Windows7 RDP will not full screen after minimizing
Posted by Jered in Uncategorized on December 16, 2011
I ran into this one with my newest laptop where minimizing or windowing a full screen RDP session will not full screen with the buttons at the top again
After a bit of searching I found that the keyboard shortcuts will work correctly to re full screen
CTRL+ALT+BREAK is the official one CTRL + ALT + PAUSE works for me on my laptop as well (so I dont have to press the function key as on my laptop the Break is a function of the Pause key)
Installing Anno2070 AVG flags a win32/heur infection on installation
Posted by Jered in Uncategorized on December 3, 2011
This is one I spent a bit of time finding and figured I would post apparently AVG flags a false positive for the ANNO exe file and it should be safe to just ignore
Long term it is probably a good idea for you to set up an exception for the installation directory for the game as well
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/626105-anno-2070/61109298
Twitter and RSS for Google reader
Posted by Jered in Uncategorized on November 16, 2011
I ran across a scenario where I wanted to follow a twitter user via an RSS reader the problem that I had was that google reader (unlike some of the other readers) did not like the format of the API as addressed in the following blog post
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/06/23/how-to-find-the-rss-feed-for-any-twitter-user/
Luckily someone in the comments did have a link to the standard for the “old format” which appears to still work as of the time of this post
The format of the URL is as follows, this worked without a problem for me
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/{USERNAME}.rss
Mint XFCE Version 201104, What went wrong?
Earlier last week I got that strong urge to upgrade my laptop, after having run the XFCE version of mint (9) for months (and loving it the whole time for the most part) I decided it was time for a fresh install at the new version. I was hoping for possibly a bit cleaner interface and for further more stable flash support.
Its at this point that it all went wrong for me.
Installation
For the most part things went smoothly there were only 2 things that bugged me
1) Whats with the fairly un-intuitive manual partition manager now during installation? With this being a laptop distribution I had no urge to do fancy partitioning I wanted a single installation on top of one partition using the whole hard drive. Its nothing that takes TOO long to figured out but this seems like a step backwards when it was much simpler in earlier versions
2) Why are you not making new ISO’s that are even close to current in patches? after installation I had over 1000 patches to apply! it took 2x as much time to PATCH my fresh install as it did to actually perform the install and this is on 20Mb internet service
Interface
The first thing I noticed is the re-design of the default layout with them having moved the application menu and bar to the top with a launcher box on the bottom. Again I am confused by a seemingly random style change from previous versions that took up more screen real estate that the previous design but in the end it looks a lot like how XFCE used to function so I can get over that it only took 10 min or so to move the bar around and get things back to the way they were before.
This was the point where I tried to walk away from my computer for a bit and went to the application launcher and clicked on lock screen … oh wait they apparently for some reason completely got rid of the lock screen function. No problem Ill just create a launcher icon on the task bar that calles an xscreensaver -lock function no problem.
At this point I needed to change location and wanted to go to shutdown and hibernate to hibernate my laptop, with an older laptop I often do this to save battery life over suspend…. wait they got rid of HIBERNATE (or at least the interface to it).
Hardware support
One of the reasons I always liked mint is that I have had fantastic hardware support for this very same laptop, things just worked everything from the built in hardware (video/sound) to periphrials like USB hard drives and USB attached mobile broadband cards (which is amazing because they don’t even work right in windows)
This is why I became extremely frustrated when this version apparently had issues with my sound card, while music would play (local through a player or via flash from sites like youtube and google music) they would have audio glitches and change in pitch for no apparent reason making the sound unusable from that machine
The Final Failure
After applying a few patches one morning I rebooted (dont remember the reason) when MINT came up and I logged in none of my windows had any of the top bar or action buttons, I tried several reboots to no avail ONE of those updates appears to have completely broken the windows manager unable to move windows or close or minimize them (outside of the menu’s which were still there) I finally gave up on the distro.
Conclusion
I am a problem solver and like to work around these problems but this is my primary laptop, the one I have to get work done on. I picked XFCE Mint in the past as it always was a slick, fast, easy to understand and low amount of configuration needed to get working exactly what I needed for a primary use machine. Having failed at the primary reasons I love THIS distro I decided to move on
I hope they fix the bugs and make this into a worthy sub type, I will continue to evaluate new versions
What did I move on to?
The regular version of MINT of course (Gnome based) 11
I will write a separate review of of this version coming up but so far absolutely loving it everything I missed out of the old versions of XFCE Mint
Tropico (Steam) Crashes on launch
This is a simple one having nothing to do with my other IT interests but it was frustrating for me to figure out a few weeks ago I purchased Tropico 3 absolute power and every time I tried to launch the application it would immediatly crash.
The fix was simple for me I am running multiple monitors, for some reason the game can not handle this configuration you have to disable all extra monitors then it does not have a problem.
