Install in that order: PlayonMac, XQuartz, Wine. The last two components can be installed directly from PlayonMac. Once that is complete, get Airmail3 and install it by double-clicking it’s icon. It should be started/installed via PlayonMac. I’m using the version 3.3.081 which also includes the drivers for the Pactor modem. Install those drivers during the initial installation of Airmail3. If you want to get the propagation automagically from inside Airmail, you’ve got to install the (seperate) propagation programm: Open PlayonMac and run a ‘exe-File’ in the same virtual drive, you’ve installed Airmail in ! It has to be the same drive because otherwise Airmail will not be able to find that software.

Now that everything is installed, it’s time to configure the connection Bluetooth-Modem Wine. First the modem has to be paired with OS X. This is done using the Bluetooth-Assistant. The only thing of importance here: Use a ‘user-defined’ pairing-string ! It’s the last eight letters of your modem’s serial number which can be found on the underside of it. Be sure to use the correct upper/lowercase spelling – otherwise it won’t work. Once the Bluetooth-pairing is done, the connection can be tested by opening a Terminal-window (to be found in Applications -> Utilities) and typing the command: cat /dev/tty.SCSPTC-IIusb-COM1
After a short delay, the init-string of the modem should be printed. Now you can close that Terminal window. Attention: If you’ve played around with your Bluetooth-Setup and/or re-installed that modem or whatever… The name of the device can be slightly different. Use ‘/dev/tty.SCSPTC-IIusb-COM1-1′ of whatever is your correct device name.

Now you have to create a COM-port for use in Wine: Start PlayonMac, enter the Configuration and use the Button ‘open a shell’ in the tab ‘Miscellaneous’. A little shell-window will open, in which you have to type the following commandos:

cd ../dosdevices
ln -s /dev/tty.SCSPTC-IIusb-COM1 com1

This will create the needed COM-port for Wine. Now you can close PlayonMac and start Airmail3. Beside your usual settings, only one thing is really important: The Bluetooth-connection seems to be a bit sluggish and therefore Airmail will not be able to communicate correctly with your modem. You can solve this by going to Tools -> Options… Connection -> Advanced Settings and enable the option named ‘Ignore com-port CTS Signal’. If you now start the Terminal, the init-string of the modem should show after about 20 seconds.

Success !! You’ve got Airmail3 running under OSX with a working Bluetooth connection. Yay !

Our new gadget is a tiny little PC from Asus. The Asus EEE PC 1015PEM. And of course the first thing to do is to get rid of all that stupid ‘Intel Inside’ and ‘designed for M$ blah’ stickers. – I don’t get it why PC manufacturers still put them. But hey. Then I boot it up once to verify that everything works (yes it does, I hear some Windows start sound and can see the loging screen). That means: now it’s time to disassemble and upgrade that thing. Of course I ordered a memory upgrade and also a SSD-harddisk to replace the oldschool 250GB disk that’s inside. And the best part: when replacing the harddisk, I also get rid of Win7 automatically. Hehehe.

Here some pics I took from the upgrade procedure. I would not like to do that too often since most of the casing is held in place by little plastic clips – and they don’t seem to be too stable. Well somewhere there has to be a difference between a €300 laptop and the €1300 MacBook with metal casing… Today in the evening, I’ll install Ubuntu Linux and all the programs we’ll use later on (OpenCPN, Sailmail, zyGrib, fldigi, Faxviewer, etc.).  Enjoy your weekend !

What else is new ? Well, I’ve decided to switch back to english. Most of our readers actually are not native german speakers, so be happy that now you too can decipher our gibberish.

The Gallery (up above, see ‘pictures’) can now only be accessed by registered users. We will keep posting selected pictures to the blog, but the bigger portion is for friends and followers only.

Other enhancements (booklist, shiptrak, position alerts, …) are still to come, stay tuned…

Die Kiste, die sich nun am vergangenen Freitag fuer immer verabschiedet hat war in etwa aus dem Jahr 2001 und hatte sich also schon abbezahlt.

Am Wochenende habe ich in einer Blitzaktion serverart.com, serverart.org, rancho-relaxo.de und einige Domains von Freunden nach Berlin kopiert und dort laeuft nun das alles auf einem lieben, kleinen MiniMac, der gerade ohne Aufgabe rumstand.

Sobald ich Zeit hab, werde ich den Server neu installieren und dann wieder in ein richtiges Rechenzentrum packen. Das wird aber wohl noch etwas dauern. Bis dahin laeuft unsere Website wohl etwas langsamer, da die Anbindung hier nur 10MBit ist. Tja. Aber immerhin haben alle Daten den Crash ueberlebt. Nicht auszudenken, wenn ploetzlich alle meine Emails (ja, ich hab fast alle noch, ab ca. 1998) weg gewesen waeren. Na und was erst die vielen Freunde gesagt haetten, die auf serverart.org ihr Emailkonto haben…. Schwein gehabt !

Original comic: http://www.xkcd.com/705/

Hier der Link zu den Detail-Bildern + Epson DX-100 Video !

Noch ein paar Details zum Drucker: Verwendet werden offensichtlich Brother-kompatiblle Typenraeder. Mein Exemplar wurde mit ‘Letter Gothic 12′ geliefert. Derzeit bin ich auf der Suche nach einem Typenrad, das den vollen ASCII-Zeichensatz unterstuetzt. Leider wurden beim deutschen Letter-Gothic einige Sonderzeichen (@, | {}, []…) den (fuer mich) ueberfluessigen Umlauten geopfert.

Passende Farbbaender fuer den Epson DX-100:

Art.-Nr.    Beschreibung                        Preis
——————————————————–
7020         Farbbandkassette Film C schwarz      7,49 E
7025         Farbbandkassette Film C blau          7,20 E
7027         Farbbandkassette Film C rot          7,20 E
8020         Farbbandkassette Nylon                 10,20 E
ZRIBLIFTG1     Korrekturband                          6,97 E

Wie man auf den Fotos  15032008241.jpg – 15032008245.jpg erkennen kann, war der Gummi, der fuer den Anschlalg des Hammers verantwortlich war, defekt. Dieser wurde durch einen Raddiergummi + daruebergestuelpten Schrumpfschlauch ersetzt. :-D

Nun druckt er wieder !

Gleich dazubestellt: Endlospapier in A4 mit schoenen weiss/gruenen Streifen und durchnummerierten Zeilen. Yay !