Jun 10
ErinNon-FLOSS
I imagine that at first the Auto-play feature is the best thing since sliced bread. I think I first encountered it when I used Win98(?) wherein if you pop in a CD with the autoplay file it will start the named executable which is usually the main installer of the disc.
Then come WinXP (or Win2K, I can’t remember) wherein some brilliant developer/designer proposed to take it one step further, by making sure an autoplay dialog pops up to display a list of possible actions whenever the user puts in a media in the CD/DVD drive OR if a USB storage device is plugged-in.
I find that feature as very irritating, especially since I am a keyboard-centric user and I have a multi-partition USB HDD enclosure. I have four partitions in my 120GB WD driver so it means every time I use it in Windows I have to contend with eight windows (4 drive scanning dialog boxes, and the actual autoplay window). Somewhere along the four autoplay window is an option to set this behavior off (Do nothing+Do this every time) but somehow it is very elusive so I end up hitting the escape key vigorously to cancel these autoplay actions. These combative behavior does not always work since sometimes the windows do not have focus.
Even for DVD and CD media, I don’t like this option even if my next action will be to open an explorer and navigate to the inserted media. I don’t like it because the pop-out windows by their nature interrupts my train of thought. I prefer that the media be read in the background and I will press WinKey+E to launch an explorer.
So last night I finally got fed up and searched for a way to turn off that irritating feature. It was very easy actually and got a lot of hits; the keywords I used were “disable autoplay windows”. In a nutshell the steps are:
- In the run command, execute “gpedit.msc” which launches the group policy editor.
- Navigate to the User Configuration->Administrative Templates->System item. If you want this to be system wide, use the Computer Configuration instead. My wife may want this feature so I opted for the user-limited settings.
- Double-click on the “Turn off Autoplay” and set it to true.
Presto! No more autoplay nag boxes for me. I think KDE also have a counterpart for this in the kded(aemon) but I use XFCE so I don’t really have this problem when I am in Linux.
[update]
ciao!
Jun 01
ErinGadget, Reviews
My laptop developed some problems late 2007 which causes it to freeze regardless if I have Linux or Windows running. I initially thought it has something to do with the installed operating systems but reinstalling various Linux distributions didn’t help. My initial suspect was a heat problem. I turned Lala upside down and proceeded to vacuum the bottom side with the help of a couple of toothpicks to help remove the lint (and two years of use can accumulate a lot of those!).
Last February I walked by a CDR-King shop and decided to get a laptop cooling pad. The models available are only the slider ones which I don’t want. I wanted something that I can use as a prop stand while doing portable computing in the bed. The only non-slider model they have is the LSY709 so it is the model I got after being assured that it can accommodate a 15 inch laptop. If I remember correctly this peripheral is given a 7-day warranty.
First off, the cooler pad is able to hold Lala but not by much. The laptop is protruding by almost an inch on both sides, and 1.5″ at the hinge side. I don’t think the shop contains any cooler that is bigger so this is not something that can be helped. The pad’s construction is slanted which raises the back portion higher. It also has two plastic “stands” at the top corners that elevates the placed laptop a little further and gives a little air pocket between the pad’s metal surface. Overall the pad still fits in my laptop bag quite comfortably but I am anxious on the bare edges because even if they are smooth they may still rip the padding if placed incorrectly and forcefully,
One thing that is not shown in the site is the view from below so here it is:
The wires are pretty open which can be something to worry since I want to put this in my lap. Fortunately the fans are protected by grills so there is no possibility of my leg skin getting into contact if I place it on my lap while it is in operation. But the wires is still ugly as it is something that looks like what I would have done if I constructed it myself.
This cooler, as can be seen from the image posted in the cdrking site, has three quiet fans in the middle that pulls the heat from the laptop placed on top. Unfortunately my laptop’s bottom vents are on the top portion near the hinge so they don’t really line up. Again this is something that I don’t think can be helped because I reviewed all the cooler pads in the site (at the time) and all of them has the cooler in the middle. I think it is the laptop design (a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro V7100) that is at fault here. I need to check the other laptops if the placement of the heat vents are in the middle. Nevertheless the air pocket between the laptop bottom and the cooler pad surface is enough to produce a swirling ventilation.
I have used the pad whenever the laptop is in use. The elevation works great especially when I am placing the laptop down on the bed. As everybody who owns a laptop should know (yes Boi, that includes you), putting laptops on top of fabric or paper is not recommendes as they are soft enough to block the vents. The cooler pad gives the laptop enought elevation that even if the fans are blocked, the laptop vents are still free to swirl the air around. I haven’t experienced any lock-ups yet.