The shortcut in windows 7 is win+p otherwise it is in your display settings menu
Chromium and Flash
Posted by Jered in HowTo, Linux, Uncategorized on April 27, 2011
Within the last month on my mint laptop chromium has been complaining about needing to be updated, and it disabled the plugin.
The manual update process is kind of a pain and to be honest and I had just not gotten around to doing the update. On a whim I decided to try and see if there was a way to do the update via apt-get instead of the manual install procedure and I found it
apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
It updated the plugin in chromium as well … yay flash works again
Vsphere/Vmware Port and Connection Diagram
I figured I would just post a quick link to this
http://www.virtualinsanity.com/wp-content/uploads/connections-ports-esx.pdf
Fantastic port diagram for vmware connectivity on virtualinsanity that I for one reason or another always have trouble finding when I need it most.
Linux Mint (XFCE) as a Laptop Operating system
Awhile ago I did a story about Mint running as a virtual, about 6 months ago I was looking for a Linux solution for my laptop and while I had experience with many different variations over the years I have had mixed results with trying to completely replace windows as the base operating system on my laptops due to all the challenges presented every time I had used any of the main distro’s in the past.
Traditional Challenges
1) Hardware/Driver functionality.
This is an old story laptops on average use more custom drivers (or at least manufacturer developed drivers) than desktops and on average I have had to fight much more with them for things like sound/video card and wireless drivers for one reason or another over the years as well as supporting plug and play hardware (like cellphone tethering or cell usb adapters or external hard drives). Often you could get things working at least in a minimal fashion but it was always a challenge to get everything running smoothly. Some of that was hardware choice a more thorough evaluation of linux compatibility before purchase would help make it easier but not all the systems I had to use could be chosen by me before hand (things like handmedown hardware or work provided hardware)
2) Full functionality as a”Desktop”
Don’t get me wrong I am a huge Linux fan for MANY uses but I had alway struggled using it as my primary operating system, every-time I had to go on the road and use tethering or deal with an NTFS formatted hard drive or weird serial dongle I would get frustrated. I am a virtualization guy and plenty of solutions out there to make sure you can run a windows virtual so you have it available but in the end sometimes it just needs to be on the native hardware to interact with external hardware.
3) Software options
While not a major problem due to my history there always were the last few stragglers in windows replacement softwares that did not work quite as I liked it to usually revolving around media and productivity.
My Experiences with MINT
Installation
Like any more modern distro mint provides a slick and intuitive installer so this was of no consequence installing, I wanted to get the feel of its base configuration so I literally left EVERYTHING default I made no significant changes during installation like I normally do.
Installation time ran about as long as normal and away i went all the default stuff you need is in by default from your system tools to software (more on that later)
Hardware
My first surprise is that EVERYTHING worked by default all needed drivers were installed all hardware detected all features worked OUT OF THE BOX! No problems with video or wireless or sound it just worked and was detected on this particular laptop (Dell E6500) My surprise grew when I realized that I had no problems with any of the plug and play hardware that I normally use.
I do mean ANY, want to tether your windows mobile phone? Yep no problem just plug in and tell the phone to share and it gets picked up as a new network card automatically this surprisingly is even easier than it works on a windows laptop even with a windows mobile phone! Want to use that cell USB card? Yep absolutely just plug the device in go to the wireless manager and tell it what carrier it is to be used for!
These experiences were leaps and bounds better on MINT then they were on my windows platform things just worked quietly and un-obtrousivly as they should no fuss at all.
Software
Like any linux head I have been collecting a whole series of “favorite” softwares for years that I had been dragging around and installing on systems everything from my favorite system performance monitoring tools to my favorite text editors and what not. Now I am not going to say that I still did not install some of those but all in all I have been amazed at the software selection that mint installs.
Things just work, they pick great default apps that are easy to use, reasonably light and powerful without going crazy and installing everything in the world. All the major bases are covered from media players to browsers as well as all the plugins for the browsers which is a nice touch if you have ever had to install Java or flash back in the day you remember what it was like. Again nothing any moderate to advanced user could not have accomplished but thats the point YOU DONT HAVE TO. They make a great starting platform that has all the basics and allow you the freedom to expand above and beyond if you choose to.
Being debian based and with the power of the apt repositories any software you need is right on your fingertips, it is one of the reasons I like debian based distros so much.
Conclusion
In the end it comes down to does it do what you want in the way you want it, that is the power of Linux and having all the choices out there for you. For me the answer is MINT does this for me I am absolutely happy with the distro and could not ask for a single thing more out of it.
Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d
I don’t normally do product introductions but i have been doing the research and have been absolutely blown away by the feature set for the device.
