Category Archive

OK, so everyone is very excited about Firefox 2. I’m excited, your excited, all the social networks are ablaze.

But development does not stop at whole numbers, and the testing must go on - which is how we got here.

So I’m testing Firefox 3 (Minefield). That’s right, I won’t be outdone. I must run the most unstable software. Well at least on the test boxes. So currently the Vista, Leopard, and Edgy boxes are running “firefox-3.0a1″.

The first things you will notice are the graphics - everything has a nice sheen to it (in fact, looks just like Firefox 2!), while remaining true to the normal Firefox UI. Also of note is the fact that favorites are now run using a SQLite3 database. For the full list of features, head on over to the Burning Edge page.

As far as I can tell this is just as stable as Bon Echo was (that’s right - was stable for me), with inline spell-checking and some other fancy goodies.That’s all for now, some more screenshots from other platforms (other than Windows XP of course) and crash reports as they happen

Note: of course this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I’m sorry for the Mozilla devs. We all need to stop worrying about the cutting edge and appreciate what we have - fantastic browsers! Opera, Safari, IE7 and Firefox are all great, really.

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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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Parallels announced today the updated features of the newest iteration of Parallels Workstation.

Big new all around for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

Here’s the breakdown (from the newsletter):

Parallels Desktop for Mac is the first solution for running Windows and OS X at the same time – without rebooting!

The Desktop for Mac Official Update includes a number of powerful new features, such as:

• Works on ANY Intel-Mac with ANY memory configuration with no system modification. This includes Mac Pro towers with up to 16GB of RAM, and the full line of Core 2 Duo iMacs
• Support for Windows Vista as a guest OS
• Support for Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” as a Primary OS
• Better USB support, including support for isochronous devices and Windows Mobile 5 devices

Parallels Workstation 2.2 for Windows & Linux is a powerful, cost effective virtualization solution which boosts productivity and lowers IT costs by letting users run multiple OSes simultaneously - without rebooting - on any Windows or Linux PC.

The new version includes a variety of new features and improvements:

• Full support for AMD Secure Virtual Machine Technology, and stronger support for Intel Virtualization Technology
• Support for Windows Vista as a Guest OS
• A new shared folder utility lets users share files and folders between OSes
• Better networking
• Better USB support, including support for webcams and Windows Mobile 5 devices

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Here are screenshots from the upcoming Micorosoft RDP 6 client for Windows (Vista and XP), and explanations for each feature so that you can get started with your testing now and stay ahead of the game.

The options screen to the new RDP 6 client is very similar to that in version 5, but as you can see, it does not have input regions for login name and password. This is now done when you connect, and yes it can still be stored. Also note that just like in previous versions, if you would like to save the settings you will need to return to this tab as Microsoft still seems to think that saving options should not be done from all tabs for some reason. If you would like to make the options that you changed or reconfigured global, you would save the file as default.rdp in your “My Documents” folder. In Vista this is simply called “Documents” to make things easier. Yes, they have gotten rid of the “My” prefix now.

We have all of three options here: Remote Desktop Size, Colors and the Option to diplay the connection bar when in full screen mode. Remote desktop size: whether you want to display your remote desktop connection in full screen mode or not. This does work fer very large monitors, including those widescreen suckers. It will scale down to many other sizes depending on what you maximum resolution is. The amount of colors has now increased to 32bit in the newest version of the Remote Desktop Connection 6 client (RDP 6). This means getting accurate color from applications such as Adobe Photoshop is much easier now, though you will still need to do proper calibration.

The local resources tab controls the way your remote computer or terminal connects to your Longhorn or Windows 2003 R2 Terminal Server. For sound, you have the option to play sound locally, to leave the sound on the remote computer (host) or to ignore sound completely. I have noticed that the sound quality seems tobe much better in the new RDP client, but that it depends on the connection you are using. For example when using a Wifi-B connection, the sound quality appeared to be roughly the same as the previous client iteration. When I then connected the laptop to a wired (LAN) connection, the difference was apparent when switching back and forth between RDP 5 and RDP 6. I should probably be more precise here - what I mean by sound quality appears to affect times when multiple sounds play at once, as well as when sound are triggered by alerts or login notifications, the sounds appear to play faster, having less latency than in the RDP 5 client.

