JHU uses Cisco VPN for outside connections to the university network. Unfortunately, this requires using Cisco’s VPN client, which is not really available for free download on the internet at large. Normally when I have a problem, I just re-install it, but the current version provided by Hopkins refuses to install on 10.5.3, citing a […]

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After checking my most important extensions for updates (most had them) for Firefox 3 compatibility, I took the plunge and upgraded to version 3.
So far it seems pretty snappy, though I’m not used to the new look.
If I hit any snags as I use it, I’ll update this page.

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Phun, the interactive physics simulator, is now available for Mac OS X.
Be warned. If you like physics or tinkering around with things, this program could be a huge time sync sink. (I’ve been futzing with SyncML too much lately.) I was playing with it in (ugh) Windows XP last time I was in New Orleans, […]

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As a corollary to my last post, it’s important to be careful when calculating file seek positions (if you’re skipping around that way). It turns out it’s necessary to cast all of the numbers being used when calculating a seek position to a large integer, such as unsigned long int.
By the way, Rob had some […]

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Any system that encodes values in some set number of places has a limit on the values that can be held. For example, old, mechanical cash registers were physically limited in the number of digits they could ring up. Likewise, modern LCD cash registers are limited by the number of digits available on the screen, […]

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