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Why is it that I always find myself ponying up the small amounts of cash it takes to purchase Mac shareware applications? Black fire and a disco ball? I gotta have it.
Today I fell victim to MacZot’s current promotion (ends in 23 hours!) that saw me gobbling up the public beta of the Disco CD/DVD burning application for Mac OS X, and boy am I content with this lil 700KB number.
Firstly, the hype: when you purchase the beta at the silly-low price, you also get the opportunity to send a free license to someone else. So here goes - the first person to leave an intelligent comment gets the license! (I’ll need a real email address) This is a great marketing idea that see people not only using the beta of a terrifically designed piece of software, but also spreading the word to others so they can try it as well. Good show.
Next, the features: Disco copies discs in two clicks. Say that ten times fast. Disco can span CDs and DVDs automagically. They call it Spandex, I call it dead sexy. This is extremely handy when backing up iPhoto or iTunes, trust me. Disco can burn VIDEO_TS folders by just dragging them onto the application, which makes it great for burning your DVD backups. Disco has realtime 3D interactive smoke that actually wafts up from the application as you burn discs. If you blow into your microphone, the smoke will dissipate, and if you move your cursor around the smoke itself, it reportedly moves accordingly - but I didn’t get to see this on the low-end test box. Disco has an amazingly simplistic interface that is very easy to follow as it prompts you at every step. Last, but certainly not the least in terms of features, and should really be in caps: Disco remembers every single burn and keeps a catalog of the burn sessions using what it calls “discography” so that you can easily do things like print labels, disk jackets, or simply keep handy for when you need that dot release or the pre-altered code that you can never find. Let Disco be your personal sherpa.
Disco runs very well for a beta application. I have yet to see it crash under Panther, Tiger, or even Leopard (WWDC or the 9a ADC build). Oh, and it worked fine in Tiger server as well. Unfortunately the test box is a 1st generation Mac Mini (PPC), so there was no “smoke” to speak of (anyone have screenshots?), so that will need to be tested later. I burned some mix audio CDs, a backup copy of the disk image for Disco public beta itself, an ISO image of Ubuntu Edgy Eft Beta, and a bunch of Gentoo releases, for good measure. No hiccups. I erased a very old scratched CDRW. I even inserted a scratched blank CDR to see what would happen… Well it wouldn’t burn correctly but Disco kept on keepin’ on - like some sort of Disco inferno - no bouncing beachballs of death here. And you call this a beta? I expected flames, not smoke. No crash and burn here.
In these screenshots you see the Disco app in full swing, from installation to a test burn, and a view of all the windows it provides. I really like the design of this app, and it was well worth the 15$ pricetag. If you’re new to MacZot, and need a referrer, feel free to use “blandname”. Now go write some optical media and dance around like a schoolgirl.
Oh and on the topic of Disco, and in the name of Halloween here’s a joke:
“Why didn’t the skeleton dance at the disco?”
“He had no body to dance with”
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This is a list of my favorite Windows applications that I honestly couldn’t live without that also work on Microsoft Windows Vista RC as well, much to my surprise. All of the software is free to download and use, and in fact most of them are open source.
ConTEXT - ConTEXT is a free and lightweight editor for programming or can be used as a notepad replacement. ConTEXT supports find and replace in multiple files at once so changing one method in loads of files is no longer an issue. Works in Vista with no problems whatsoever.
Synergy - Synergy is like a software KVM, but only shares keyboard and mouse capabilities. Synergy is multiplatform, and I currently use it to have my keyboard and mouse work in Ubuntu, Vista, and my Mac Mini running Leopard with no problem at all! This way I get to use my favorite keyboard and mouse and get to free up some space on my desk at the same time.
VLC - VLC has been my favorite media player for years now. VLC comes with most of the codecs you will need to watch videos on your PC already. VLC is very lightweight, and JUST WORKS, something that can’t be said about many media players. The only issue with VLC in Vista is that it turns Aero Glass off while it is playing.
FileZilla - I use FileZilla to interface with clients that still haven’t moved to SCP. FileZilla is an open source FTP client that gets the job done, supporting drag and drop, SSL, and NAT to NAT connections. The only thing it is missing is FXP support, but that’s not really a big deal in my case. Works fine in Vista with no problems at all.
