Ben's Bits - Latest comments

In response to: Booting DOS from a USB flash drive

Ghetto_Child [Visitor] — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:53:33 +0000

Like Chris Merchant stated none of the FreeDOS iso files have those 3 fat bootsector bin/bss files in them. I'm trying to make an 8GB Corsair Flash Voyager into a multi standard usb bootable flash (USB-HDD-FDD-ZIP) but I can't figure out what to use for the -b option. If I use the included mbrfat.bin with the -b option the drive formats, reads, writes correctly. However attempting to boot it on my Acer Aspire 1410 Core 2 Solo Netbook produces the msg "HDDno operating system" and the system doesn't do anything after that.

In response to: Deconstructing the Car Talk Jukebox

Greg [Visitor] — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:37:00 +0000

Thanks!! By the way, this script does the trick:

#!/bin/zsh
wget -q -O - 'http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/WeeklyShow/showAllsmil.xml' |\
sed 's/<>/<\n>/g' |\
grep mp3 |\
sed 's/\<audio src="//g' |\
sed 's/"title.*$//g' \
\> /var/tmp/pls.m3u
mplayer -playlist /var/tmp/pls.m3u

In response to: Using Google Apps on iGoogle

Tad [Visitor] — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:49:28 +0000

I agree. I'd be very happy if there was somehow I could merge my Gmail/iGoogle identity with my primary Google Apps identity. And Speaking of not sharing, why is it apparently impossible to easily share/sync/swap contacts between different Gmail and Google Apps accounts?

In response to: The Open Source Microsoft Access Alternative

deko [Visitor] — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:30:10 +0000

Access has the advantage of tight integration with the Office Suite and can make a very productive tool for advanced Office users.

Why can't there be a repository of VBA code that owners of MS Office can download/upload as an open source project?

I know Access is not open source, but why can't there be open source Access application? If all the code is freely available isn't it open source?

In response to: Booting DOS from a USB flash drive

symbolset [Visitor] — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:42:35 +0000

The easy way to do this:

Clonezilla is a disk imaging linux distribution that uses syslinux and includes FreeDOS for ease of BIOS flashing. It's very easy to install and it's handy for making backups of your computer to a USB drive or network share.

Download clonezilla from clonezilla.org. Format the pendrive FAT32 and copy all the files onto the root of the pen. From Windows open cmd.exe and change to utils/win32 and run makeboot.bat or from Linux terminal cd to utils/linux and run makeboot.sh to make the pen bootable. Copy the applications you want to use from DOS onto the pen.

Boot the pen and select FreeDOS. A: will be the FreeDOS operating system image and C: will be the root of the pen.

If you only want FreeDOS and not clonezilla, edit syslinux/syslinux.cfg so that it's the only menu option and delete the excess files.

In response to: Booting DOS from a USB flash drive

Chris Merchant [Visitor] — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:29:44 +0000

what i dont understand is i download fdbasews.iso and use magiciso to extract all the files. however there is no fat12.bin", "fat16.bin" and "fat32lba.bin" files. when i goto "FREEDOS\PACKAGES\SRC_BASE\KERNELS.ZIP", there is no files, but there is 3 more folders labeled "doc", "packages" and "source". i have looked through out all three folders and even used the search option on the entire main folder and there are none of those three .bin files. i have downloaded the iso file many times and it is complete but yet these files are not in there.

In response to: The Submarine Project

casandy [Visitor] — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:34:58 +0000

get a plastic bottle poke three holes
in it and put an eraser in it it works perfectly!!!!!!!!!

you're welcome

In response to: The Submarine Project

bella [Visitor] — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:18:21 +0000

make a aluminum boat and put a hole in the bottom of it and sit it in the tank then it will float for 5 seconds and then it will subsurface float and then it will sink.