Now the bad parts:
- While the fans are quiet, their output must not be that strong. I can barely feel the airflow when I switch on the fans.
- The bare metal approach is not comfortable if you put it in your lap. I get dent marks on my legs whenever I forget to put a throw pillow on the edge that touches my skin. The laptops weight (~2.5 kilos) might also have something to do with it.
- Shabby wiring. As of today, the fans are dead. I think I can see where the wires got damaged and may be able to fix it if I get the time, tools and inclination. Right now this pad is only good for elevation. 🙁
This pad is now due for replacement. Will I get the same model? Probably not. It was a value for what I paid for it but I think there might be something better out there that provides the right balance of price and functionality.
ciao!
May 29
ErinFLOSS
Since the start of this week I have been struggling with the installation of the latest Mandriva release which I have just finished downloading via torrent. I even posted a passing comment about it in the unofficial Mandriva Users board. Since I have already gone through two succeeding installations that failed, I stated that if the third time didnt push through then I would really consider looking at another distro for Lala (my laptop).
The first failed installation has something to do with a recurring error in the wifi prism54 loading that made it impossible to login. I don’t have the exact error with me but it has something to do with the eth0 not being in a final state, and the IRQ channels might be too busy. The second attempt wherein I tried to only install the bare minimum of X package borked the whole X installation. I installed Mdv again yesterday and this time just selected the KDE installation. If this one is also going to fail then I wouldn’t waste my time manually choosing the packages to be installed. I left the installation running while we had our dinner. When I came back the installation was already showing the root account and user configuration window.
At the final configuration screen, I opted to just configure the ethernet connection and setting it to start at boot but not at that specific point. I just want Lala to boot up and then I would configure the wireless card using ndiswrapper since I already have the Fujitsu provided drivers in a CDRW. Taking the installation DVD out of the drive bay, I crossed my fingers for the first reboot.
For the remainder of the boot sequence, I was pretty much holding my breath until I got to the KDM screen. I entered my user account and waited for KDE to kick in. The good news is that everything seems to be ok but it was taking quite long for the KDE startup sequence to complete. I think I waited around 5 minutes which is not good. I noticed that KDE has started by default a lot of daemons that starts in the taskbar How very MS-like so the first task was to remove them one by one until only the clock and the network applet remained in the status bar area. I don’t really understand why I did that since I plan on replacing KDE with XFCE4, my new favorite desktop that replaced fluxbox.
I put in the CDRW disc and copied wireless card Windows driver in /tmp. Weird thing is that ark is not able to extract the file so I ended up doing a manual unzip operation in the command line. This is not a good start but I can live with it. I proceeded to configure the wireless card using the network applet. The package manager asked for the DVD installation media since it needs to fetch the ndiswrapper package so I swapped in the DVD+RW in the drive and let the urpmi front-end do its thing. After a minute I was asked to locate the Windows driver’s INF file so I navigated to the /tmp directory. After a few default choices, I was shown the Wifi access points in my area which listed only my wireless router ( I live in a pretty low-tech neighborhood. 😀 ). After a few test, I was greeted with a message that my network has been properly configured.
Hurray! But still I have no connection. A quick ifconfig command later and I saw that I have a wlan0 device but it doesnt have an IP. I just issued a quick dhclient wlan0 and voila: a wlan0 device with an attached IP address! I took advantage of the situation and downloaded the latest packages in the Internet as well as Krusader and XFCE4. Everything finished at around 12AM so I made sure everything was finished and halted the machine.
Tonight I booted up Lala and pressed the escape key to see the bootup messages in the background. In the network start phase, there was an error in the “Set Encode” portion of the wifi loading so I was pretty disappointed. I logged in using the XFCE4 session and was inside my desktop in less than a minute after I entered my username and password. My biggest prize was waiting inside: the top XFCE4 panel has the network applet and it is showing 3 out of 4 bars. My laptop is connected automatically to my wireless router! SUCCESS!
I am now writing this post using my spanking new Mdv installation. I am still amazed that Mandriva is consistent in getting the middle trackpad buttons working while I am struggling to do it in Windows. I just need a NAS server and everything should be set for the file coordination between Lala and Leo (my desktop Archlinux installation).
I am happy even if I am already sleepy due to lack of enough rest. Anybody who wants a copy of the latest Mandrake DVD (Free Edition), let me know but you will have to meet me in Robinson’s Pioneer during office days. 🙂
ciao!
