Vector64 Blog


Here you'll find some stuff that interests me that's generally unrelated to the Mozilla stuff. This is a low-budget blog in that it's just a plain HTML file and isn't interactive. There is a one-click blog program with this web server but I haven't had the time to look into turning it on yet. Maybe someday in the future.
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November 28, 2008

We went over to my sister's last night to chat and that was a lot of fun. The kids played games and chatted and we caught up on what was happening with the rest of the extended family. Everyone is worried about the economy as is expected.

Our daughter wants to shop so we'll take her to the mall and leave her there to shop. I'll probably go with Elliott to the office to get some work done - he'll work on his homework. He has two big projects to do and he wants to get them done early if possible to minimize stress during finals week.

Asus Eee PC

I had a chance to play with one of these last night and I was impressed by the usability of the device. We were able to do a videoconference on the machine. I only used the browser and performance was adequate but it wasn't as sluggish as I thought it would be. I think using it long-term would drive me nuts due to the resolution but it does make for a light, small and usable device for travelling. It ran Windows XP.

MacBook Pro

I've been thinking of moving my Windows XP Pro x64 license from my old Compaq Presario r3000z laptop to the MacBook Pro and perhaps using it under a VM to do 64-bit builds. I would have to call Microsoft to do this of course. I would still have the XP Pro Win32 partition to use if I needed Win32 to log into work. I can also log into the office from Mac OSX. It would be nice to be able to do Firefox x64 builds from the MacBook Pro and they would probably run faster than on my old AMD desktop if I could attach an external high-performance drive and use it. Unfortunately the amount of disk space available on the system is only 250 GB and I might have problems with disk space so this is something that I'll just think about. I really could use a 500 GB drive on this machine but I don't want to open it up to replace it given the video card and warranty issue.

The other option would be to get a new desktop but that's hard to justify at the moment. If Dell has a nice deal on a new Nehalem.....

Mozilla Builds

The NOGL and GL builds ran fine - I was surprised. I ran an instrumented build and an optimization build and got a resulting image which ran fine and actually quite fast. The only glitch is that it crashes after shutdown. In general, the way that I've dealt with these kinds of problems in the past was to reduce the level of instrumentation so that's what I'm doing now. Some websites seem especially prone to causing troubles with instrumentation and it's an artsy kind of thing to avoid those. I've been through a few cycles of this and it's getting to be a pain in the neck. I tried one with minimal instrumentation - basically just starting up and shutting down the browser - and this worked. So I have to add instrumentation until I find the breaking point. This could take several builds to find so it will take a while with me sitting at my desktop to get the right stuff. I wish that I could build on my MacBook Pro or connect to my Windows home desktop remotely in a secure way.

Update: it looks like multiple instrumentation sites result in this problem so I will need to track this down or put something out with minimal instrumentation. Of course I'd rather not do the latter and this would affect future builds so maybe it's better to bit the bullet now. It might also be useful for 3.1.
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November 27, 2008

I have a few days off from work and from carting the kids around to and from school so I have some time to take care of some chores around the house.

Our neighbor closed their windows and turned the heat back on. They left the house back in the summer and left a bunch of windows opened. When the weather started getting cold, I called our management company and told them about it and they closed some of the windows. It got colder, down to the mid-teens and there were several windows that were still open. These windows couldn't be closed from the outside. So I bugged the management company about it and they got in touch with the owners and they apparently worked something out. If you think about all of the places in a home with water along with that water freezing, it is a little scary as to the damage that can be done. You have toilet tanks, toilet bowls, water in the pipes, the water heater and the pressurized water going to your washing machine.

We have to get working on internship applications for Elliott for next summer. There are four companies locally that we will take care of in the next few days and then look at some of the others down the road. We are still waiting to hear from the company that he interviewed with but I later read that a background check can take six months to a year to process which is maybe why recruiters participated in the job fair so early. The economy isn't in the best of shape so I'm hoping that Elliott can find something. He is busy all weekend working on two programs for his computer science lab classes which he would like to get done as soon as possible. He likes to get all work done early to minimize stress for things that come up. He has two more weeks of class and then finals.

