I use VirtualBox to run Windows to prepare Windows-only BIOS updates for customer computers, especially since floppy disks are so rare now.

Make a folder to work in:

mkdir CD

In the Mac OS Terminal, create an empty floppy disk image:

dd if=/dev/zero of=CD/bios.img bs=10k count=144

Attach it as a floppy image in Virtualbox running Windows. Run the BIOS update disk creator in Windows.

Detach the floppy image, then create a CD image with the bootable disk image:

hdiutil makehybrid -o boot.iso -joliet -iso -eltorito-boot CD/boot.img CD

Then burn the CD:

hdiutil burn boot.iso

Dr. Parkinson reimagines primary care

First, install cdrdao – if you use macports: sudo port install cdrdao

To rip the CD to an image:

sudo cdrdao read-cd --device IODVDServices file.toc

To write the image back to CD:

sudo cdrdao write --device IODVDServices file.toc

Make sure that the CD isn’t mounted before reading, use disk utility to make sure.

My friend pseudomammal made this spiffy game, Khromax, and I think it’s excellent. I really love simple, addictive, clever games like this. Give it a try.

I came in to work today to find my mac workstation spinning running rpc.statd at 100% CPU.

A quick dtruss -n rpc.statc showed that it was looping trying to read its database in /var/db/statd.status

Removing the database solves the problem neatly.

Inspired by Winnie The Pooh, by A. A. Milne

Make the vegan vanilla base cake recipe, and add toasted sesame seeds, toasted coconut, toasted poppyseeds, and whatever dried fruit you have handy. Bake as usual. Then turn out of the pan (upside-down), brush with honey or agave, and stick under the broiler briefly until a crisp crust develops.

• 1 cup white flour
• ⅔ cup whole wheat flour
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water
• ⅓ cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix dry ingredients. Add the remaining and beat until well blended. Pour into a greased 8 or 9-inch pan and bake at 350 °F for 30 to 40 minutes.

You can make a white cake by omitting the cocoa and using double the vanilla.

Makes an excellent base to make gingerbread cake, banana cake, marble cake (mix half cocoa and white cake batter in the pan, leaving a swirl), and it’s the base for my Crustimony Proseed Cake.

I just created a drop-down menu with an option to add your own entries. Feel free to use.

The skinny. Demo.

I just asked my OpenSRS/Tucows domain reseller rep about AAAA (IPv6) glue records: They are planning to support them soon! In the mean time, they can configure them manually.

Blend 1 ripe avocado, 300 ml buttermilk, a spoonful of garlic powder, some chopped parsley, salt, pepper and a dash of lemon juice.

Finally there’s a way to sync contacts out of AOL and into something free. Since AOL Sync is based on Funambol, it uses SyncML, and the Funambol clients.

You’ll need Java, and then:

1. Download the Funambol Google Plug-In. If you want to sync into Outlook, use the AOL Sync client, or look at the other Funambol plug-ins for other systems.
2. Extract it, and run it — look in the funambol, pug-ins, then bin folders. The file is called “runGoogle.cmd” on Windows, and “runGoogle.sh” for Unix systems.
3. Go to Edit, then Communication Settings
4. Put in http://m.sync.aol.com/sync for the Server URL. Fill in your AOL username and password, and your Gmail username and password.
5. Hit OK
6. Hit Synchronize

Voila, your contacts are in Gmail

Say good-bye to a provider that has until now worked very hard on locking your contacts in.

My new cell phone has a qwerty keyboard that lacks an apostrophe.

Spectacular cell phone fail.

I’ve dropped my old number, (970) 596-2816, that Verizon assigned in wrong rate zone (making it not portable), and now I’m on Alltel with an actual number for my rate zone. My new number is (970) 729-1401.

1 soft, ripe avocado

½ cup buttermilk, or ¼ cup water if you want to stay vegan or avoid dairy

2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

2 tablespoons mirin

¼ cup canola or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon garlic

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Blend. Eat. Avoid using a spoon however much you want to since it won’t actually manage to get any on your sald if you do.

Rip, Ruby’s Intelligent Packaging looks really superb. It does what RubyGems does with only a tiny portion of the code overhead. It doesn’t incur any runtime costs, doesn’t need the code modified to use it. It’s just generally swooft.