The keyboard menu here allows you to specify whether actions such as alt-tab will always be recognized by the remote computer even when in windowed mode, or if the host should accept them - the host being your computer in this case. I think the default is fine for most people - meaning keep it set to only accept these commands when in full-screen mode.

Local Devices and Resources: RDC 6 supports using local devices will logged into a remote computer provided that the proper driver exists on the remote host. Microsoft will be writing generic drivers for many devices, and currently things like smart cards, serial ports and hard drives are already supported, but the list will be growing.

The programs tab allows you to specify applications to run on connection to a remote host. You can specify the path of the application to run, as well as input information regarding the folder to start the program in.

The experience tab allows you to tweak the connection settings in order to get a less latent (slow updating) connection to your remote host. When people complain about this to me it typically involves things like typing speed not being fast enough in RDP sessions, and screen refreshes being very slow. If you are using a connection to a remote computer in a local network that runs at 100mbit or up, I have found that you can safely have all of the experience options turned on. On a wireless B connection (11mbps), you may want to turn all of the settings off. If you are connecting remotely, I would highly recommend turning all of them off.

There is also an option on the screen that has always looked out of place to me - and I think it should be on the general page as it seems to be a general option. At any rate, you can also specify whether or not to reconnection after your connection is dropped by checking this checkbox. I typically have this checked.

Lastly, we have the advanced tab, which allows you to set so-called “advanced” options. Basically this involves two things.

The first is server authentication. This allows you to confirm if you are connecting to the proper remote computer. In practice, I have found that this simply does not work in Windows XP, and now have it set to not warn me if the authentication fails, because it will always fail, without a doubt. If you use Vista or Windows Server Codename Longhorn, this does in fact work, so you can leave it set to default (”Warn me if authentication fails”).

The second option dubbed “Connect from anywhere” only works with gateway servers, like the new Terminal Services in Longhorn. At this point, you are unable to use the function on Windows XP. You are able to turn it on in Windows Vista, and can play with the settings provided you have a Terminal Services Gateway Server in your network.

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Here is my collection of all of the Windows XP commands that you can start from the Start -> Run dialog box in order to manage a Windows XP (SP2) workstation.

1. Accessibility Controls - access.cpl
2. Accessibility Wizard - accwiz
3. Add Hardware Wizard - hdwwiz.cpl
4. Add/Remove Programs - appwiz.cpl
5. Administrative Tools - control admintools
6. Automatic Updates - wuaucpl.cpl
7. Bluetooth Transfer Wizard - fsquirt
8. Certificate Manager - certmgr.msc
9. Character Map - charmap
10. Check Disk Utility - chkdsk
11. Clipboard Viewer - clipbrd
12. Command Prompt - cmd
13. Component Services - dcomcnfg
14. Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
15. Control Panel - control
16. Date and Time Properties - timedate.cpl
17. DDE Shares - ddeshare
18. Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
19. Direct X Troubleshooter - dxdiag
20. Disk Cleanup Utility - cleanmgr
21. Disk Defragment - dfrg.msc
22. Disk Management - diskmgmt.msc
23. Disk Partition Manager - diskpart
24. Display Properties - desk.cpl
25. Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility - drwtsn32
26. Driver Verifier Utility - verifier
27. Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
28. Files and Settings Transfer Tool - migwiz
29. File Signature Verification Tool - sigverif
30. Findfast - findfast.cpl
31. Folders Properties - control folders
32. Fonts - control fonts
33. Game Controllers - joy.cpl
34. Group Policy Editor - gpedit.msc
35. Help and Support - helpctr
36. HyperTerminal - hypertrm
37. Iexpress Wizard - iexpress
38. Indexing Service - ciadv.msc
39. Internet Connection Wizard - icwconn1
40. Internet Explorer - iexplore
41. Internet Properties - inetcpl.cpl
42. Keyboard Properties - control keyboard
43. Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
44. Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
45. Logoff Windows - logoff
46. Malicious Software Removal Tool - mrt
47. Microsoft Chat - winchat
48. Microsoft Syncronization Tool - mobsync
49. Mouse Properties - control mouse
50. Netmeeting - conf
51. Network Connections - control netconnections
52. Network Connections - ncpa.cpl
53. Network Setup Wizard - netsetup.cpl
54. Object Packager - packager
55. ODBC Data Source Administrator - odbccp32.cpl
56. On Screen Keyboard - osk
57. Outlook Express - msimn
58. Password Properties - password.cpl
59. Performance Monitor - perfmon
60. Phone and Modem Options - telephon.cpl
61. Power Configuration - powercfg.cpl
62. Printers and Faxes - control printers
63. Regional Settings - intl.cpl
64. Registry Editor - regedit32
65. Remote Access Phonebook - rasphone
66. Remote Desktop - mstsc
67. Removable Storage - ntmsmgr.msc
68. Removable Storage Operator Requests - ntmsoprq.msc
69. Resultant Set of Policy - rsop.msc
70. Scanners and Cameras - sticpl.cpl
71. Scheduled Tasks - control schedtasks
72. Security Center - wscui.cpl
73. Services - services.msc
74. Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
75. Shutdown Windows - shutdown
76. Sounds and Audio - mmsys.cpl
77. SQL Client Configuration - cliconfg
78. System Configuration Editor - sysedit
79. System Configuration Utility - msconfig
80. System Information - msinfo32
81. System Properties - sysdm.cpl
82. Task Manager - taskmgr
83. TCP Tester - tcptest
84. Telnet Client - telnet
85. User Account Management - nusrmgr.cpl
86. Utility Manager - utilman
87. Windows Address Book - wab
88. Windows Address Book Import Utility - wabmig
89. Windows Explorer - explorer
90. Windows Firewall - firewall.cpl
91. Windows Management Infrastructure - wmimgmt.msc
92. Windows System Security Tool - syskey
93. Windows Update - wupdmgr
94. Windows Version - winver

