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Bug of the moment 2006-01-22


In the last year or more (my memory for time is abysmal so forgive me here) there has been a lot of publicity about that recurring ugly bug, the buffer overrun. So I was most tickled when the following error message popped up in Media Player Classic while trying to view a Liz Phair video stream:

Although I wonder, if it is that easy to detect a buffer overrun, how come there have not been such warnings in the past? :)

The following bug – that I have been experiencing for years – belongs somewhere high up in my Most Pet Hated list:

ShadowIRC has a thing for opening up the Preferences dialog on an empty connections list. I suppose it would help if ShadowIRC 1 had been updated any time in the last six years, but that is left as a reader exercise for anyone willing to spend a small fortune on a proprietary compiler in the name of open source software. ShadowIRC 2 for Mac OS X is supposedly on its way but I don’t keep track of its secretive and glacial development. A shame, really, as it’s the nicest IRC client that I have ever seen.

Finally, I received the following system halt attempting to boot my Macintosh Classic from the Disk Tools disc of the PowerBook 160/180 disc set:

The error doesn’t make sense: it seems to be telling me that a Mac Classic can only run a version of Apple System Software greater than 7.1, which is silly. It is also untrue that it cannot run 7.1 as I have just successfully upgraded it from 7.0 Tuned to 7.1. There is nothing PowerBook-specific about the disc that I know of, unless the kernel was specifically recompiled (as it bears Sytem Enabler 111 for the PowerBook 160 and 180, so I have no idea what it’s complaining about :) The “Install Me First” disc for that disc set itself boots fine on my Classic so who knows?


Posted 22nd January 2006 – Comments and questions?