. Explorer explains to me for the zillionth time that it is very dangerous to open a .SVG file, etc.</li><li>I press <tt>[PRT-SCRN]</tt> and try to copy the image in a HTML message. It won't do it. I get some cryptic error message. I open up Paint and try to paste the image again. No problem. I save it as .PNG, include it as an attachment and off we go. When I open the message again to view the image (check and doublecheck) Windows complains it can't open the image, because it is an unrecognized filetype. Maybe I want to look for an appropriate program on the web which I can't install anyway.</li><li>Another messagebox pops up: "You copied a lot of data to the clipboard. Do you want to retain them?" Since when do I have to manage your buffers?! Who is the Operating System here?! Deal with it!!</li><li>After uttering more F-words than an average Jerry Springer episode featuring Gordon Ramsay, my workday is finally over. I try to shutdown Windows. It takes another five or so minutes. Others would probably run away, but I dutifully wait until the thing has closed. The tramway is gone. Now I have to wait in the rain for ten minutes until the next one.</li><li>Dripping wet I enter the tramway and fire up the Nanonote. After I finish sneezing it is there.</li><li>I wonder what is so "professional" about "Windows XP Professional". Seems rather lame to me. How much was it they spent on usability tests?</li><li>Whatever happened to the Windows XP Media Centers? Haven't heard about them for some time..</li></ul><br /><b>Update:</b> I got a lot of feedback to this post, both verbally and in writing. Some commenters blame it on the setup of Windows XP in this particular company. But I'm not just writing about performance issues. A better implementation does not fix the usability issues and the obvious bugs (especially in Word and Outlook).<br /><br />Due to this feedback, I can add the following annoyances to the list:<ul><li>A document written in Word 2007 and saved as Word 2000 crashes Word 2000 consistently.</li><li>Access writes Excel files in a different (older) format and cannot subsequently read them without conversion.</li><li>Word 2003 shows only the first 11 pages of a 21 page document. A full uninstall of all addons, registry cleaning and other measures are required before it behaves again as it should.</li><li>Reading an alien format into Excel 2000 and subsequently trying to email it leads to a complete breakdown of Outlook.</li><li>Word 2000 cannot correctly read an RTF file. Tables get garbled.</li></ul><b>Update:</b> a new collegue asked me: "Can I work with LyX here?" I answered him: "Yes, you can. They should be used to it by now. Just don't forget to install Latex2RTF." "Great!" he said "That saves me 40% of my time. That's the time I usually spend to correct the layout." Nuff said. Scrap Word. 40% more productivity gained by using an application that costs you $0. Good ROI.The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813856659277593071.post-76902126010438154202010-08-30T19:00:00.013+02:002010-08-30T19:28:34.159+02:00My life with Ben, episode 3In the previous two episodes, I've told you how I've carried the <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/08/pure-fun-but-not-for-faint-hearted.html'>Ben Nanonote</a> along for several weeks, just to see how it behaves in the real world. In short, it has been used as an <a href='http://wejp.k.vu/gmu/gmu-0-7-1-released'>MP3 player</a>, a <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-life-with-ben-episode-1.html'>small wordprocessor</a> and as a <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-life-with-ben-episode-2.html'>miniature system console</a>. <br /><br />But since it also has a <a href='http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Nupdf'>capable PDF viewer</a> I wondered whether it could free me from printing those papers just before a meeting. You know, these entries in your schedule that you become aware of just five minutes before they start. In the meanwhile you have to collect all the documents required from various sources and locations and quickly send them to the printer since your regular laptop is out of juice or its use during the meeting is - if you happen to work for certain technologically conservative companies - "undesired".<br /><br />At that moment you will notice that a "printer queue" refers to the number of persons waiting before their print jobs have finished and if it doesn't that's because the device in question is either out of paper or simply jammed beyond repair.