I’m quite happy with my alien operating system running along my other applications on my Mac. The biggest gripe is the keyboard.

• Parallels maps the Windows Alt key to the Mac alt/option key. Ok, Alt to alt seems quite logical, but my fingers don’t care what is written on the key – they remember by position. And the Windows Alt key sits right to the left of the space key!
• Though it’s handy to be able to tab out of Windows with Cmd-Tab, I can’t really tab back in. When I change the focus to Windows using Cmd-Tab, I have to press Cmd-I before my key presses are sent to Windows again (I know that I can use the mouse, but the keyboard is so much faster). I like when things are logical and symmetrical because that is what makes life easier.
• The support for AltGr (I have a Swiss German keyboard and need AltGr for all the programmers best friends: []{}|\@#) is weak, almost nonexistent. A couple of weeks back Parallels mapped the Enter key of Apple Laptops (the one to the right of the right Cmd key) as AltGr – without telling anyone. I don’t remember where I first found about this life saver, probably macosxhints, but surely not the Parallels help.
• As of the newest build (1970), Enter as AltGr has silently vanished again. And only hidden in the forum pages are instructions how to get back the AltGr behaviour involving the Terminal. This is not the Mac way to configure things! (Basically you have to create the file /Library/Parallels/.keyboard_config containing one word: numenterisaltgr and no LF following it).
• I dream of having the same keyboard layout inside and outside Parallels Desktop (e.g. using the option key to compose all these special characters in Windows), and perhaps even having a combined list of OS X and Windows applications when switching with Cmd-Tab.

Ist es nicht angenehm, sich ein Buch vorlesen zu lassen? Am liebsten natürlich ortsungebunden, vom iPod – bloss wie gelangt das Hörbuch in den iPod? Bisher geschah das wie folgt:

1. Die Import-Einstellungen von iTunes auf AAC/gesprochene Podcasts setzen
2. CD einschieben, alle Tracks markieren und die CD-Titel gruppieren (unter Erweitert)
3. Jetzt die CD importieren.
4. Die Schritte 2 und 3 für alle CDs wiederholen. Am Schluss hat man einen Titel pro CD.
5. Den Namen der Titel editieren und nummerieren (sofern das nicht schon automatisch geschah, weil der Titel abgefragt und gefunden wurde). So ist es später auf dem iPod einfach, die CDs in der richtigen Reihenfolge zu hören.
6. Alle Titel markieren und das AppleScript Make Bookmarkable anwenden. Damit wird u.a. die Option Wiedergabeposition merken gesetzt und die Datei-Endung des Titels auf m4b gesetzt. Dies muss so sein, damit das Buch bei iTunes 7 in der Bibliothek unter Hörbücher eingereiht wird. (Dieser Schritt ist Apple-spezifisch. Bei Windows gibt es keine AppleScripts und für dasselbe sind wesentlich kompliziertere Aktionen nötig. Die Suchbegriffe m4b windows sind dein Freund…)
7. Synchronisieren. Für mich hat es sich bewährt, eine intelligente Wiedergabeliste extra zum Synchronisieren zu verwenden, mit den Kriterien Zähler ist 0 und Genre ist Hörbücher (vorausgesetzt, dass man nach dem Importieren das Genre richtig setzt). Damit erreicht man, dass Hörbücher automatisch vom iPod gelöscht werden, wenn man sie einmal gehört hat.

Neu geht es (nur mit Apple) auch etwas einfacher: mit dem Audiobook Builder. Die Schritte hier:

We got an Alitalia flight with a stopover in Milan Malpensa for our holidays. I must say that we regret having chosen Alitalia.

The negative experiences started already when checking in in Zurich. Our connection flight from Milan was not open yet for a through checkin. No problem, we thought, we’ve got enough time to do that in Milan.

But there was no transfer desk when we arrived in Milan. When you first arrive, transfer desks are sign-posted, but when you get to the desks, there are no more signs. And even before the boarding desk was open, a huge queue started to build up. So I went to a nearby desk and asked, where we could get our boarding passes. Just at the boarding desk, was the answer. When we finally wanted to board, we were told that we had to queue at another desk to get a boarding pass.