Our daughter is doing fairly well in community college though I wish she would work a bit harder in math. We have to sign her up for Spring courses and I haven't heard back from her advisor yet. I think that I will try to sign up for courses anyways. If that doesn't work, then I will try calling next week. The economy may result in more people going to community college so I want to ensure that she gets the courses that she wants to take.

Apple MacBook Pros

I've been playing around with Google's Video Chat and it is an impressive product. I've done the chats with a few people including my kids when we are in different places. This is a wonderful technology for families to keep in touch. I've also been learning how to create videos off the MacBook Pro and it's also very easy to do. I find myself relying more and more on my MacBook Pro. I wonder if I should install Windows x64 on it to do builds.

Working Out

I've been on a heavier workout schedule as of late. I try to do five minutes of weights at home in the morning and evening and do ten minutes of stretching. These are all done at home with our home weight set (1,2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 15 pound dumbells and a barbell with plate weights). I just started getting Elliott into this. He normally just runs which is decent exercise combined with carrying a lot of books all over campus. I'm also trying to play tennis two to three times a week which works out a variety of muscles for quite some time. At some point, I will try to get back into running. Perhaps on the treadmill. I also like to use the elliptical steppers at the YMCA as there is minimal stress on the knees. We have a lot of good equipment at the office too but I haven't used it in a long time but may start using it again. The nicest thing about working out in the office is the showers - there's always a lot of hot water.

Firefox Builds

I'm pulling the source code for Firefox 3.0.4 to do an x64 build. It took me a bit of time remembering how to do this so I'm making a video on the MacBook Pro on how to do the build. The source code pull went fine and there were only a few problems with the patches that have been resolved. I took care of the configuration stuff and the -GL build ran and finished but I accidently deleted it clearing out some directories to reclaim disk space. So I'm building the NOGL build now and will have to build the GL build later. The GL build did run so a 64-bit 3.0.4 build did exist for about 30 minutes. Makoto has done pre-3.0.3 and pre 3.0.5 builds so there is now choice in who you get your 64-bit builds from.

I need to ask Makoto for a new set of patches to do Firefox 3.1 x64 builds as he has his builds out now. I noticed that he's trying out a new IJG x64 SSE2 library and that it returns a 15% performance improvement. I'll have to send him an email about it later on.
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November 22, 2008

It's been a long time since an update and I've been busy carting the kids around and working and in discussions about economics and education. I've also been working on working out a bit more to try and take off some weight. Well, actually a lot of weight. I'm trying to play more tennis, do more weight-lifting and using aerobic exercise equipment at the YMCA. I would try running too but am afraid of injuries.

In support of working out more, I picked up a bunch of sneakers at one of the New Balance Factory Outlets. They had a very nice sale and I picked up 7 pairs of court and running shoes so we should be in goot shape for quite some time.

I'm also busy downloading videos for the kids and for myself. Unfortunately many videos are via RealMedia which means that I have to download them on RealPlayer and then save them. This is somewhat of a labor-intensive project which I run in the background.

Elliott had an interview at a company and we're waiting for them to get back to us. In the meantime, I've asked him to apply at several other companies in the local area and we'll see how he does there. He's doing well in his classes but hasn't had a huge amount of time to prepare for classes next Spring.

Financial Markets

They're lousy. We got an OEX bump yesterday near the close but we're in deflation mode. The Fed is trying to fight it by making money out of thin air but deflation is winning so far. I've never seen the economy deccelerate so quickly. Layoffs will accelerate in Q1 if this thing continues to spiral out of control.

Mozilla Builds

I need to try to do a new x64 build as the old one is getting moldy. We'll see if I can remember how to do that.
October 2008
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Updated August 29, 2009. For comments and questions, send email to Vector.x64@gmail.com. Contents of this blog are Copyright 2009. Fair use portions may be copied with a link back to this vector64.com.