May 28
ErinGadget
The news bombardment on the ultraportable front is pretty fierce with a new Eee killer competitor being announced weekly. I am still waiting for the Acer version to come out but my choices right now are between the MSI Wind and Eee PC 901. The HP mini-note comes a distant third because it does not have the latest power-conscious chip (Intel Atom or Via Isaiah) so battery life can barely squeezed to 3 hours.
MSI has just released two beta prototypes to lucky Taiwanese press and msiwind.net has published a copy of the review. If I am going by that user review then the only drawbacks currently known is the jutting card reader, and the slight heating up of the trackpad since it is placed near or on top of the hard disk drive. I am not counting the decision of equipping it with a normal HDD instead of a SSD drive since like the review says, I treat my laptop as a precious thing. I don’t think I have even dropped my 3Kg laptop anyway.
Shipping date and price is still unannounced and expansys.net has taken down the pre-order page for it but the Wind was priced at US$610. Hopefully the real price will be lower but unless Eee 901 has a great feature up its sleeves then the Wind is going to win in blowing my money away. 🙂
ciao!
May 23
ErinFLOSS, Rubbish
The Philippine Linux User Group (PLUG) mailing list currently has a thread that (according to the archives.free.net.ph) is 44 replies strong. The thread started about a query on how to increase one’s technical portfolio (I assume for job interviews, but it is still too early to trust my memory) but, in typical internet forum style, morphed into opinions and lamentations that the PLUG lists are getting boring and losing the old hands.
Various comments were put forward but the reasons that stuck with me were that (1) the usability state of Linux has evolved that solutions to majority of technical issues are just a Google away, and (2) the old posters have moved on to the pressing need of their real life.
I don’t see myself much of a contributor but I have been a member of the list for more than five years and I am not posting as much as did. I don’t even police the lists anymore but I have always attributed that to the reduction of the number of PLUG mailing lists, the members sharing the policing responsibility, and the members actually knowing better than to post off-topic questions. The last two signifies that the PLUG mailing list members have grown up and the new members are savvy enough to respect proper list netiquette or they are afraid to post, whichever you want to believe in. 😀
People might not grow up proportionally to the rate they are growing old but they will grow up nonetheless even if they don’t realize it. The PLUG thread sparked an eureka moment, I am growing up. I just noticed that I now often sign my blog comments using my nickname instead of just “ramfree17”, and if left unchecked I am using proper capitalization on those comments which is a far cry from the “all low-caps” rule that I was imposing when I was younger 😉 . The downside if it can be called that is that I am losing some of my idealism in favor of pragmatism. I was always in favor of pragmatism since childhood but I guess right now the pragmatic part of me is consuming more of the idealistic share.
An email reply jokingly contributed that the “golden years” of PLUG might have already passed but it is time for the new blood to step up. Whenever I hear the term “golden years” I remember this snippet from Mary Schmich’s essay “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” (made popular as Baz Luhrman’s “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”):
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
ciao!
May 21
ErinFLOSS, Work
Last night was my first night of putting interoperability of Linux to a personal test. I work for a Microsoft-centric company so every time I need to do active meeting sessions with counterparts then I have to boot into Windows to ensure that nothing goes off in the middle of the meeting. This is because meetings like those entail a lot of opening of project office documents, searching mails for references, and other stuff. The project documents are also a work of their own since I think the person creating the base templates are certified MS Office template designers (if there is such a thing).
My new project requires me to handle late Tuesday night calls since we are conferencing three very distributed time zones (Manila, Madrid, California). Conference calls are done using Skype since I don’t have IDD capability at home nor am I willing to do the call on my prepaid SIM. Since I already have Skype installed yesterday on Archer, I tested a conference call using Skype’s echo123 service. I was able to hear my recorded message so that portion is not a problem. My headset has a small static sound but I think it has something to do with the connection between the headset and the speaker audio out port. The only possible stumbling block would be the mail searching portion and the documents that needs to be referenced in the call.
An hour before I have already downloaded all reference materials off the web mail interface of the company’s Exchange server. That reminds me that I have the Exchange server because it keeps on kicking my Firefox connection whenever I open a message. The sidebar is OK but the main area gets a “Connection is lost” message. IE doesn’t have this problem when I am in Windows but I wouldn’t install ie4linux just for this now that Metrobank already supports non-IE browser. If anybody knows how to make Thunderbird connect to an Exchange server then let me know although the configuration might also be painful. I couldn’t even configure Outlook in my desktop to connect to the Exchange server *even* after using the company supplied configuration utility. I might even try using Evolution during the weekend. 🙂
Anyway, I just created a new Firefox Windows and opened all possible mails that may be referenced in the call so I wouldn’t search for it. I then tried opening all Excel, Word and PowerPoint attachments using OpenOffice.org (2.4). OOo was able to open them all which is admirable enough but I have the following nitpicks:
- For MS Word document some of the formatting especially on tables are misaligned.