<br /><br />So wouldn't it be nice if you could simply put all these documents on your Ben Nanonote and carry them along? Sure it would. The only thing keeping you from doing that is that your boss probably selected that "other" Operating System and ditto Office suite.<br /><br />Fortunately, most companies offer PDF printing capabilities nowadays, so you can save your documents in that format. If not, there are several FOSS or freeware utilities you can use like <a href='http://freepdfxp.de'>FreePDF</a>, <a href='http://www.cutepdf.com'>CutePDF</a> or <a href='http://www.pdfforge.org'>PDFCreator</a>. Note the latter has been accused of installing spyware, despite its FOSS license. If you're using <i>any</i> FOSS productivity programs, you probably have that capability already. Anyway, whatever method you use, generating PDF files is usually a matter of seconds.<br /><br />The big question is, how do you get them to your Nanonote that quickly. USB doesn't work on MS-Windows - unless you're only interested in charging the battery of the Nanonote - and chances are your uSD card contains only ext2 file systems. But help is underway, because it <i>is</i> possible to read and write ext2 file systems under that "other" Operating System by using <a href='http://www.fs-driver.org'>Ext2IFS</a> (freeware) or <a href='http://www.ext2fsd.com'>Ext2FSD</a> (FOSS). <br /><br />Both are very easy to install under XP, but I had a bit more luck with Ext2FSD. Ext2FSD is definitely recommended when you use one of the <a href='http://translate.google.nl/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.karl-reichert.com%2F%3Fx%3Dentry%3Aentry100427-221142&sl=de&tl=en&act=url'>latest</a> <a href='http://blog.karl-reichert.com/?x=entry:entry100427-221142'>incarnations</a> of that "other" Operating System, because Ext2IFS hasn't been updated since late October 2008.<br /><br />For accessing the uSD card I use an SD card adapter, although USB adapters are also available. First I installed Ext2IFS, rebooted, inserted the uSD card and started Explorer. Then I uninstalled it and repeated the same procedure with Ext2FSD. Both times I was asked whether I wanted to format my uSD card - which I didn't, of course. Ext2IFS was consistent in its behavior, but Ext2FSD complied when I accessed the drive with MinGW <tt>bash</tt>. After that, Ext2FSB worked flawlessly, reading and writing the ext2 file system and unmounting it cleanly.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgt1aDVr13-ZTIVG3YDPgp5fCmVg809SgbUaYRp6y9W50VVcXq27wdcMtAFa04gOEybD02R9uN5PXdcU7kI2X_Ocnh5VAyJQdtOHwENA6Ktoh0g4xiWt-2CQFnhTnVx7qFY7q1pSgHUeAn/s320/linuxdrive.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511253985933750978" /><br /><br />I must note I've been pretty careful, shutting the Ben down entirely before inserting or removing the uSD card. You can probably mount and unmount it while in operation, but because booting the Ben is a matter of seconds I simply didn't want to take the risk. <br /><br />In a previous episode I <a href='http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/08/pure-fun-but-not-for-faint-hearted.html'>already reviewed</a> "nupdf", which is a pretty decent PDF viewer - although not entirely bugfree. It is very well suited for reading office documents, which are usually fifteen pages or less. You can even keep two "nupdf" instances in memory concurrently and switch between them by pressing <tt>[CTRL]-[ALT]-[Fx]</tt>. However, "nupdf" does not blank the screen automatically (like "<a href='http://wejp.k.vu/gmu/gmu-0-7-1-released'>gmu</a>"), so you might drain the battery a little bit quicker than usual.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn-gTIPxxT4YPcaqJHZ-LBs687yda6Fh1xNv9TbfztCWoreL98-CBw3DP6i6V2Y7gf3pLxVhuj3wSTsDKmJlnnzLKvP-5I-u7rsQbzt2G5PWFVfD6AJhIFeCEH5UlLXQxwYacDC5lEcEmC/s320/Nupdf.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511249888616215042" /><br /><br />I must admit I haven't tried using "nupdf" for reading entire books, but I wonder whether it is well suited for that purpose. You'll either have to strain your eyes to read the small, grainy print or scroll from the left to the right all the time. Whatever choice you make, I can assure you it is not going to be a comfortable read. Note this is hardly the fault of the developer, but rather a logical consequence of using a device with these limitations for this kind of task.<br /><br />Still, for a quick peek you can't go wrong, especially since you can keep "<a href='http://fast10.vsb.cz/brozovsky/data/ports/'>hnb</a>" open in another console to make a quick note. If you keep your uSD card synchronized with your desktop, you're prepared to go to any meeting at any time. Never mind the print queues..The Beez'http://www.blogger.com/profile/14718864828133872589noreply@blogger.com3