Andryan’s Random Notes

I wanted to play Hello Kitty Online (HKO) on my MacBook. I still got my Fujitsu laptop, but these days I mainly use my MacBook. Sanrio Digital, the developer of HKO, does not seem to have plans for a Mac version of HKO client any time soon (as shown at HKO’s website FAQ). I saw the The CodeWeavers Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge on one of the news websites (I forgot which), then I registered for a code on the website to receive a legit unlocked copy of CrossOver Games (CXG) for Mac.

Once CXG has been installed on OS X, grab a copy of ie6setup.exe. Create a new win98 bottle in CXG, don’t use the “Install Unsupported Software..” button as it will automatically create a winxp bottle instead. Go to the menu bar “Configure” and select “Manage Bottles..”. Click on the + button, assign a name for the new bottle, and set the “New bottle type” to “win98″. Click “Create” to proceed with the bottle creation. It will then appear on the list on the left hand side of the window. Click on the newly created bottle and go to the “Applications” tab on the right hand side, and choose “Install Software..”.

Now the installer window appears again, but this time it will not automatically create a bottle. Choose “Install Unsupported Software..” and click “Continue”, it will then ask to choose which bottle to install into, select the “Other existing bottle” and click “Continue” then “Install”. When prompted with the file window dialog, choose the ie6setup.exe. Follow the setup process until the “Finished” button becomes active.

The reason why IE6 needs to be installed is because of the HKO client requires browser component for Auto Updater, Item Mall, etc. Once IE6 has been installed into the bottle, as indicated in the “Applications” tab, there will be 2 “Installed applications”: “Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) 3.0″ and “Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 SP1 and Internet Tools”. If there is nothing on the Applications tab, then repeat the above steps and ensure nothing was missed/skipped.

Now to install the HKO client, click on the “Install Software..” button on the “Applications” tab. Choose the “Install Unsupported Software..”, click “Continue”, choose “Other existing bottle”, click “Continue”, and click “Install”. This time, choose the HKO installer file instead of ie6setup.exe. Follow the setup process, again up until the “Finished” button becomes active, then “Hello Kitty Online” will appear on the “Installed applications” list. To run it, choose the menu bar Programs, SanrioTown, Hello Kitty Online, Hello Kitty Online. It should start the Auto Updater and the update process commences. Now HKO is playable on Mac OS X!

Easy, huh?

Thanks a lot, CodeWeavers!

References:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=6518773&postcount=138 (thanks for the hints, kkat69!)
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007012420511452

PREROUTING in nat table: DNAT, REDIRECT
POSTROUTING in nat table: SNAT/MASQUERADE

PREROUTING in mangle table: alter routing (e.g. source-based routing)
FORWARD in mangle table: traffic shaping for tc (flowid)

In MikroTik RouterOS, /ip firewall nat:
srcnat chain = PREROUTING
dstnat chain = POSTROUTING

Current MikroTik RouterBOARDs do not have a reset button (if you find a button on your RouterBOARD, it’s not the reset-to-factory-default button) to get it reset to the default factory configuration. User guides for each RouterBOARD, which MikroTik provides on routerboard.com, define the identifier and location of the reset mechanism. Hint: look for a distinct hole on the RouterBOARD and short-circuit it.

I will post some pictures when I get the time chance.

To reset RouterOS to the default configuration, execute the command /system reset-configuration. That should do the job. It will do a backup of the current configuration prior to the reset (how convenient!), in case you change your mind and possibly prevent accidental resets.

Since I don’t use it often, I keep forgetting the shortcut keys on taking screenshots in Mac OS X. Here is the list:

• Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Control-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard

References:
http://guides.macrumors.com/Taking_Screenshots_in_Mac_OS_X

In a situation, I had to extend my PPPoE network over a wireless bridge. I do not want to have nor maintain 2 PPPoE servers. I didn’t bother failed to understand how PPPoE works and made a wireless bridge without WDS. When one user log in from the bridged side of the network, it works flawlessly. When more users are trying to log in, the user which logged in earlier gets disconnected. Apparently this is caused by MAC address problem[1]. From the PPPoE server’s side, users logging in from the bridged side of the network have the same MAC address which is the bridge device’s MAC address. From the users’ side, they are able to see correct MAC address of every device on the other side of the network. The PPPoE server gets confused when it sends PPPoE packets because multiple users have the same MAC address and there is no way for the server to direct reply to individual user.

[1]Wireless AP is connected to the side of the network where the PPPoE server is connected to, and wireless client is connected to the other side of the network. Every device connected to the same side of the wireless AP gets the wireless client’s MAC address for every device connected over the wireless bridge, however every device over the bridge gets to see the real MAC address of every device connected to the same side of the wireless AP. I believe that if I interchange the wireless AP and client (so now PPPoE server is connected to the wireless client instead), it may work properly since the PPPoE server will get the correct MAC address of all devices over the bridge. Devices connected to the wireless AP obviously will get the same MAC address for the PPPoE server and PPPoE users connected to the same side of the wireless client, but the most important thing is that the PPPoE users over the bridge can communicate properly with the PPPoE server. Since this is a one-to-many and many-to-one situation, this should work, but not for many-to-many situation. This explanation sounds quite confusing due to my limited English. If you could rewrite this part, please let me know.

If connectivity-wise there is no problem, then check system date and time. Most likely system date and time is way off. Synchronize if necessary!

Third party NTP clients (such as Automachron) are better than Windows’ built-in one since they don’t need port 123 (UDP) incoming to be open.

Check advanced settings of IE, something to do with image link or stuff. Apparently YM uses Internet Explorer component for the chat windows. Probably to ease display formatting since HTML features are already built-in.

Oracle JInitiator, Windows Live Messenger, Internet Explorer 7 - possible conflict causes IE to crash, disable Windows Live Messenger add-on on IE to fix.
Java applet error (cache failed) requires the correct expected Java version to be installed.

To determine which shell is currently being used, do echo $0.

Previously I wrote a post which discusses real-time CPU statistics utility. Now if you need historical data of CPU utilization statistics, use sysstat’s sar. For Fedora and CentOS, there is an official RPM package for sysstat.

Once you have installed sysstat, leave it for a few minutes until you get some records. The data collector runs from /etc/cron.d every 10 minutes (by default) and records all CPU usage. If you have SMP systems, then it will record each CPU’s utilization statistics. The default behaviour of sar is to print ALL CPU statistics combined, use -p to select individual CPU. Have fun watching your CPU utilization stats!