IMGBurn - I love IMGBurn. This is hands-down the easiest way to burn .IMG, .ISO and BIN/CUE disk images to backup CDs or DVDs. Free, open source, and awesome. Works a treat in Microsoft Vista Beta 2 as well.
WinSnap - I use WinSnap to make many of the screen shots you see on blandname. WinSnap supports full screen and windowed screen shots, and also allows for rotation and drop shadows if you feel the need.
Electric Sheep - I often refer to Electric Sheep as “the best screensaver ever”, but truth be told, it’s really a collection of computer-generated screensavers that allow users to vote on them using a Digg-like system. On Windows, Electric Sheep uses bit torrent to transfer the sheep data. Again, working just fine in Vista!
Xming - Xming is my prefered interface to remote Linux boxes. Xming is for Linux what RDP is for Windows - you get a local X server and acceleration that displays data from remote applications running on Linux machines. Tested more than a few times to a remote Ubuntu computer, and one Gentoo box with no caveats.
WinSCP3 - SCP is now my preferred file transfer method. Luckily my favorite client also works on Vista, or I may not have used it at all. Much like FileZilla, WinSCP3 has a very simple, streamlined interface that is feature-rich and gets the job done, even on Vista.
So there you have it: 9 free applications I couldn’t live without that work just fine on Vista, and make it easy for me to do my day-to-day tasks. Hopefully someday this list will include F-Spot and Amarok, but I’m happy with this as a start considering neither of them work on Windows XP SP2 either!
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More and more people are turning to virtualization these days. One of the main reasons is in order to test pre-release, beta, or alpha software. When it comes to Linux, the operating systems are in a state of constant flux so there’s always something new to test. People routinely want to test beta versions of KDE and Gnome and other desktops before comitting, or simply want to see what features are in development.
We’d previously written an article about installing Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft Knot 2 (it IS a long name) on a Mac Mini, so to do the same would be batty. Instead, this guide covers testing the newest Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft Knot 3 on Windows XP using free (as in beer) virtualization. This guide would also apply to anyone testing on various flavours as well, as long as they can run our free virtualization software: VMWare Server 1.01.
Setting up the Ubuntu virtual machine in VMWare server is very easy (click the pictures for larger versions):
Connect to your local VMWare Server installation if you run it locally, or connect to your remote VMWare Server.
We’ll select “typical” for this virtual machine as VMWare Server includes a configuration for Ubuntu already.
And, speaking of which, here it is! Make sure to select the plain “Ubuntu” option, unless you are running a 64bit host, and downloaded the 64bit version of Edgy Eft knot 3.
Name your virtual machine and select the location. The defaults should be fine here but feel free to tinker.
I typically use bridged networking, but for added obfuscation you can use NAT (which creates a virtual network based on your host’s network connection). You could also select host-only if you only want to be able to contact the host operating system. In fact, if you really wanted to make sure the machine is isolated from the wiki wikid web, don it with a nice tinfoil hat and disable networking completely. Ubuntu won’t be happy, but it looks pretty nice in a tinfoil hat.
8 GB of diskspace is fine for testing.You’re not going to be leeching full seasons of Lost… at least we hope so.
Since we opted to allocate diskspace now, VMWare Server will start creating the 8GB file. This can take some time depending on your computer’s hardware. In my case this took a few minutes - I use SATA2 NCQ hard drives and have 2GB of RAM. Your mileage may vary.
You now have a default virtual machine set up, but it will need some slight tweaking in order to install Edgy Eft Knot 3 as fast as possible. Click on “edit virtual machine settings” and remove the floppy drive - we don’t need it. Set the memory to at least 512MB, but it really depends on your total amount. Since I have 2GB total RAM on my host I select 1GB normally. Edit the CDROM settings and point it at your Ubuntu Edgy Eft Knot 3 CD image. Click “OK” - we’re set for lift off.
Press start and drool over the new llivecd boot screen. Note the reflection on the logo. How original.
Now we’re at another original boot screen - the progress loader. Note the gradient progressbar, and the Crystal-esque Ubuntu logo. Reminds us of 3 years ago, doesn’t it precious? Yes, yes it does.
We’ve landed at the desktop. You may stop here if all you wanted was a secure browsing solution with no cookies and passwords to worry about. Should we wish to continue, our mission involves double-clicking that obvious “install” icon. Let’s go for it.
