Wow, this is big news for me. Embarcadero Technologies decided to buy CodeGear (Development Tools Division) from Borland. Since I am working for the Turkish partner of Embarcadero, Borland and CodeGear this may not affect things in our side but it will definitely change the game field and I hope it will be beneficial for both the companies and their millions of users world wide.
For details you can check out CodeGear’s, Borland’s or Embarcadero’s main page or click on this, this or this link directly.
The X Lab has great tips for managing Spotlight here, some of which saved my day today so I will post them here:
To stop indexing a volume:
sudo mdutil -i off /path_to_volume
To erase spotlight indices:
sudo mdutil -E /path_to_volume
My wife is working on her Ph.D thesis and I feel completely useless being unable to help her. Anyhow, she had some drawings to be done in xfig, which is not been used since the 15th century. I said, OK my mac has BSD under the hoods so there should be some kind of Xfig available there. There are in fact two different projects for using such UNIX tools with Mac OS X. One is called MacPorts, and the other Fink.
MacPorts was installed on my Mac when I was using Tiger, however we had problems with Xfig so I searched a bit more and found Fink which actually does the same job. Unfortunately Fink does not have a binary distribution for Leopard.
Currently I am installing both of them on my Mac at the same time. I hope one of them will help us run Xfig. For those of you out there having problems with either MacPorts or Xfig during installation just keep in mind to put your Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) installation DVD (or a backup of it) and install XCodeTools.pkg and X11sdk.pkg which are not installed by default. That will solve most of all your problems. Problems not solved with this tip, is unfortunately too complex for me and I can not be of any help. Go ahead and asked the communities and developers.
I had an idea to put on the blog for a while. It was about all those things that did not by themselves constitute a blog entry. All those things I see every day, read about and hear. All those things I would like to share.
I will call these “Small Pile of Even Smaller Things” and make them into a series of blog posts, much like Nick Hodges’ “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene”. There won’t be any constraints for the posts except for the length of each “thing”. I will write about new interesting software, websites, videos, music and games. Anything that comes to my mind. Starting tomorrow 
Today I received an e-mail from my dad about a site near Şanlıurfa (southeast Turkey) called Göbekli Tepe. Findings there suggest dates back to 9000 BC, and predates all farming activities known. It is important because up to now scientists had thought that people who are only dependent on hunting/gathering could not build monuments and temples. However these ruins show the opposite.
It is sad that this place has been discovered over 30 years ago, and it is now that I learn about it. Anatolia is a large geography with such a long and dense history, every corner you look, you can find something interesting.
This is actually an old post of mine back at “The Unofficial Mac”. I am reposting for convenience.
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One of the reasons I was itching for an upgrade to Leopard had been the new Mail. I have been using Thunderbird as my e-mail client on my Mac from Day 2. On Day 1 I gave a shot and used Apple Mail for a while, but we were not ticking together so I dumped it and switched to good old Thunderbird.
Now I am on Leopard and shiny new Apple Mail is just waiting for me in my Applications folder so I decided it is the correct time to give it a try.
After I set up my e-mail settings through a very simple wizard I chose Import from the File menu and there was Thunderbird. Import took a few minutes and all my e-mail was available in Apple Mail.
There has been a few glitches for the past few days but everything is normal now. The problem was that, and it happens again time-to-time, when I open a folder none of the e-mails there seem to have content. I noticed this when I have searched for a mail that I know existed but received no results. I don’t know the exact cause of the problem, but it gets fixed by itself when I closed and re-opened Mail so I believe it is somewhat related to Mail not being able to process all e-mail (over 10,000) in the first pass.
There are subtle hints of me owning a PSP in this blog. The fact that I have a PSP only and currently not update blog named “The PSP Port” is even more subtle.
I do have a PSP indeed, for a few months. I believe that this has been the best purchase I have ever done in terms of game console business, as it is my 1st and only. I have been an avid PC gamer. PCs are such delightful appliances that I have seen no need for a separate gaming solution. Then came the mobile era. Phones became mobile, PCs became mobile and finally information became mobile. I got my hands on some laptops ranging from a Pentium II IBM to a MacBook Pro. I could use those wherever I want, whenever my battery let me. But I couldn’t play games. I once played a few hours of WC3 I guess at an airport, but with power cables and mouse and all those bags, it was not feasible.
Then I learned about the PSP. It is mobile, as much as you thing. It has wireless capabilities, with a large screen. It can play movies, music and even surf the web. I miss a keyboard though. Although it is mobile and packed it is not like Nintendo DS. Nintendo DS reminds me of game watches, where we used to play the same game for years without getting bored because there were no alternatives. The games were dead boring and the problem was if we were going to be able to finish it every time we played.
Times have changed. Playing PSone games on an handheld for 5 hours on a single charge is commonplace. That is why I bought a PSP, that is why I am playing it. That is why I will fill these pages with games and news soon. Keep checking!
Today I had my share of funny help desk chat and I have been the unfortunate victim. We were having a cup of coffee at Starbucks. The reason of our choice was the existence of a wireless hotspot provided free of charge to Turkish Telecom ADSL subscribers - I happen to be one of them. However there seemed to be a problem with user authentication. After a brief period of hesitation I decided to call support and talk with the call center. I was having the least amount of enthusiasm as I was pretty damn sure they were not going to solve an problem related with any free service they are providing.
I was right. The guy on the other end of the line told me that there was problem with the data center and they could not check the remote locations. He then added: I could check back tomorrow afternoon. Well it is nice for him. I could check back the wifi status on a Starbucks miles away from my office on a lazy Sunday afternoon from my house. I give up!
There were two kids at the next table, two boys around 12. They were talking and having frappucino or something like adults. I missed being a kid, talking about movies with no thoughts going into money and people and politics.
One more thing, I am wondering. Do they leave only a single piece of each snack on purpose? So that people will want more? Do they have a large stock back there and bring out one-by-one? If yes, why? If no, why not? 
I was tinkering with the Mac, and the Windows Mobile Phone to somehow -by chance- get GPRS over Bluetooth running.
I am not sure how or why it worked, but it did, so let me bring together what I have done. It may someday help someone:
