欧州自転車レース追っかけ日記

A1134 Three is now running Sorbet Leopard

My A1134 Three (the third machine) is now running Sorbet Leopard. This machine came with defective power plug contact issue and a dead battery. It works fine but the power-in port is a bit defective. It does not have a snag fit so when the power cord is plugged in in a certain way, it does not have contact and it shuts itself down as the battery is completely dead.

Otherwise it works fine.

Hobby Hut HH-352 Hunting Knife


This is the measurement. It did not list the blade thickness. The weight is 250 grams according to the sales pitch.


The sheath is OK quality but leaves much to be desired. It does have that obligatory belt loop.

It arrived this morning. I wanted a fixed blade knife for my occasional camping trip. I thought I would use it mainly for cooking or cutting something like small tree branches or pesky plants that might hinder placing the tent.

Anyway, I opened it and realized it was very sturdy one. When I ordered it a couple days ago it cost only € 19.99. This was the reason I decided to buy it. It had been on my wishlist more than two months, I guess. It was almost € 40 when I found it back then. Its price came down just before Christmas to € 24.

From the pictures on the Amazon I did not know whether it had full-tang structure or not. It turned out that it did. The blade was thicker than I had imagined and was about 5 mm thick. This combination of thick blade and full tang structure might make it fit for some bush crafting.

What is a hunting knife?

A hunting knife is used for taking the game (hunted animal) apart. First it is used to cut the skin up where a big artery lies beneath to let the blood out. It is then used to skin. It is then used to chopping the flesh for carrying ease.

Thus the blade is usually shorter and has a deep curvy tip for the ease of skinning. That was my understanding.

I don't hunt for the record.

I was quite surprised when I took it in my hand first. It was heavier than I imagine. I did not read the product description well (as I did not care much) so I totally missed that 250 grams part. The blade was really thick.

The biggest surprise, however, was not its weight nor blade thickness but its grip. I knew from the pictures that it featured glittering gears that you would find inside a mechanical watch or clock. I thought they were patterns printed on some plastic material. The grip turned out to be made of (seemingly) epoxy resin and those gears were actually metal gears.

I don't know how the epoxy-like material holds over time. It might chip away when I bang it.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [A1134 Three now on Sorbet Leopard]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/12/28(火) 16:29:29|
2. MacBooks and Macs
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

Le Signal de Botrange

I have known this place for some time by now. It is the highest point in Belgium.

I want to drive on snowy roads. My Mazda MX-5 is ready. Where can I go to see some snow and come back home in a day? That was the question.

I assumed that the highest place in so-called Benelux area must be snowy. I was right. It is snowy up there.

How should I drive there? I asked my trusty Garmin BaseCamp.


1. This is the route I would like to take to get there. It consists of "rare" Luxembourg highway and local roads. It is about 120 km and would take around 2 hours and 30 to 40 minutes, I guess.


2. The route above crosses the border between Luxembourg and Belgium near Kneiff. Kneiff is the highest point in Luxembourg. I might take a short side trip to there.


3. From the border, it is about 50 to 60 km to the destination.


4. There is a town called Malmedy at the foot of the hills leading up to le Signal de Botrange. I might drive around the town to see what I can find there.


5. This is the default (shortest travel time) route that Garmin BaseCamp suggested first. It is about 160 km long and would take 2 hours and a bit. It might be the fastest route as it consists of mainly German Autobahn (highway). I did not want to choose this route because my main objective of this short trip is to play with snowy roads but not to get there quicker. [Trip plan Le Signal de Botrange]の続きを読む

テーマ:ヨーロッパ - ジャンル:海外情報

1. 2021/12/28(火) 01:20:56|
2. Mazda MX-5
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

Longing for snowy roads

At this moment (26 / December / 2021) there is no snow in sight here southern part of Luxembourg. My beloved Mazda MX-5 (ND) is equipped with MS tires.

Those tires are just wearing themselves meaninglessly on wet or dry asphalt roads.

I wondered where I could see some snowy sights nearby. It must be "le Signal de Botrange" in Belgium, I thought.

Le Signal de Botrange is well-documented at Wikipedia. It is the highest point in Belgium and the Netherlands and Luxembourg (so-called Benelux countries). It is almost 700 meters above sea level.

I searched for the sign of snow up there. I found the cafe-restaurant's site and the recent photos show some snow fall there.

Today I ordered a pair shoes on Amazon Germany. I needed them as my current daily shoes don't have rugged soles but a rather smooth profile. I had difficulty walking on icy, snowy wet roads with these shoes. I can not imagine walking around up the hills of le Signal de Botrange with these shoes. The shoes I ordered will be here in a week or so.

As soon as I get the solid shoes, I will drive up there. I will take Hannah with me of course.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [I am longing for snowy places]の続きを読む

テーマ:ヨーロッパ - ジャンル:海外情報

1. 2021/12/26(日) 21:11:23|
2. Mazda MX-5
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

Adélie Linux

"Action Retro" is an excellent YouTube channel and my kind one as it often features old Apple products such as PowerPC Macs. And I am writing this on my beloved A1025, a PowerBook G4.

Recently he put up a video dealing with his take on Adélie Linux. I found his YouTube channel quite a long ago and have subscribed to it since then.

The video is titled, "Installing Modern Linux on PowerPC in 2022 (New Adelie Linux Guide!).

Adélie Linux has been out there quite a while and its version status for the moment is RC2, Release Candidate 2.

I knew that RC1 was quite incomplete and at that time it was written on the official site that the installation process was complicated and needed a lot of typing within the shell.

Around the time the RC2 came out the official site had a substantial facelift and the documentation section no longer carried that text mode installation instructions. I assumed with a bit of doubt that the graphical installer was fully operational.

He kindly describes the installation process under RC2. His iMac G4 single-handedly boots into KDE Plasma desktop while none of my G4 laptops can show me a decent desktop. I don't know why but they don't boot as expected.

Adélie Linux readies three live desktop ISO images, KDE Plasma, LXQt and MATE. I chose LXQt version because LXQt was supposed to be the lightest desktop of the three. Maybe I download other version to see if they work on my G4 laptops.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Adélie Linux on PowerPC]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/12/26(日) 16:52:09|
2. MacBooks and Macs
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

The Matrix 4 Resurrections 2021

I watched it. In essence, less Kunfu action and more talks because we (the audience) have a lot to catch up. Why and how Neo is alive again and so is Trinity is one of them. Explaining why and how takes place here and there and we appreciate those talks mostly.

I liked it. I am expecting the 5th movie soon.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [The Matrix 4 Resurrections 2021 watched]の続きを読む

テーマ:映画レビュー - ジャンル:映画

1. 2021/12/26(日) 01:07:59|
2. Diary
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

HAIKU OS challenge on my Compaq Presario CQ56

I am writing this on my "resurrected" PowerBook G4 Titanium A1025. This resurrection required slightly disassembling the bottom lid and taking the broken IDE HDD out and putting an mSATA SSD placed inside an IDE - mSATA converter in 2.5-inch format in place. I don't see any dramatic performance improvement but it works now.

www.haiku-os.org

I have tried HAIKU OS on HP Pro 3120 for a while before it broke (or suddenly it ceased to start up) in 2019 and part of 2020. It was a revisit for me.

Back in early 2000's when I was about to leave Japan for Germany, I had BeOS on one of my PCs. It was a preview release of BeOS but the expected official release never took place (or did it?). Jean-Louis Gassée could not sell this operating system to Apple at that time. Apple bought NeXT computer bringing its CEO Steve Jobs back to Apple.

Anyway, When this HP Pro 3120 ceased to boot, I bought a used Dell Optiplex 780. I did not install Haiku on it.

Haiku was practical. It had almost everything I needed. Nice browsers (although not so perfect), An office suite (LibreOffice), video players and Japanese input system that works.

It does not work on my Compaq Presario CQ56 for some reasons. I tried the Beta 2 and did not work. This time I tried Beta 3 and it did not work. The booting process falls into the debug shell in the middle of the process.

A1025 is now resurrected

I put an SSD purchased from Amazon Germany a Chinese brand 128 GB mSATA SSD. I had a couple of 2.5 inch form factor IDE - mSATA converter and I used one of them. Luckily the PowerBook G4 series laptops (notebooks) have easier access to the HDD bay. Just unscrew the screws and open up the bottom lid and voila! you have the HDD right in front of you.

I did and now it is working.

Actually, I needed several hours before it became operational.

In essence, the mistake that I made was not taking a good look at the erasing (formatting the disk device for the first time) the SSD after the installation. There are three kinds of formatting schemes. One of them is Apple Partition Map (APM) format. It is the format you have to choose if you want the disk device to be the booting device.

I was not careful about the format and it was formatted as GUID.

Obviously A1025 did not boot from the SSD installed inside until I corrected the mistake.

Now it is fully operational. It is running Sorbet Leopard.

As a side note, I have to report that I don't see any particular performance improvements after the SSD installation sadly. I think a bottleneck is the key to my plight.

The SSD is faster than an typical HDD but the communicating speed inside PowerBook G4 is the old IDE connection, which is quite slow itself.

Important thing is that my A1025 is now working.

The Matrix 4 Resurrections 2021

I am excited. I own all the Matrix series DVD discs with me. The first one was purchased back in the 90's when I was still living in Japan. The second and the third ones were purchased in Germany, I believe.

Back in late 90's when the first installation came out, the idea of virtual reality, the idea of computer simulation and others were not so widely understood. Now the World has caught up with the ideas behind the movie.

In Japanese; 続きをどうぞ [HAIKU OS challenge]の続きを読む

テーマ:コンピュータ - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/12/24(金) 01:49:23|
2. HAIKU OS
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

It is leaking!

I recently acquired an espresso machine from Amazon Germany quite inexpensively. It was a used Krups Essenza mini kept at Amazon Storage because it was obviously returned from an unsatisfied customer after using up the 14 free trial capsules. It was so described and I knew it and was OK with it.

It was the cheapest one at that time of my purchase almost half the MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price).

I thought it was OK but was not obviously. In fact, I strongly suspect the reason the previous user (owner) returned the very machine had been this leakage. Because the returning a merchandise does not allow describing the reason for it (I don't know why they don't ask the customers "why?"), Amazon itself is not aware of the reasons for the customers' wish to return).

I am almost convinced that the previous owner was at a loss when she/he saw the leaking water every time she/he brew a cup.

I am a victim of this faulty Nespresso machine going around. I will try to repair it and won't return it.

It was leaking water from the bottom. When I brew a cup of espresso, the bottom of the machine is wet with pure cold water seeming coming from the water tank before it reaches the boiling device or pumping device inside.

I searched for information on the Internet and found a lot of links. There are some videos on YouTube, either. My particular machine, Krups Essenza mini was not free from the defective failure of the Nespresso&reg: machines.

I think I have to do some disassembly job myself and check the water line piping connections of plastic (or metal) pipes and silicon pipes.

I hope it can be fixed.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Krups Essenza mini Nespresso mashine leaking water from the bottom]の続きを読む

テーマ:日記 - ジャンル:日記

1. 2021/12/24(金) 00:11:39|
2. Diary
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

How about A1054 (iBook G4 1066 MHz) with 756 MB of RAM?

After a rather disappointing experience that I had the previous day, I relived the installation process on my A1054 (iBook G4 1066 MHz) with 756 MB RAM. I could max the RAM to 1.25 if I want but for the moment it stays with 756 MB of RAM.

This iBook G4 has a defective HDD (so it seems and sounds) but I thought I could just enjoy the live environment for fun.

The booting process stopped at the same point three or four times and I had to force-shutdown the machine. I wondered if it had anything to do with the RAM volume.

I can ramp it (the volume of RAM) up if I have to.

I suspected the CD-R that I burnt and made a new copy of the installation image file. I tried it on my A1054 but the symptom was the same. It never reached the desktop. It stops at the same point during the boot process. It (the installer) drops to debug shell. I don't know why but there is nothing I can do for the moment.

And how about A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz) with 1 GB or RAM?

I have two A1025. A1025 One and Two I call them for the convenience of reference.

A1025 one came with totally defective battery and broken hinge (right according to the Book Yard, anyway near F12 key). A1025 Two came with defective HDD and mute right (near F12) speaker with barely working battery.

Later I put the working HDD into A1025 Two and installed Sorbet Leopard and enjoyed it for a while before the HDD went out of order.

I picked up A1025 Two and put the Adélie Linux installation CD-R into it and booted.

The installation process was smooth but the situation was exactly the same as the one I experienced with A1134 (iBook G4).

The situation was the same when I used the second CD-R.

What is wrong? Is there any report similar to my plight?

As a side note, I found a way to reboot or shutdown without relying on the physical power button. As I wrote in the previous entry, I can use a USB mouse with more buttons than one. With a mouse, I can invoke a menu on the desktop. From there, I can access to some directories like "Home" or so. In the Home directory there are folders (or directories) that contains some "commands". There are reboot or shutdown commands.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Adélie Linux for PowerPC (32-bit) challenge II]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/12/13(月) 23:52:49|
2. MacBooks and Macs
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

Adélie Linux PPC booting from the Install CD for the first time

The Beta 2 Install image has been downloaded and stored on one of the external HDD for a while. Today I burned the image on a CD-R disc and tried it on my A1134 Two to see if it works and ,if it does, how it works.

I used my Compaq Presario CQ56 running Xubuntu Linux to burn the image.

When "C" key is pressed down while booting, a Mac (most of them, especially after CDROMs became popular) sees its CD/DVD drive if any bootable images are there.

Adélie Linux bootable image was recognized successfully and booted off the CD-R just burnt.

During the boot process, I think I saw some kind of message telling me that I had to log in as "root" to experience the live environment and blah, blah and blah.

On the first try, I did not have to log in for some reason. I was presented with a window prompting me to choose a window manager. Openbox or twm were on the list. I could choose other managers but the actual window manager that would be installed in the "installed" system would be different. This window manager is temporarily used during the live environment or installation.

First I chose openbox and saw how the live environment works. For some unknown reason, it was not a usable environment at all. I wanted to click on the menu bar to invoke the menu but clicking on the right correct spot does nothing. Actually clicking does not do anything but when the button (mouse button or touchpad button) is released, the menu appears just in a flash!

The secondary button works. I could click on the random place on the desktop with the secondary button and change the background color but this was not the thing I wanted to accomplish obviously!

On the second try (after brute-forcing a shutdown by long pressing the power button - sigh) I chose twm to see if it behaves differently IN VAIN. I could not invoke any menu there, either. WTF? This time there was a slight progress, though. I did actually have to log in. A login window did appear after the boot process.

I will see if other PowerBook G4 or iBook G4 can successfully boot where I can access the menus.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [PowerPC lives!]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/12/12(日) 22:06:51|
2. MacBooks and Macs
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

I was about to be scammed

I received a phone call this afternoon from a disclosed number (my phone showed "Unknown"). First it was a recorded message (in English) telling me something that my ID was used in a money laundering scheme from supposedly the Police of Luxembourg. Toward the end of recorded message, I was told to press "1" if I wanted to talk to a personnel for assistance (or something). I don't remember the exact message, of course.

The person I talked to said he was part of the Luxembourg Police Force and he said something and something. According to him, my ID was used in a crime or something. He asked my name and my postal code of my residence. He asked some questions like if I had noticed some anomaly in my banking activity or If I had rented cars in the past.

Then he asked me to get a pen and some paper to write something down. His name, his badge number (supposedly his Police badge number or something) and the case number. He said he was Luuk Meijer (pronounced like Luke Meyer).

Then he asked the last three digits of my Luxembourg ID.

This hit me. Why should I give him some personal information over the phone? Is he really a police officer?

After this I told him that I did not want to give any personal information over the phone and if I had to do so, I would rather do it face to face. I would go to the police and talk to someone in person.

He said that this operation was not handled by the local police officers but rather by some other branch of the police. By then I knew this was really fishy and he was not a real police officer.

He then threatened me that he would send some officers to me and arrest me.

Anyway, after hanging up the phone. I searched on the Internet for some clue. "telephone scam Luxembourg" were the words that used.

I could read some articles about this telephone phishing or scam taking place in Luxembourg in recent weeks.

So it was a scam after all. I am relieved that I did not tell me anything important.

His English accent was somewhat flat like the typical accent you would find from someone from India or around those areas.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [A telephone scam happened to me Today.]の続きを読む

テーマ:ヨーロッパ - ジャンル:海外情報

1. 2021/12/07(火) 23:59:02|
2. Info Luxembourg
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

sometimes I wonder . . .

Sometimes I wonder whether she likes me or not. I believe that I am liked by her. She does not like the crowd or simply put people. She may be afraid of strangers. For her, it seems that I am the only human she knows and trusts. I am the one who feeds her, of course. She has to like or trust me if she wants to survive.

When she was small, around 6 months old, I had to leave her and trusted her with friends of mine for about 10 day while I was in Japan. She survived. So she can be with others if she has to.

There are signs that cats show that they like their respective owners. I check them (signs) on YouTube and consider our relation.

I have to conclude that she likes me very much.

Anyway I am very proud of being a loved cat owner.

