How to copy an audio CD under Leopard (10.5) using (almost!) only the Terminal? 
Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 09:53 PM
Proceed as following:
  1. Ensure that cdrtools are installed (it includes cdrecord and cdda2wav tools). With MacPorts installed on your machine this is just as easy as running sudo port install cdrtools.
  2. Put the CD into the CD drive.
  3. Unmount it using Disk Utility (otherwise the CD, probably mounted automatically, will not be accessible by cdda2wav).
  4. Run cdda2wav -v255 -DIODVDServices -B -Owav in the directory where you want to extract the audio files.
  5. Execute cdrecord -v driveropts=burnfree -immed -audio -dao dev=IODVDServices -useinfo *.wav to burn a new CD.

Remarks:
  1. cdrecord needs wav files to create an audio CD. If you already have your audio files but in another format, use sox to convert them into wav.
  2. I read a couple of times that it would be better to burn audio CDs at the slowest speed possible (by using the option -speed=4). Faster speeds can make them unplayable in certain players. However I did not use this option and things worked out.
  3. I did not use either the option -pad which seems to be useful.
  4. To create a cd with "secret" pre-gap, refer to the tool cdrdao.

Useful links:
UNIX CD BURNING
CD-Writing HOWTO


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Pack200 
Sunday, 8 March 2009, 09:25 PM
Compared to other new features of Java 5, Pack200 hasn’t gotten as much attention. Pack200 is essentially a technology for achieving much better compression ratios of deployable Java code (like Java Web Start applications and Applets).

Java code has traditionally been packaged and deployed as jar files, which are nothing more than standard zip files with the extension .jar. Pack200 can result in radically higher compression ratios of Java bytecode when compared to traditional jar packaging.

Traditional jar files normally achieve compression ratios of 1:2 or 1:3. It’s not uncommon for Pack200 files to achieve compression ratios of 1:10 or greater.

More information could be found here:



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Mac stuff 
Thursday, 19 February 2009, 08:39 AM
I am the happy owner of a MacBook Pro running Leopard (10.5). Following a mix of links that I recently found useful or not so useful:


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Comment devenir multimilliardaire avec seulement 1 franc suisse? 
Thursday, 19 February 2009, 07:01 AM
Facile: le changer en dollar zimbabwéens. Le cours actuel est de 1 CHF = 10'757'015'442.55 ZWD.

Le Zimbabwe est au bord du gouffre: en juillet 2008, le taux de l’inflation annuel atteignait 231'000'000% et le chômage le taux record de 80%.

Son honorable président, Robert Mugabe, vient de fêter son 85ème anniversaire. Au menu: 2000 bouteilles de champagne; 500 de Chivas de 22 ans d'âge; 8000 homards; 100 kg de palourdes géantes; 3000 canards; 4000 portions de caviar; 8000 boîtes de chocolat importées de France; 500 kg de fromages.

On fait l'impasse sur le reste pour mieux retenir qu'il est suggéré de faire un don. Celui-ci a été fixé à un minimum de 45'000$. On notera qu'un maximum a été arrêté, 55'000$, mais qu'il a été spécifié que le don doit être libellé en dollars, évidemment US.

En voilà un qui n'a pas beaucoup de scrupules et qui pense sûrement que tout va bien dans son pays. Longue vive à l'homme!

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Iglu-Dorf 
Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 02:35 AM
Nach Die Another Day dachte ich, dass sowas nur in Schweden gibt (siehe ICEHOTEL). Ich lag falsch. Ein Freund von mir hat mich auf die Iglu Dörfer aufmerksam gemacht. Perfekt für Romantiker, oder?

Wo?

In Davos-Klosters, Engelberg, Gstaad und Zermatt in der Schweiz, sowie auf der Zugspitze in Deutschland und in Andorra können die einzigartigen Iglu-Dörfer besucht werden.

Der Freund war sehr begeistert.

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