fusedwithajuice.net

virt-manager and Apple’s X11 keyboard mapping.

With the default X11 keyboard mapping that Apple provides you can never ctrl-alt out of the virt-manager console. Put this into your .Xmodmap and everything should be fine:

clear Mod1
keycode 66 = Alt_L
keycode 69 = Alt_R
add Mod1 = Alt_L
add Mod1 = Alt_R

Stolen form here.

Sick.

Been sick on and off for a couple of months now. Not good. I take multi-vitamin every day but a friend has suggested grabbing an iron supplement also. Must investigate further.

So anyway, due to my sickness induced lethargy I’ve been bumming around the house and playing a couple of games:

Red Dead Redemption
This dragged on for a bit and I actually put it down and didn’t play it for a good month or so at one point. It’s a good game but the ending is a bit sudden and the “second ending” was unnecessary.

Halo: Reach
When I first started playing this I thought it was rubbish. The first few missions started and I didn’t really know what I was supposed to be doing, the objects weren’t clear and I couldn’t understand a word my squad mates were saying (an artifact of muxing 5.1 to 2 channel stereo?) and the overall quality seemed a bit shit but luckily it really picked up after that. 

The main thing I liked about Reach is that it is a lot more cinematic than it’s predecessors. You can see the battle for the planet raging around you in the distance. In one mission you are fighting in a canyon aiming to destroy an AA gun. Once you take down the gun a massive space cruiser come in over the canyon wall. It’s great!

Managing multiple iTunes libraries.

Saving this here for later.

It is actually very easy to create a second iTunes library. All that needs to be done is to press the Shift key (Alt on Macs) before launching iTunes. A small popup window will be displayed asking the user to choose or create a library.

Selecting the create a library option will create a new iTunes library that acts independently of all other iTunes libraries. It should also be noted that iTunes will always open the library that has been used the last time iTunes was executed. Switching libraries would again require pressing the Shift key during launch.

Vim + Tabs = Awesome.

Just discovered tabbed windows in Vim. Totally awesome.

# vim -p filename1.txt filename2.txt

Then in command mode ‘gt’ and ‘gT’ to cycle through the tabs.

The Social Network.

Finally got around to watching The Social Network and thought it was pretty damn good. Particularly liked how they showed the real tools he was using (wget, MySQL, Linux, KDE).

Alan Wake.

Just finished Alan Wake by Remedy, what a fantastic game! I don’t normally like anything remotely survival-horror as I don’t think a valid game design mechanic is that your character has a maximum of 2 bullets at any one time and takes 30 seconds to complete a 360 degree turn. In Alan Wake on the other hand you always have enough ammo, but not too much and you can actually run and dodge properly. Wooo!

The plot is excellent, although those looking for a definite ending should probably stay away as the plot (and especially the ending) are open to interpretation in the best David Lynch style (not surprising since the developers reference Twin Peaks as a source of inspiration).

The  main criticism I have are that the character models look a bit dated and blocky by todays standards but the environments are absolutely gorgeous and the developers even went into so much detail that the stars in the sky are actually accurate for the are in world where the game takes place.

I would say, and I’ve seen this echoed in other reviews, that this is the closest thing yet to that much hated term Interactive Movie. Highly recommended.

Finally.

Finally moving into my apartment this weekend. I’ll finally be able to settle down and feel like I’m at home. 100m from the gym and a 15 minute walk to work, it’s going to be great!

SSL Gotcha.

Never having a reason to play much with SSL certificates previously I was caught out today when a client using some older software wasn’t able to authenticate our GoDaddy issued certificate. Adding the gd_bundle.crt (provided by GoDaddy) to our load balancers allowed our clients software to follow the trusted authority chain to the CA that issued GoDaddy their certificate (which it recognised) and was then able to authenticate the certificate GoDaddy had issued to us.

Links:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_certificate_authorities
• http://help.godaddy.com/article/868