Some of the more stunning features for me are
Network File Protocols Supported
- Microsoft (CIFS/SMB/Rally)
- Linux/UNIX (NFS)
- Apple File Protocal (AFP) and Bonjour support
- FTP
- HTTP
- HTTPS
- SNMP
Dual Gigabit Ethernet—Connectivity with Jumbo frame support and high performance embedded architecture.
iSCSI Target—Provides block-level access for the most efficient storage utilization, especially for database and eExpandability
- Add storage capacity by connecting external USB Hard Disk Drives. The ix4 supports read and write on Fat32, NTFS or ext2/ext3, or HFS+ formatted drives
VMWare® Certified—HCL certified NAS (NFS) and iSCSI storage for VMware.
These are only some of the major features I find extremely intriguing for a device that for the base models are under $800, many people are using these or starting to use these for home vmware labs, baring some magic influx of money th is seems like a very affordable way to get network storage available to your home LAN
If anyone out there has gotten to actually play with one of these let me know how it works in real life!
Netflix how I want to hate you … yet I still am going back (maybe)
Posted by Jered in Comment on October 10, 2011
Netflix how I want to hate you … yet I still am going back (maybe)
What they are doing wrong
I have been watching the rise and fall of netflix extremely closely sense mid July, like many other subscribers to their service the rapid fire pace of their changes overwhelmed me. The metaphorical parade of ham handed and smug changes combined together to rise my ire towards them.
1) The price hike in July of 60 percent was infuriating to me to start with netflix riding the wave of streaming success created outcasts of those of us using both streaming and in mail delivery making it necessary for most people with a budget to choose one or the other not both
2) The Stars negotiations breaking down so close in timing to the price hike was a second blow to consumer confidence not only are you being charged more but netflix as of February will be reduced in its ability to deliver new content to their streaming service. Without access to Sony or Disney films provided by this contract
3) The breaking off of quikster irked many people including me, what a horrible branding fiasco to start with heck I know it is a screwed up spelling and I still keep getting it wrong. But more importantly than stupid marketing this move reduced service to users, making you have to manage two services with two accounts and two bills they were throwing out what made them awesome to start with.
While I was a huge consumer of streaming their content catalogue and access to new material is no where near what their disk service is. As it stands now I do not believe they can stand on their streaming catalogue which is what made the last change one of the most inpactful to me, not only were they going to charge me more but they were going to reduce access to the new releases.
I was in love with netflix but they tried to make too many changes at once with poor communications to customers and an arrogance about their brand loyalty which was boarder line unbelievable. By the time change number 3 rolled around I had canceled my account after 4 years as a customer.
I was going to vote with my wallet and I did
Today netflix announced that they were canceling their quikster plans, as a consumer I am happy they have rolled back one of the changes I disagreed with most. If I were an investor (and I am not) I would still be worried what this signals. First and foremost it hints at a lack of corporate direction and a terrible understanding of the market and of their consumer base wants out of them. Secondly the roll back hints at probably a much larger erosion of their subscriber numbers, they had already downgraded their subscriber counts post price hike down 600,000 I expect to see that the real number after the quikster debacle is much larger.
All in all they are a poster child for misreading the market … making bad decisions… miscommunication to their customer base and flipfloping
What they are doing right
That being said I am still considering rejoining the service, they are doing several things well
1) Rolling back Quikster was a good idea while it feels a bit like they have no rudder now I do like to see them responding to people voting with their wallets, if I had not already canceled my account this may have been enough for me to stay with them longer to see
2) Adding a lot of TV content, this is a good thing in my opinion I used their streaming service heavily for TV content so improving that helps. It does not replace access to new movie content but it is valuable to me and something that I will use
3) Trying to work to produce new content, their move on projects like arrested development I think is a good direction for them getting some original content of their own could be a huge draw if they do it right
3) Access, not really a new thing but as I looked at other services one thing severely lacking in my book is device access and something that netflix does very well. I do most of my viewing from either my TV through my TIVO or Blu-Ray player or mobile devices like Ipad, android phone or other. Other services like amazon don’t have their streaming content available over these devices yet (TIVO can do VoD only with amazon)
What else they could do better
I personally would like to see VoD (Video on Demand) content be added to their service. To be honest my by mail usage is only to get access to content that is not available to all you can eat streaming. The reality of the situation with content provider agreements means that it is cheaper for services to acquire VoD rights and disk rights to content than streaming and also that you can get newer content.
I use amazon primarily for these services now because it is nice to have that “Got to have it now” access to a huge catalogue of movies that will likely never be made available to streaming buffets.
In conclusion
I am probably going to go back for a while to eye the new content at least with a minimal plan though the decision is hard because they irked me so much I want my money (or lack there of) to continue to speak that no simple retraction of quikster can put my confidence back into place they are going to have a long road to make me a real fan again and if other services like amazon add the extra access methodologies into place I wont hesitate jumping to something that has a better cost/benefit balance for my needs.
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