phpAlbum

I recently had the urge to upload my favorite photos to my website, but the amount of effort required to do so was too much for me, that was until I was pointed into the direction of phpAlbum.

Now this library is really good. To test drive just hit my album.

Ubuntu VPN, Microsoft Remote Access Quarantine

I finally discovered why my Ubuntu connects to my office via VPN and then disconnects shortly thereafter. My company's VPN server is Windows 2003 server machine and theyinstalled what is called Remote Access Quarantine, so if my client machine does not let the VPN server know that my machine is clean and safe, the VPN server disconnects me.

The tool required to do this is called "Remote Quarantine Connect (rqc.exe)", now I have not found any Linux tool that has the same functionality than rqc.exe to let my server know my machine is safe for use on the VPN.

I will just need to create a VM to connect to work from my Ubuntu box or just keep on using my Windows XP at home and Ubuntu at work.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, Default fonts screen shots

I reconsidered posting screen shots of the fonts used on Ubuntu and Windows XP. Both screen shots are from Firefox 2.0.

The Windows XP screen shot.


The Ubuntu screen shot.



Also take note of my Amiga theme running on Ubuntu, I like it for some reason.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, Default Fonts

Maybe it is because I have a laptop whose native resolution is 1920x1200 but whatever it is I prefer the default fonts used in Ubuntu over that of Windows XP.

I know some people want the Windows XP fonts otherwise Automatix would not have had a "msttcorefonts" option to install on Ubuntu.

For me personally the Windows XP fonts does not look as good on my laptop as the Ubuntu fonts especially when browsing the internet. I guess I could change the fonts manually on Windows XP, but out of the box I prefer Ubuntu over Windows XP when it comes to fonts.

Amarok Error

Today was the first day I used Parallels on my Ubuntu desktop and all of the sudden Amarok started acting up. When Amarok runs together with Parallels it seems my Ubuntu looses it 'DISPLAY', all my applications start up but none of them are visible.

After installing Listen music player again, it seems that my Ubuntu desktop is back to normal again with Parallels running. It is a pity because Amarok is a great music player, Listen unfortunately is just functional and that is it, no bells and whistles to this one.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, VPN Access

Since I installed my ADSL connection, I am working from home two days of the week, which means I need VPN access to my office. Now I tried connection to my office using two different approaches in Ubuntu but I failed on both occasions.

The first approach was standard linux-pptp with a few scripts. I was successful to some extend, I did connect to my VPN and was able to browse the company network, but within a few seconds my connection to the VPN will close and I would have to reconnect to the VPN again.

So it was off to the drawing board again, this time I used the network-manager-gnome but again I would only connect for a few seconds to my VPN and then the connection would close. I did stumble across this section on the linux-pptp site, but I could not determine whether this was my problem.

The Windows XP approach was much better and easier. Given the company's VPN server is a Windows server and it is a Windows VPN it would make sense, but I would at least expected the VPN functionality on Ubuntu to be as easy and useful as the brilliant rDesktop but unfortunately it is not, and because of this whenever I work from home I am forced to boot into Windows to connect to my company's VPN.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, Introduction

I recently had a chat with a friend of mine and he suggested since I am using both Ubuntu and Windows on a daily basis I should blog about the applications I find in useful and compare it to the equivalent application in Windows.

So every now and then I will post a blog about some GNU/Linux applications versus the Windows counterpart.

Broadband Access

I finally decided to take the plunge and install ADSL at home. Unfortunately here in good old South Africa the boradband options aren't that good so I will only get a 384kbps pipe into my house, but it should be fine.

Telkom, the service provider, also does not have a very good track record. I will have to wait for at least 3 weeks, hopefully not more.

Amarok

Being a devout gnome user I don't like installing KDE software on by Ubuntu machine but all the talk on the wire about Amarok made me curious enough to install it and try it out.

I must say that all the talk is justified, Amarok is really an amazing piece of software and I am thoroughly impressed.

Nokia 9300

I just received my Nokia 9300 and I am impressed so far. I downloaded the mobile GMail application and it works good. I think it works better than on my SE w550i.

The standard Inbox

Conversation view

Edgy Eft Power Management Applet

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see my Edgy Eft power management applet support my wireless Logitech mouse.

Very nice touch.

flv2mpg

I regularly download movies from YouTube but they are always in Flash format which is no good for most people I want to email funny bits.

After some searching on the web I found that ffmpeg will be able to convert all my .flv files to .mpg files. I also found a nice script to do the job.

With some modifications to those scripts I created two scripts that will allow you to right click any .flv file in Nautilus and convert it to a .mpg file. The new .mpg file will have to same name than the .flv file and will be in the same directory.

Also it is possible to select multiple .flv files and convert all of them. The script will also check for a valid .flv file before converting it so to convert a lot of .flv files is a simple as Ctrl+A and then flv2mpg.

The attached flv2mp3.tar.gz contains both scripts and it should be as simple as just extracting the tar file into your home directory.

Ubuntu 6.10 Installed

Finally I installed Edgy Eft on my laptop. I had an unfortunate bug with my ATI FireGL drivers but the Ubuntu help sorted it out.

All I need to do now is install Automatix and all my other nice tools I am used to, will have to wait for Monday though, no broadband at home.

rDesktop 1.4 that comes with Edgy rocks, had some issues while my FireGL was still detected as Mesa compatible and not as fglrx compatible, but after the ATI fix my rDesktop is fast and very efficient.

Ubuntu 6.10 Released

At long last last Edgy Eft is available for download, unfortunately staying in South Africa with the Telscum (Telkom) monopoly it means my download will be done by sometime tomorrow if I am lucky.

So this weekend seems to be the Edgy Eft weekend I've been waiting for.

rDesktop

It seems I do not need to try and make Remote Desktop work on my Linux machine via Wine anymore. Apparently I can use rDesktop to connect to my Windows boxes via the RDP protocol, if this works well it will be brilliant.

Will try rDesktop as soon as I installed Ubuntu 6.10 on my Laptop.

Ubuntu 6.10

I can not wait for Ubuntu 6.10 to be released. I almost forgot how much Windows XP sucked. The last week of using XP again brought all my bad memories back. One more week and then I have my Ubuntu back again. Brilliant.

I broke Ubuntu

I recently reconfigured my partitions on my notebook and I broke Ubuntu in the process. My bootup process gets stuck at Mount root filesystem..., I tried all the fixes I could lay my hands on but to no avail, so now I will just wait for the new 6.10 release and reinstall which should be by the end of October.

So for now I will use Windows XP again.

VM Keyboard Problem

I always had a nagging issue with my Windows 2000 vm whenever my laptop is not docked into my docking station, for some reason the keyboard would have a lag, so I would press a key and the character will only appear a second or two later.

I sort of found a hack for the problem over at the VMWare knowledge base, it is not pretty but it seems to work, so now my clock is very fast when I am docked into my docking station but at least my clock is running at an acceptable speed when I am not docked.

Firefox has sound!

My Firefox on Ubuntu 6.06 never had sound, not when watching YouTube videos and not when using Meebo, but today I realized with a shock that YouTube and Meebo has sound all of the sudden.

All I can think of why it is suddenly working is that I upgraded to Firefox 1.5.0.7 recently and my Ubuntu installed approx. 70 updates in the last week. Whatever it was, it is great to have sound in my browser.

Windows Vista RC1

One of our clients decided their new product must work on Windows Vista RC1. I installed Windows Vista Ultimate on my Linux machine using VMWare Server and VMPlayer.

A full screen image is available here.