Bill Farmer

Resurrecting a netbook as a web server

When I got fed up with Windows XP on my netbook, I tried windows 7 on it, but it was barely usable. So I tried Windows 7 Starter which was better. I upgraded it to Home Premium, which was OK at first, but slowed down as it got clagged up with updates.

That was it until recently, when I read an article about putting Windows 10 on one. I didn’t try that, but I did try Linux Mint on it. That works quite nicely. Then my other half decided to research her family tree and wanted some software to put her data on. We looked at what was available and decided that Webtrees was the most usable. That requires a web server and up stepped my netbook.

Build Mac OSX apps using command line tools

You will need to install the Xcode command line tools, you don’t need the Xcode app. The easiest way to do this is to attempt to build an app like emacs by typing ./configure on the command line. A dialog box will pop up asking if you want to download and install the tools.

Xcode now uses the LLVM CLang compiler and documentation is exceedingly hard to find. You can type gcc -help or clang -help on the command line to get some info. I found two web pages with more useful info: http://clang.llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/clang.html and https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/compiling/compiling.html.

Read iBook books on an Android tablet

You will need to install Calibre to make the books usable, and the books must be DRM free.

There are two ways to do this:

• If you have a Mac or Hackintosh you can find your books in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books, in what appears to be epub files but are really folders with numeric names. Copy the ones you want to somewhere accessible, like ~/Books, and zip the contents of each folder, not the folder itself. Rename the zip files as epub files.

Install OSX El Capitan on a PC (MBR)

Prerequisites

• A real Mac or Hackintosh
• A spare disk drive – at least 8Gb, preferably USB
• An 8Gb or larger USB stick
• The Install OSX El Capitan.app from the App Store
• A disk partition to install in

Install on spare disk drive

Connect your spare drive to your PC. Use the method described here to build the El Capitan install USB stick and install OSX using the GPT partition scheme on your spare disk drive. Check it boots up OK and works OK.

Catalan slow cooked chicken

This is based on a recipe in Asda magazine.

Ingredients

• Chicken pieces – drumsticks, thighs, legs – whatever
• 3 onions, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
• Red and green pepper, chopped
• 6 tomatoes, chopped
• Bay leaves
• 1tsp paprika
• 1tsp turmeric
• 1tsp dried oregano
• Chicken stock pot
• Olive oil

Method

1. Put the chicken pieces in a slow cooker with bay leaves and turn on full to warm up.
2. Fry the chopped onions, peppers and garlic in olive oil until soft.
3. Transfer the cooked onions, peppers, garlic and oil to the slow cooker, add the stock pot, the chopped tomatoes, paprika, turmeric and oregano.
4. Just cover with boiling water, put the lid on the slow cooker and leave on high for about an hour until it is bubbling gently.
5. Turn down to low and leave to cook for about four to five hours.