mahiwaga

Hoping that when I find myself face-to-face with an ICBM with a neutron bomb payload, I won't have to say the same thing

So my sister is out of the country for another month and a half, and she purposefully left her computer at my parents’ house, so I’ve started using it. It’s a MacBook with an Intel Core Duo running at 1.83 GHz with 1 GB of RAM, literally twice as fast as my iBook G4 with 1.28 GB of RAM, and it’s pretty sweet.

But naturally, I’ve had to re-build my environment, and had to hack the system to get an admin account running. (Believe you me, if someone has possession of your computer, it’s pretty damn easy to get access, no matter what sort of security controls you have, unless you actually were to rig a booby-trap or something. You know, like a small bomb that destroys the hard drive when you open the case, but I digress.)

So first things first: how to create an admin account on Mac OS X even if you don’t have admin rights:

1. Boot up in single-user mode by holding down [Command][S]

2. Follow the instructions as described on the console:

   fsck -yf
   mount -uw /
   sh /etc/rc
   

3. Create a new user on the command line (from Adding a User From the Command Line on developer.apple.com ` dscl / -create /Users/XXXX
   dscl / -create /Users/XXXX UserShell /path/to/shell
   dscl / -create /Users/XXXX RealName “XXXX’s real name”
   dscl / -create /Users/XXXX UniqueID nnn
   dscl / -create /Users/XXXX PrimaryGroupID 1000
   dscl / -create /Users/XXXX NFSHomeDirectory /Users/XXXX
   passwd XXXX
   dscl / -append /Groups/admin GroupMembership XXXX
   `{: .block}

I only use the admin account for times when I need to sudo. Run as admin and you might as well run Windows

I first used tcsh because it was the first shell I ever used, way back in 1994, and it was the default shell on older versions of OS X, but I had grown used to bash from my Linux experience. But, mostly because I wanted to be able to tell my terminal windows apart, I’ve grown to favor zsh, which is already installed on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

Speaking of terminals, I prefer iTerm.app mostly because of the ability to use tabs.

If you decide to use zsh, I would add the following to your .zshrc file in your home directory:

precmd () { print -Pn "e]0;[%n] %~a" }
preexec () { print -Pn "e]0;[%n] $1a" }

There are far more customization options available as well. In addition to customizing the window title, you can customize the tab title as well.

The last thing I added was MacPorts, previously known as DarwinPorts. I had previously used Fink, so I thought I’d use something different.

My sister has hooked me to HBO original serieses (er, yeah, I know that’s not a real word.) She has been obsessed with ”Entourage” which has now grown on me.

And following “Entourage” is ”Flight of the Conchords”.

What I find funny is that Bret McKenzie (who, for some reason, makes me think of Orlando Bloom, never mind that one is from New Zealand, the other from England) actually had a bit part in “The Lord of the Rings” movies by Peter Jackson. He had a non-speaking part as an elf at the Council of Elrond. He was thereby christined as Figwit by obsessive fans. Because of popular demand, he actually ends up with a few lines in “The Return of the King”, and actually gets a name: Aegnor, which also happens to be the name of Finrod Felagund’s brother who was a Noldor prince. There is much debate as to whether or not Aegnor is canonical, especially since this name was assigned for a trading-card game.

I definitely vote that this is a different guy who has the same name as Aegnor. This is the same thing that happened with Legolas, originally given to one of the Lords of the ruined city of Gondolin. Legolas the Latter is definitely a different guy because Legolas the Former was Noldorin while Legolas the Latter is Sindarin, being the son of the Sindarin King Thranduil. Also consider Gildor Inglorion, who is supposedly of the House of Finarfin and Finrod Felagund. “Inglorion” actually designates him as the son of Finrod, but this is clearly impossible since Finrod never married after coming to Middle-Earth, and if this were the case, he should’ve been High King of the Noldor instead of Gil-Galad

Still, I suppose Aegnor could’ve been re-embodied just like Glorfindel, who, like Legolas the Former, was a Lord of the ruined city of Gondolin who was killed during the evacuation of the city. But then Aegnor would’ve been in the line of succession for the crown of the High King of the Noldor. (After Gil-Galad, who did not have any direct descendants, there were no more High Kings. Technically, the crown should’ve passed either to Galadriel, the daughter of Finarfin, or to Elrond, the great-grandson of King Turgon of Gondolin, who was High King before Gil-Galad.) Although maybe Aegnor was re-embodied after Gil-Galad died, and because of tradition, no one ever claimed the crown of High King of the Noldor.

But back to “Flight of the Conchords”: it’s pretty hilarious. Their manager even has a Commodore 64. Which apparently they use to simulate an ATM (judging from the font used in one of their videos.)