The Stick is known as iCON210 from Qualcom (or sometimes Option) and is HSDPA capable. But you want to use it – especially without using the shitty provided Software.

1. When the stick is inserted for the first time it acts as a storage device containing the (ugly and almost useless) software as well as the kext (driver) installer. Install both.
2. Eject the virtual “Disc”
3. Deactivate the PIN for the stick using the iCON software. Then throw it away.
4. When you open the network preferences, you see three new devices. Select macusb_modem (and give it a nice name like UMTS-Modem).
5. In the settings make sure you set the following options:
   • Dial *98# (at least that is what my network, O2 Germany requires, YMMV). Username/Password depend on your operator. For O2 Germany they can be left blank.
   • In the “Advanced…” Options “Modem” tab select Vendor: “Generic”, Model: GPRS (GSM/3G) and set the APN to the APN for your plan. For Prepaid O2 it is pinternet.interkom.de (yes, interkom.de) Be careful your data plan depends on the APN, so selecting the wrong APN can cost you money. CID can be set to 1.
   • In the “PPP” tab select “Configuration” from the dropdown and and uncheck “Send PPP echo packets” as well as “Use TCP Header compression”
   • Click “Apply” to save the configuration.

Before plugging in the USB dongle again you should make sure the driver is loaded by running sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/MACUSBDriver.kext/ in a Terminal window.

Before connecting you need to eject the virtual “Disc”.

Now you are good to go. And you do not need the rotten iCON210 software.

Update for Snow Leopard: Unfortunately the iCON210 driver does not work correctly with Snow Leopard. I recommend a Huawei E160 HDSPA stick which works well with Snow Leopard (at least with a 32 Bit kernel). It can be bought on eBay for about 40 €

I spent almost two days trying to do that. It is still quite a grimm process.

Then I found this howto on compiling netatalk 2.0.3 for OpenSolaris.

Just to remind myself, 'cause I always forget [code lang="shell-unix-generic"] sudo ipconfig set en1 DHCP [/code]

Some (cleary insane) people think they have to protect their PDF documents from printing.

With these documents you need to enter a password to print them. Although I fail to see why anybody would want their PDF-Documents from being viewable but not printable, some people obviously do. And that annoys the hell out of me.

The funny thing is that these documents are nor really protected. They only bear a flag saying "Thou may not print me!". And Adobe forbids (via their licence agreement) anybody using the PDF specification from implementing a PDF-Reader that does ot obey this flag.

But, long story short, if you have any decent kind of Unix in your OS (or preformed major magic to install the requreid tools on Windows, i won't go into detail here) you can just do a

[code lang="shell-unix-generic"] $ pdf2ps nastyfile.pdf nastyfile.ps $ ps2pdf nastyfile.ps goodfile.pdf [/code]

and this nonsense is history.

Thank you very much!

This is valid Ruby syntax

?{*?{%?{-?{**?{+?{||?{|?{&?{&&
?}|?}**?}-?}%?}&&?}+?}*?}||?}&
?[&?[||?[|?[-?[%?[&&?[**?[+?[*
?]|?]*?]&&?]||?]**?]%?]-?]&?]+
?;&?;-?;%?;+?;*?;||?;**?;&&?;|
?:*?:&&?:&?:||?:**?:+?:|?:%?:-
?'-?'&&?'+?'|?'||?'%?'&?'*?'**
?"%?"+?"&?"*?"-?"||?"**?"&&?"|
?/||?/|?/&?/-?/+?/&&?/*?/**?/%
??-??&??&&??||??%??|??*??**??+
?.*?.&?.%?.-?.+?.|?.&&?.||?.**
?,&&?,-?,||?,%?,**?,+?,|?,&?,*
?<-?<+?<&&?<%?<||?<|?<&?<*?<**
?>**?>+?>|?>%?>||?>*?>&&?>-?>&
?=**?=|?=*?=&&?=%?=+?=-?=||?=&
?-&&?-&?-+?--?-%?-|?-**?-||?-*
?+*?+%?+||?+|?+&&?+-?++?+**?+&
?_|?_+?_%?_&&?_||?_&?_*?_-?_**
?)%?)*?)&?)&&?)-?)|?)||?)+?)**
?(%?(+?(-?(**?(*?(|?(&&?(||?(&
?*&&?*+?*-?**?***?*|?*%?*||?*&
?&|?&-?&&?&&&?&%?&||?&+?&**?&*
?^%?^&?^||?^*?^+?^-?^&&?^**?^|
?%*?%+?%**?%||?%%?%&?%-?%&&?%|
?$%?$|?$*?$-?$**?$&&?$&?$||?$+
?#&&?#**?#*?#+?#-?#&?#||?#%?#|
?@+?@%?@&&?@&?@|?@-?@*?@**?@||
?!&&?!||?!&?!**?!*?!%?!|?!+?!-
?~|?~&&?~&?~-?~||?~**?~%?~+?~*
?`&?`||?`**?`*?`%?`&&?`|?`+?`-
?||?|+?|-?|**?|||?|&?|%?|*?|&&
??

it evaluates to

[code lang="ruby"] -114374367934617190099880295228066276746218078451850229775887975052369504785666896446606568365201542169649974727730628842345343196581134895919942820874449837212099476648958359023796078549041949007807220625356526926729664064846685758382803707100766740220839144 [/code]

BTW: The ruby syntax colorer does not like this blob ;-)

Wenn ihr euch für Bücher interessiert, für gute noch dazu, dann empfehle ich euch einen Blick nach drüben, zur leckeren Typographie zu werfen. Ihr werdet es nicht bereuen, mein Stapel an von der Autorin empfohlenen Büchern ist hoch und jedes der Bücher, die ich davon gelesen habe, war wirklich, wirklich gut :-)

Freut euch auf Empfehlungen für eine der schönsten Sachen der Welt: Bücher!

My girlfriends 4th gen iPod had dided on her several month ago. It was replaced wich a beautiful new green nano, but we had the broken one still gathering dust on a shlve here.

Then I stumbled across this article describing how he dropped a dead 4th gen iPod on the floor after being desperate, as some online reports suggested.

So I decided: "What the hell, it's dead anyway!" and dropped it on the floor.

And guess what… it worked! The iPod is working again!

Can you believe this?

Note: I am by no means suggesting you should do this to your iPod. It just worked for me with an iPod i considered dead anyway!

Adlershof ist so weit draußen und am Arsch der Welt hier gibt es nichtmal EDGE!

Und das WLAN der HU kann ich weder in der alten (MAC-Adress filter) noch in der neuen Inkarnation (Cisco VPN würg oder auch Java SSL-"VPN" im Browser, ja danke dann) benutzen.

Schönen dank auch! gnarf

Once upon a time there was a pure fruit.
Once upon a time there was a flower.

So both were the happiest fruits in the whole wide world.

For the most beloved one!

While setting up my new Mac mini as a home server I digged around deep in the OS X man pages, where I found this gem.

Form hdid(8) I give you instructions on how to do a ram disk in MacOS X:

hdid -nomount ram://

will attach a ram disk that can be mounted and used after
being formatted with a newfs utility or Disk Utility.app.  
A sector is 512 bytes.

A small shell script to create and mount a ram disk:

[code lang="shell-unix-generic"]

!/bin/sh

NUMSECTORS=128000 # 64MB Totoal mydev=hdid -nomount ram://$NUMSECTORS newfs_hfs $mydev mkdir /tmp/mymount mount -t hfs $mydev /tmp/mymount [/code]