First off, I know it’s been a while – but it’s been half term and Jules and I have been “relaxing”(tm) by re-decorating the kitchen. I’ve also been busy adding more spam sites to the block list on the server.
Anyway, today’s little pearl comes from a combination of a nice Polish chap, the Nokia n95 8gb and a load of hard work in getting things up and sorted. Sounds interesting?
How about running Windows 3.1 on your N95
First off, you’ll need to install the port of DOS box for Arm. You can download the file from the site here.
You’ll need to extract the file to your memory card (second drive) and then take the following steps ;
Use your file explorer to install every file within the Install directory
Now try to install the DosBox_Full.sisx
If that fails due to insufficient memory, then install the DosBox_Slim.sisx
Next, you’ll need to install the OS package. You can download it from the site here.
Unrar the package so that the Data directory is in the root of your memory card. You’ll see a dosbox.conf file that has been lovingly edited to support the N95 8gb.
Now you should be able to open DOSBox from the applications menu which will then fire off Windows for you.
Notes:
To switch between keyboard and mouse, use the call key.
Use the # key as right-click.
To end the session quickly, you can use the disconnect call key.
To increase the font-size, press # when in mouse-mode, select the last option, third option and change the number from 14 to 22.
I looked out of the window at six this morning and -- WOW! -- had it snowed. Grabbed the Shelbster and off we went to blaze a trail. Up on the golf-course, the snow was a good six inches (that’s a foot in my books) deep. So deep in fact, that Shelby was wading with her nose in the air. As we came round the loop and back up Luker Avenue, Mr Claim had been at it again ;
Mr Claim is the bloke who, when it snows or is icy, moves his car and parks it -- side on -- at the bottom of Clements Road, hoping that someone is going to come slithering down, miss the corner and T-bone him.
Schools are closed, so I went out early for a tear-up in the Chilterns -- out over Fawley, Turville and Ibstone. Absolutely fantastic! Deep, deep untouched snow and not another car in sight ……. until I got back down to the Marlow Road and headed into work.
So, picture the scene …… snow on the road ….. snow falling ….. everything slushy and slippy. How would you drive? Well, I guess it depends whether you’re driving a BMW or not ;
Then we got to the notorious Danesfield Hill ;
No problem, of course. Diff-lock on and away we go ;
All of a sudden, when opening the BBC’s web-site in Firefox, the browser window would freeze, grey-out and then come back again if there was any media content on it. The text and images would render fine and dandy, but I couldn’t play any of the videos, and – as they seem to be relying on these more and more – it was becoming a wind-up.
So, time to have a dig around and work out what’s going on;
First-up, you should only really be using the Adobe Flash plug-in, so there are a couple of places to check.
In Firefox, click Tools->Add-ons->Plugins and see what you’re using to render Shockwave Flash. It should be called “Shockwave flash with a version number”.
Next-up, click Edit->Preferences->Applications and see what’s being used to render the two Shockwave mime-types. Again, it should be “Shockwave Flash”
Next, remove any non-Adobe flash stuff from Synaptic. Click on System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager. If you need to create a filter for installed software, then do the following; Settings->Filters->New->(Make sure only “Installed” is checked in the tick-boxes)->OK. Now use the “Quick Search” to find “flash” (without quotes). You want to make sure that the only Flash plug-in is the Adobe one.
Next, find any orphan or rogue libflashplayer.so files. Open up a terminal and type locate libflash -> the only instance you find of libflashplayer.so should be in /home/<yourname>/.mozilla/plugins (I had one lurking in the .trash). If there are any others, then delete them.
Next, make sure everything is clean. Again, from the terminal, type sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get autoremove -> this will get shot of any old or reduntant bits and pieces.
Fire up firefox, visit the BBC and you should now be able to play their videos OK.
If you’re reading this from anywhere in the UK, then you’ll have experienced the little winter wonder that we had this week. It’s been great – a lovely dump of snow at the beginning of the week, loads of trudling around in Atomic having fun then, yesterday, the usual UK thing happens;
The snow starts to melt, we get a sleet blizzard and the temperature plumments below zero faster than a cryogenic suspension chamber. The upshot of all this? Ice.
Not just a bit of ice, but a solid (ish – actually it was a little bumpy in places) sheet of ice over pavements and roads – a good half an inch thick. In fact, it was so slippery that – when I took the Shelbster for her walk last night – I stepped out of the front gate and started sliding down the hill on the pavement. I didn’t stop until I’d reached the middle of the road fifty feet away. Then, as I tottered and minced my way down the road with said hound, I realised that it might be a bit of fun in the morning.
Poor old Shelbs. The ice, if anything, had become thicker so we just had a plod down the Fairmile and back (Yes, that’d the Fairmile that Tanya wanted to know the length of).
So, why are 110′s great? Simple. Diff-lock and low-box. Whilst all around were wailing and cursing trying to get their Chelsea Tractors and Euro-boxes anywhere (even on the flat of Luker), Atomic and I first trundled Jules up to her school and then the Jenster to hers.
By the way. Eighteen years old this year and she sailed through her MOT first time. Atomic, that is – not Jenster.
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Sitting here at work and the phone rings ;