This is an easy 6 step process. Step 1 - select your language.
Step 2 - Select your location or timezone.
Step 3 - Select your keyboard layout. I normally recommend you test the layout just in case. We’ve typed in “blandname” here for demonstration purposes. You may wish to try typing “Ubuntu”, but nothing else lest ye be stricken down.
Step 4 - Identify yourself. This information will be used later in life to incriminate you. Be choosy with naming and passwords. Harry MacDonald that means you! Try typing in something other than your real name here - it works, I promise.
Step 5 - We’ve pre-allocated our diskpace, so no need to worry about this one. Just click the “forward” button.
Step 6 - There really isn’t a step 6. The Ubuntu team has decided to waste our time by confirming the already tedious and easy task. Onward, ho!
Installing - took me 30 minutes. It may take you an eternity, but with hardware prices where thet are, I seriously doubt it will take you long to be rolling with a virtual Edgy Eft install.
The eternity has passed, and we’re going to reboot. Don’t forget to disable or otherwise change the CDROM settings so you don’t end up installing again - that would be embarassing, right?
There you have it - the pretty login screen. Note those options. XDMCP looks very intriguing doesn’t it? We’ll get to that later…
And presto! What have we got here? Firefox 2.0b1 - Bon Echo Beta 1! Try it out and see what you think, I’m impressed so far to be honest.
So that’s it, you now have a working Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft Knot 3 test virtual machine (edit: let’s make the name longer). And it weren’t hard neither! When Knot 4 comes out you’ll be able to do it in your sleep. If not, well we’ll see you searching for it again.
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This hack will allow you to connect multiple time to your Microsoft Windows XP machine using an RDP client coming from a Mac, Linux, or another PC like a real Terminal Server, or a Windows Server running Citrix.
In detail, this hack patches many pieces of Windows XP in order to allow the same Terminal Services functionality that you find in Microsoft Windows Terminal Server, but without the licensing costs. The stability of the hack has not been verified, but the virtual machine used has been running for over a week now with 20 conenctions to it and has yet to fail once.
In order to perform the hack you will need one external file, some guts, and a backup. The backup is extremely important. I highly recommend that you test the procedure using virtualisation technoloy like Parallels, Virtual Server (free), or VMWare Server (also free). You have no excuse to procede without a backup - consider yourselves warned.
Let’s begin.
The file needed for the hack is actually a combination of some registry tweaks and DLL/EXE patches made by “antiwpa”. antiwpa is known for dealing with another Windows XP issue that we won’t get into here - I’m sure you can guess what it is easily.
No that you have the file, and backup, we’ll extract it and start the install process. It’s quite simple - you double-click on the application, it starts a command line window, you press a key and the patch commences. Eventually the command line portion will end and you will get a Windows warning regarding system files having been replaced - we’ll cancel the restore “feature”, and let Microsoft know that we are running untested code by pressing the “yes” button on the next window.
A second patcher launches with full GUI this time. We click on the “patch” button and we are finished. Easy huh?
Moving on… If you try to connect to the XP machine now, you will notice that the maximum number of connections has been reached. This is easy enough to fix, but it’s readily apparent where we need to go. Click on Start, then Run, and type in:
gpedit.msc
Once the Group Policy Editor has opened, navigate to “Computer Configuration”, “Administrative Templates”, then “Terminal Services”.
In the “Terminal Services” tree, you’ll see a policy named “Limit number of connections”. Double-click on this policy. Set the policy to enabled, and adjust the maximum connections to suit your need. I recommend trying “2″ to start off with.
Now reboot your machine, and attempt to connect the amount of times you have specified. If you need mre connections, navigate back to the policy editor and set the maximum amount higher.
Once you have completed your testing, back the machine up once more for good measure. If you don’t have disk imaging software, I’d recommend using the open source g4u - otherwise commercial applications such as Symantec Ghost will work.
Moving on, if you feel the need to manage the users (log them off, control sessions) like on a real Terminal Server, you can grab a copy of the “tsadmin.exe” file from a Windows Server 2003 machine’s “SYSTEM32″ folder and copy to the Windows XP machine’s SYSTEM32 folder. Running TSAdmin is as easy as clicking on Start, Run, then typing tsadmin, but you might also want to make a shortcut to the file for good measure.
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