- The OO.o Writer is showing too many artifacts like ruler margins and such that could be done without.
- Default rendering size for the spreadsheets were too tiny.
- The comments on the Excel spreadsheet are showing far from the cell they are attached to. I have to scroll just to see them.
- Default rendering size for the presentations are also tiny. I had to play with the zoom control for a bit until I finally hit the “Optimal” option. Why wouldn’t the Optimal option be selected as the default?
Understandably, the nitpicks above are minor and there might be some preferences that could be set to remedy them but I am not using OO.o that frequently aside from a view-only app. The resulting documents from OO.o saves require too much effort to correct to make it my mainstream application for work documentation.
Back on the topic of the call, everything went relatively smoothly although my Skype cannot connect nor message the contact from Madrid. I can see his status is online but for some reason our Skypes just couldn’t communicate. The conference call had to be initiated by the contact from California.
This whole blog post might be seen as petty since there isn’t any groundbreaking achievement but I don’t care as this is a personal achievement about Linux and Windows interoperability. While Linux cannot fully replace Windows right now, Windows’ share of the home computing time is getting smaller.
ciao!
May 11
ErinFLOSS, Garbage
I just learned that German word and wanted to use it in a post. Upon Google search reveals that it meant current intellectual trend. 🙂
The current Philippine Linux User Group site is experiencing a slow renaissance of some sorts thanks to the efforts of Gabriel Mercado and company. The latest addition to the site is the aggregation F/LOSS related posts of some PLUGger bloggers. In a post to the list, Gabriel posted the FAQ of the aggregation as
- *What the heck is this?* - This is the aggregated feed of a few
gentlemen PLUGgers / Bloggers who've been kind enough to share their Linux /
FOSS or otherwise PLUG related feeds with the rest of us. Namely, they are
Messrs. Anuerin Diaz, Elijah Alcantara, Manny Amador (Phnix), Michael Cole,
Migs Paraz, Noel Bautista and Zak B. Elep.
- *What's it for?* - Several purposes. Primarily, to achieve 'zeitgest'
so that we may be able to know what things are going on in and around
PLUGgers minds, what's keeping them occupied, and so on. Secondarily, it
provides content for our website. Once syndicated, said content will also
help promote PLUG by spreading our news, info, howtos, etc., onto the
general blogosphere. It can also help us figure out who are actively doing
FOSS work out there, as well as provide a central repository of all things
PLUG related. Not to mention of course, end hunger and promote world peace.
Take note however that each post still belongs to each author and does not reflect the official stand of PLUG (the organization). If I mess up here in the capsule then the blame will all stop here.
Subscribe now! It’s a fun way to get an insight on what is currently happening on the local Linux mindsphere. Unless you have a local RSS reader, I am recommending the Google Reader since it is free and pretty nifty.
ciao!
May 07
ErinFLOSS, Technology
As I have mentioned before, Archer was my first Linux installation wherein I was able to get NTFS writing right from the get go. That means that I no longer have a FAT32 partition in my desktop harddisk as everything is already in NTFS. This helps in downloading those Linux DVD ISO images since I no longer have to think about freeing enough space on my NTFS drive if I want to be able to continue the download on whatever OS is booted up.
Lately Windows has been ruling the desktop since I need some Windows-specific apps for work. I was transferring some files from the desktop hard drive into the portable hard disk (backups are not paranoia). I was moving some stuff so I don’t leave outdated rubbish files in the desktop HDD then suddenly Windows gave an error that the file was in use so the move operation is being denied access and the delete operation cannot continue. I can’t track the process holding it as only Windows Explorer is touching the file so I scheduled a checkdisk execution at the next boot and then rebooted the machine. During startup, Windows checkdisk found and fixed the entries from some file which I assume is the file I was moving. Upon completion of the checkdisk execution I logged again in Windows and tried doing the move. The same thing happened. I just shrugged my shoulders and rebooted to Archer. It was about time to get the latest package updates from the repository anyway.
