bobpeers -> blog

I don’t often burn CDs or DVDs, and even then it’s usually to burn a Linux ISO file to disk so I can use it to boot another PC.

Yesterday I put a blank DVD into my Windows XP laptop and dragged the ISO file onto the disc folder only to be presented with some nasty error. After very little research I soon discovered that Windows XP doesn’t support DVD burning out of the box. I must admit I was shocked.

Quoting from this Microsoft page from 2002:

Windows XP doesn’t contain built-in support for burning DVDs

The next time someone complains that Linux doesn’t play mp3s or their favourite video codec is not included I’ll just point out this fact to them. Linux is free so this is somewhat forgiveable, but the Last time I checked Windows XP Professional SP3 is not free and I expect a hell of a lot better.

I eventually downloaded CDBurner XP which works very well.

If you use a laptop both at home and at work it gets really annoying having to switch between using and not using a proxy server to connect to the internet.

Having found quite a few sites explaining how to get the ProxyEnable registry value it’s pretty trivial to make a VBScript that toggles the flag on and off. Just save this script in a file with a .vbs extension and double click to run. Each time it runs it will just toggle the proxy on and off .

I could write the usual warning about modifying the registry but we’re all adults here….

Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
strComputer = "."
Set objRegistry = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings"
strValueName = "ProxyEnable"
objRegistry.GetDWORDValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, strKeyPath, strValueName, dwValue
if dwValue=0 then
	dwValue=1
else
	dwValue=0
end if
objRegistry.SetDWORDValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, strKeyPath, strValueName, dwValue
if dwValue=1 then
	msg="Proxy Enabled"
else
	msg="Proxy Disabled"
end if
msgbox msg,64,"Proxy Toggle"

I’ve been trying out Gnome-RDP to connect to the Windows Server 2003 at work allowing me to work remotely. Gnome-RDP is actually just a convenient front end to either RDP (using rdesktop in the background), VNC or SSH but it’s a very useful tool to save all your settings in one place.

One problem I found was that I use an alternate port for my SSH server instead of the default port 22 but I couldn’t see an option to use this port in the Gnome-RDP interface..

It turns out that in the field called ‘Computer’ you can also add the port number just as you would using the terminal, so for port 6000 just use 192.168.1.1 -p 6000 where 192…. is your servers IP address.

I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.7 with it’s completely redesigned interface. I really like the new interface and once it’s opened most actions are really fast, it’s just the time it takes to load that bothers me. It could be that my host is very slow but after clicking to login it take about 10 seconds to load the new interface which is way slower than WordPress 2.6 used to be..

One minor irritation I have with Nautilus is that the file or folder listing uses the full width of the display. The problem with this is that when you right click on a file or folder you get a different menu than if you right click on an empty part of the display. In this menu you cannot create files or folders.

So if you want to create a new file or folder using the right click context menu you have to use the empty area below the listing.

The problem arises when the listing is longer then the display, in which case there is no free space and so you cannot right click to create new files or folders.

I actually like the Windows Explorer way of doing this where you have to click on the item to get the context menu for the item, otherwise clicking in the row produces the generic context menu.

I’ve been playing around with ASP.NET for a few weeks now which has of course meant using Windows much more than I’m used to (apart form at work that is). One area I have to admit that Microsoft excels in is Programming IDEs. I downloaded the free (as in beer) Visual Web Developer Express Edition and even on my old slow laptop it’s very responsive and enjoyable to use.

The same is true of the Visual C++ Express Edition. Compared to either Anjuta or especially Netbeans it’s incredibly fast to run. Start up takes just a few seconds and code completion is almost instantaneous whereas using Netbeans there’s a noticeable delay before the list appears.

I understand that Microsoft only makes tools for Windows so they can optimise them for that environment whereas Netbeans runs on nearly any platform but it makes me wish that there was an Open Source IDE that can compete with Microsoft only tool when it comes to performance.

It’s not an IDE but the best known example of this is Microsoft Office compared to Open Office running on the same hardware. It probably takes 30 second to start OO on my laptop and about 2 seconds using MS Office. Even once running, just dragging the mouse over a few cells in a spreadsheet in OO to select them produces a lag.

I actually compared OO Calc to Google Docs and I think it’s more responsive running in a browser.

I know there’s loads of forums full of the same question but I must admit that I cannot understand the services that run in a default install of Fedora.

Of course I’m specifically talking about ssh and sendmail. I’ve read plenty of comments theorising on the reason for the sshd daemon running, many talk about Red Hat being mainly installed on headless servers so you need to be able to log in over ssh after the install is complete.

If that’s the reason then that’s all well and good for Red Hat Enterprise Linux but I doubt the same is true for Fedora. Surely the vast majority of Fedora installs are personal computers and laptops where if you need ssh it should be up to you to start the service. Exactly the same is true for sendmail.

It’s been the same with Fedora since I started using it at Fedora Core 4 and it’s something I’ll never understand. At the very least it should be an option in the Anaconda installer if you with to run ssh.

After installing Fedora 10, Network Manager correctly identified my network interfaces as eth0 for wireless and eth1 for wired. However my wired connection used to be my default connection named Auto eth1 so Network Manager would connect on start up and this is the way I prefer.

Since installing Fedora 10 my eth1 connection is now called System eth1 but it is not set to connect automatically. I also cannot change this setting since, when I try to edit my connection, the edit button for System eth1 is greyed out and so not available.

The workaround was easy enough, I just created a new wired connection with exactly the same settings as the System eth1 but set to connect automatically. So now I have entries for System eth1 and Default eth1 that are effectively the same. My point is, why can’t I edit the System eth1, and if that’s the correct set up, what’s the point in this connection?