Kellyerin ist von Gimmelwald nach Stechelberg geschwebt und Marcel hat das Video davon gefunden. In der Realität ist die Fahrt über den Rand der Fluh – direkt nach dem ersten und einzigen Mast – noch viel eindrücklicher!

There are already many solutions to the “Santa Claus Problem” by John Trono¹. It’s a “problem simple to understand and yet far from easy to solve”; the author’s original solution (based on semaphores) was only partly correct. The probably most known analysis of the problem was written by Mordechai Ben-Ari², who also provided solutions in Ada95 and Java. This is the original problem description:

Santa Claus sleeps in his shop up at the North Pole, and can only be wakened by either all nine reindeer being back from their year long vacation on the beaches of some tropical island in the South Pacific, or by some elves who are having some difficulties making the toys. One elf’s problem is never serious enough to wake up Santa (otherwise, he may never get any sleep), so, the elves visit Santa in a group of three. When three elves are having their problems solved, any other elves wishing to visit Santa must wait for those elves to return. If Santa wakes up to find three elves waiting at his shop’s door, along with the last reindeer having come back from the tropics, Santa has decided that the elves can wait until after Christmas, because it is more important to get his sleigh ready as soon as possible. (It is assumed that the reindeer don’t want to leave the tropics, and therefore they stay there until the last possible moment. They might not even come back, but since Santa is footing the bill for their year in paradise… This could also explain the quickness in their delivering of presents, since the reindeer can’t wait to get back to where it is warm.) The penalty for the last reindeer to arrive is that it must get Santa while the others wait in a warming hut before being harnessed to the sleigh.

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At work, we started using dmake in 1991 (or even earlier) for building the firmware for the Vending Machine Controller Euro'90. The firmware consisted mostly of PL/M and C code and the compilers suffered from the DOS limitation of 127 characters per command line. Dennis Vadura’s dmake 3.70 (hosted by the University of Waterloo and available as DOS version) featured the $(mktmp ) macro that let me create any needed temporary config and response files.

Über dem Esstisch in Zumbühls Städeli hängt inmitten der “Ahnengalerie” auch das Gimmelwald-Lied, schön gerahmt und wohl schon einige Jahrzehnte alt. Von der Version auf der Gimmelwald-Homepage unterscheidet es sich vor allem durch den Refrain, das Fehlen einer Zeile in der dritten Strophe und einige orthografische Feinheiten, etwa der Schreibweise “Gimelwald”:

Gimmelwald-Lied

Fritz Lüthi

Uf Gimelwald da heimers so
sin epa trurig oder froh.
wes z’Läben is chan bringen.
U’ z’wärchen hei’mer wäger all
i Fäld u Wald, in Hus u Stall
o z’Muetti mid de Chinden
Gimelwald, Gimelwald, griess Gott
mis schenna Gimelwald.

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One week per year I want to connect my Powerbook to the internet using GPRS. In principle this is easy: choose the right modem script in the Network Preferences and fill in the provider details.

Modem Script

Unfortunately, the Modem Scripts that come with OS X are rather old. I tried the newest one (for a T39), but failed. I asked the Swisscom hotline for help, but they told me that they don’t support Apple Computers and directed me to the commercial solution from Novamedia.de (“Mobile High Speed” for €87).

Auszug aus den geänderten besonderen Bestimmungen (PDF) vom Februar 2006 (Kapitel 6, Fair Use):

Der Kunde darf durch die Nutzung seiner Internetanknüpfung andere Nutzer nicht beeinträchtigen, hindern oder einschränken. Insbesondere während den Spitzenzeiten zwischen 16 und 24 Uhr darf der Kunde das IP-Netz durch das andauernde Ausschöpfen seiner maximalen Übertragungskapazität (excessive usage) für die Peer-to-Peer Nutzung, das Betreiben von Gameservern, den Download von Foren usw. nicht in einer Weise belasten, welche die Performance anderer Kunden beeinträchtigen würde.

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According to the iSync Device List, the Motorola C350 is supported by iSync. But my phone was not found.

There are small differences between the supported model and mine. Using USB Prober¹ my device announces itself as:

Device VendorID/ProductID:   0x22B8/0x5802   (Motorola PCS)

whereas iSync expects² a ProductID of 0x3802 for the C350.

Instead of editing the iSync plist file I created an iSync Plugin as Rui Carmo described in his detailed iSync Plugins Howto.