I boot all of my Linux systems into run level 3 (console mode). I would like to say it has something to do with the speed to get between when the BIOS screen and the login prompt but I think this has just been my force of habit as my desktop has enough processing power that I am in the prompt in less than 1 minute, and another 10 seconds to enter XFCE. This time booting in a console mode a good thing because I saw that mounting the NTFS drives were encountering errors since they are tagged as in use. I am presented with the following messages for each NTFS partition:
Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda7’: Operation not supported
Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:
Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by clicking on the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon in the Windows taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.
Choice 2: If you don’t have Windows then you can use the ‘force’ option for your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda7 /windows/d -o force
Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:
/dev/sda7 /windows/d ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0
Being a firm believer in Murphy’s laws, I opted to be on the safe side and just let them be and tried to mount them manually. The mount message provided an additional clue that I might be able to leverage in fixing the problem: the NTFS drive log file says it was not cleanly unmounted!
I tried searching for the answer on how to clear the partition log from Windows but I came up with nothing. Constantly rebooting Windows does not help either. The log is still being marked as in use whenever I try mounting them in Linux. After two nights I was already exasperated so I went for the force route. I mounted the partitions manually as root and specified the -o force option. The forced mount directive did the trick and cleared the NTFS partition log. I haven’t found any data loss YET but I have a nagging feeling that I might and at the worst possible time (again, Murphy’s law).
I am still at a loss on who messed up the partitions. The partitions were being utilized exclusively by Windows for the past few days but I know that there were times that I used Archer and started utorrent in wine so the partition was also being used even for only a while. I am getting frustrated with Windows since it should have been able to clear the dirty markings on the partition logs since it was able to complete its shutdown sequence properly. If I am going to defend Windows I will say Linux messed up the log which prevents it from marking it correctly after a clean shutdown. But that is hogwash since I should have been notified that something is wrong after the initial bootup, or even before it enters the shutdown sequence.
I think my finger knows which OS is the culprit but until I get more information on this problem (and how to clear the log from within Windows), I am going to be on the fence on who is really at fault. I am just crossing my fingers that I haven’t damaged any data since there are some stuff in the hard disk that I am not putting in my portable HDD and I still haven’t gotten around to putting them in DVD.
ciao!
Apr 20
ErinReviews, Technology
That for me is the CD-R King website, which provides me with my near daily fix for cheap affordable gadgets. I find it frustrating that every time I buy something overseas (through my unwilling co-employees stationed abroad) CD-R King releases a similar product with half of the price I paid.
The site has a page which explains why their prices are cheap (e.g., direct to the supplier, no credit card processing, no flashy advertisements and marketing,etc.) which makes sense but I still can’t shake the notion that some of the items there are really knock-offs from that big sleeping dragon of a country. Just look at the MP4 player category. But most of the items are of good usable quality and that makes it OK in my book. And it isn’t as if the shop is passing them off as the real thing because it is more probable than not that the products are branded with the CD-R King logo.
My only gripes with them are that
- buying the stuff in their website is a hit-or-miss thing when you actually go to a brick&mortar shop. I have had experiences of visiting 3 branches to no avail even though their site listed it as on stock.
- their “online stock inquiry” is a joke. I understand that they are probably undermanned in that area since there are only 2 of them but I would expect to have a response within the day, or at least an email facility for such inquiries.
- their online tech support is slightly better but leaves too much to be desired. they treat their customers are ignorant users which can be irritating if they are just rehashing what you have already said. as of last count there are four of them that could be online at any given time but don’t expect them to give you a pretty quick response.
Item reviews from their wares are pretty much available but only if you are willing to trawl along several local message groups. I am toying with the idea of posting my own reviews on stuff that I have bought or at least planning to buy in case somebody is also looking at the same thing.
ciao!
Apr 14
ErinFLOSS, Garbage, Reviews, Technology
Metrobank’s eBanking interface rates a notch better in my book since it now supports Firefox, where previously it only supports IE and *gasp* Netscape. The stupid ActiveX control that was previously required (which effectively locks the interface to IE) is also gone. Actually that is the first clue I had since I transferred to another PC at work and was curious why I didn’t get the irritating prompt about the ActiveX installation.
The office network prevents me from uploading the screenshot but you can test it for yourself. I did it with the beta 5 of Firefox 3. 🙂
Kudos Metrobank Online! But I still despise you for that 10-character password requirement. 🙂
[edit] I finally grabbed a screenshot while in Archer (my Arch system). The picture is using “Bon Echo” which is a rebranded Firefox browser. The version is 2.0.0.14.
MetrobankOnline in Linux!
ciao!
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