For about two weeks during my lost summer holidays, I had another cat with me. She was a big cat weighing about 6 kg. They (my Hannah and she) never got chummy. They never fought physically to my greatest relief.

She was very friendly to humans. Anyone could pick her up and she seemed to be never bothered.

I wish Hannah could be friendly to other people.

A1025 Two now has a problem

I was updating this very blog entry when it struck. A1025 Two (The second PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz) while working with TenFourFox froze. I had to force-shutdown by holding the power button for a while to get out of this incident. After it I put it under anesthesia (in other words, Target Disk Mode) and tried to remedy the situation by repairing it from my MacBook Pro 13-inch Mid2010.

I could repair it and then I booted my A1025 Two. It kind failed to reach the desktop. I rebooted and then it reached the desktop. I tried to start TenFourFox to continue to edit this very entry. The TenFourFox never got to work properly.

Instead, the HDD inside seems to make access noise endlessly.

OMG! It happened. The HDD is failing. This HDD came with A1025 One but later transplanted into Two. I strongly assume and suspect that this HDD is the original HDD shipped from the factory and was already 19 years old. I don't blame it. It has already reached the age, the expected lifespan.

Now I have another task on my to-do list for the winter holidays.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Am I liked by my own Hannah the cat?]の続きを読む

テーマ:猫のいる生活 - ジャンル:ペット

1. 2021/12/06(月) 17:27:01|
2. Cats
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

Saving Private Ryan? No but my own private iBook G4 and others

My very private iBook G4 (A1054 1.07 GHz Early 2004) was just fine when I got it late 2021 (November). It had Mac OS X 10.3.7 (Panther) on it and got only 256 MB of RAM when it came into my possession. I liked it since the start.

I gave it more RAM (now it has 1.25 GB - Maximum!) and it has Sorbet Leopard on it. I thought it was going to be fine. I also bought a USB dongle Bluetooth adapter for it.

Late November its HDD began to show a sign of fatigue and got worse and worse to the point where it became impossible to repair (by use of Disk Utility) it by putting it into Target Disk Mode and via FireWire cable hooked up to another Mac.

In short, it needs a new HDD (or SSD). I have IDE-mSATA conversion kits lying around. I have at least one free mSATA SSD with me. All I need now is the will to do the complicated operation to disassemble and reassemble the iBook G4.

The will power, Baby!

Others?

Yes, I have to operate on A1025 One and Two. One has donated its HDD to Two. I am still looking for an easy way to fix its broken hinge.

Two is fine except for its right speaker. It does not speak at all. Broken? A disconnected connector? A broken line?

Yes, I have an A1134 (iBook G4 the last model 1.42 GHz) in a disassembled state since 2019. I wanted to put an SSD in it (I got it from somewhere near Nice, pronounced like niece, France in 2109 without an HDD).

I also wanted to replace the thermal paste on CPU and other places. It's the fastest iBook G4 ever! I know its optical drive works fine because I could boot it from an OS install DVD (leopard).

For these Winter holidays project, I need more SSDs and a thermal paste tube. I will shop for them on Amazon Germany.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Saving iBook G4 12-inch and others]の続きを読む

テーマ:ヨーロッパ - ジャンル:海外情報

1. 2021/12/05(日) 15:49:12|
2. MacBooks and Macs
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0

LogiLink BT0015 works on my PowerBook G4 Titanium

They were already in the mailbox when I came home.

LogiLink BT0015 is a USB dongle. On the package there are words and phrases like:

Designed in GERMANY
USB Bluetooth 4.0 Dongle
Support aptX™ with low power consumption and Class 1 transfer distance up to 50m!

I purchased two of them in case I want to have more than one.

The "Designed in Germany" line made me go "I see." because they (these particular dongles) were easily found in Europe but not on ebay USA.

Anyway, I broke the package and took the small piece out. I plugged it in one of the USB ports in the back. Immediately the BT icon appeared in the menu bar next to the icon representing the PC Card wireless network card (Cisco-Linksys WPC600N).

It is a good sign! I clicked on the icon and I knew it was already on and working. Actually I could not turn it off. It was always ON.

So it worked and works very well on PowerBook G4 Titanium (A1025 1GHz) with Leopard (Sorbet Leopard) 10.5.8. No additional driver software needed.



In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [LogiLink BT0015]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/12/03(金) 16:03:06|
2. MacBooks and Macs
3. | トラックバック：0
4. | コメント：0