Also to note: any executables found in PATH folders, for example “Program Files” can also be run from the Start -> Run dialog as well. This means to start VMWare Sever, you can type in “vmware” and it will start for you!

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We’ve been getting quite a few people coming to blandname recently looking for creative ways to eject CDs from there computers running multiple environments. One of the most popular searches are from people looking to eject or control their CDROM drives using software running on Microsoft Windows XP. Not one to refuse lending a hand, I searched around and came up with a great solution! The product is called “CD Eject Tool“, and not only does it allow you to eject CDs from within Windows, but it has some other nifty features as well. Let’s have a gander at the marketing material so skilfully written.

“CD Eject Tool is a utility that manages your CD Drive doors. It allows you eject and close the CD Drive door by using a hotkey, desktop shortcut, or via an icon in your system tray. It will automatically close the door within a couple of seconds if you have chosen the action Get CD.”

“The program creates a separate icon in your system tray for each CD Drive, so you can control (eject, close,.. etc.) any drive door by clicking on the appropriate icon.”

Eject/Close your CD Drives:

• via tray icons

• via desktop icons

• by using hotkey

Control your CD Drives:

• lock/unlock CD Drive door

• suppress/disable autorun

• run autorun at any time

Unfortunately the software is not freeware, but there is a 30 day trial on their site. I’m still looking for an open source application that does the same thing, but have had no luck so far.

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I have recently purchased Parallels Compressor Server because I work with virtual machines on a daily basis and also because it is CHEAP. At $179 this is very affordable software, even for someone on a budget - like me. Why purchase the software? What Parallels Compressor Server does is pretty complicated, but it comes down to one thing: if you run a Windows XP SP2 or Server 2003 R2 virtual machine (VM), Parallels Compressor Server speeds it up insanely. It removes unwanted services, temp files, files you’ll never need in a VM, and the same goes for drivers. Parallels also tunes things like network drivers in order to take full advantage of the virtualization.

Installation is a snap. It’s pretty much next, next, next through the Windows client installation. You enter your key, and are allowed to make a CDROM image for later use with the VM. Use you have finished, you boot the VM using the CD image and start the process (which can take some time). Parallels Compressor Server does it’s magic, and you reboot. HUZZAH! Faster VM just like that.

Conclusion - you may run a free virtualization platform - but how fast is it? For $179, Parallels Compressor Server is a steal.

No disclaimers needed - I am in no way affiliated with the software, I’m just that impressed.

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