Congratulations to the Internet Explorer 8 Developer Team
In the early beta phase of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 I posted some improvement thoughts to the official developer newsgroup and never got any response or feedback.
One thing I find pretty important is the option to close only the current tab if you click on the global close ‘X’ in the top most right corner if you have more than one tab open. In IE7 it would only ask you if you really want to close all tabs. If you accidentally clicked on the global close icon but only wanted to close the current tab you had to say ‘No’ and then close the actual tab.
But hey, guess what it looks like in IE8 beta (Konqueror style, woohooo) :
Update:
Wow, we’re really getting somewhere here. Playing around with IE8 beta a little more I discovered that the search box in the upper right corner has a sort auf auto correct mechanism. For example you type ‘target audiecne‘ instead of ‘target audience‘ in the box with Google as your search provider and then Google offers you to correct your search with a link above all the results of your original search query.
If you would like to use the corrected search query in the search box you had to copy’n'paste in the pre IE8 era but now IE8 is doing it for you. I already love this browser.
Virtual PC 2007 VHD: Resize NTFS Windows System Partition
As you may have recognized reading my last post I sometimes use my blog as a Personal Knowledge Management System (PKMS). This post is filed under the same category.
Virtual PC 2007 is a free virtualization product from Microsoft. You can download many M$ Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files from here
- Go to http://vmtoolkit.com and download the VHD Resizer (btw they also have a tool to convert VMware VMDK images to VHD files)
- Run the tool and open the VHD file you want to resize (make sure its not currently used by a running VM)
- Specify a new VHD file as destination with a type (fixed/dynamic) and a size and click on the button “Resize” (this may take a while so go and get a drink)
- Add the new resized harddisk image to your virtual machine as second/third HD and boot into it with the original small VHD as system disk.
- VERY IMPORTANT: Use “Computer Management” -> “Disk Management” to assign a drive letter to the second/third HD(otherwise
dispartwill not work)
- Now open a CMD console and type
diskpartto get into the interactive mode of the partition utlitiy. The tool is part of Windows XP / 2003 and later and may be downloaded for Win 2000 - type
list volumeto display the list of available volumes in your system - type
select [volume ID](where [volume ID] either is the drive letter or the number given by thelist volumecommand - type
extend
- Shutdown the system
- Use the extended HD as your primary VHD file in your virtual machine configuration and remove the original (small) VHD file from your setup
- Boot the virtual machine and download lots of movies in HD quality to fill up the new space
Direct access to Windows "Network Connections"
On my own account (just a personal reminder):
Press
[Win] (+ [R])
then type
ncpa.cpl
Self decrypting executables the 7-Zip way
Everybody needs to transmit a file to a friend, colleague, etc. in the most possible secure manner once in a while. A cool feature I got to know with the PGP Desktop product line is a self decrypting executable (PGP calls them Self Decrypting Archives (SDA)). You simply use a symmetric encryption algortihm with a password and the tool generates an executable that will decrypt itself once the correct password is given. This password usually is transmitted by phone or another communication link different to the one the file is using.
With one of the latest versions of 7-Zip (my Windows compression tool of choice btw) came a new feature that one may use to copy this behaviour: encryption of archives. Today 7-Zip uses AES-256 as algorithm to encrypt packed archives. But this is not sufficient, yet. You still need 7-Zip to decrypt the file. Not if you use 7-Zip as compression algorithm and select “Cretae SFX archive”
Another reason to love this cool compression tool.
What Internet Explorer is still missing
It is very important to think out of the box every once in a while. I tend to forget this and if I am discovering something new I am always suprised why I didn’t look for it earlier. This is the case with a neat little add-on for Internet Explorer.
I am the kind of a guy who thinks: “Never touch a default system” or “Keep it simple” . This is the reason why I never install additional software on operating systems unless they add a non-existant feature that I really want. This is why I’d never install “Opera” or “Firefox” on a Microsoft machine. Why should I? I mean there already comes a good browser with it. Except the “Find” feature is really ridiculous. A stupid pop-up with no functionality at all (highlight all, find as you type, etc.).
This is where IE Inline Search enters the stage. I suggest you give it a try. Firefox search feeling on websites (see the search bar on the bottom of the screen). Wooohoooo.
Mount ISO images in Konqueror / Dolphin
I didn’t want to bring up a console every time I had to mount an ISO image. So I browsed the web a lil’ bit and found a good solution for my needs. I am a big fan of context menus or service menus as they are called in KDE. These menus are configured through .desktop files. To create such a file only a few steps are necessary:
- Find out the location of .desktop files
- Learn about the syntax of a .desktop file
- Check the mime type of the file where the context menu should appear
- Some eye candy with Icons and submenus
In the end you will have entries under Actions when you right-click on and ISO image that look somewhat like this:
1. Where are these files?
You can use
kde-config --prefix
to find out where your KDE has been installed. You will then find a folder
/usr/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus (in my case)
Here you create a file with any name you like it only must end with .desktop
Since there now also is a noob file manager Dolphin there also is a folder
/usr/share/apps/d3lphin/servicemenus
Anyway, I used a symbolic link to only have to configure one file for both apps.
2. File syntax
Mine looks like this:
[Desktop Entry] ServiceTypes=application/x-iso Actions=mountIsoImage;umountIsoImage X-KDE-Submenu=ISO Image [Desktop Action mountIsoImage] Name=Mount Icon=cdrom_mount Exec=kdesu -c 'mount -o loop -t iso9660 %f /mnt/iso' [Desktop Action umountIsoImage] Name=Unmount Icon=cdrom_unmount Exec=kdesu -c 'umount %f'
Here you’ll find a good explanation of the file options.
3. MIME type
As you can see you must declare a ServiceType in the .desktop file. This defines when the context menu should appear. A good way to search for these types is to go to Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> File Associations and use the search feature.
4. Eye candy
You may use you own icon images but if you want to use the system icons I suggest editing a K-Menu entry, clicking on the icon and then using the icon browser to find a name of an icon you like.
REMARK
This is tested with Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. But I guess it should also work with other distributions.
IMPROVEMENTS
Instead of using the mount command more or less directly one could use a script to create a temporary folder at the current location where the ISO is then mounted. Unmounting would delete the folder again.
Linux with UMTS HSUPA ExpressCard
On my laptop (HP Compaq nx6325) I run Kubuntu Feisty Fawn and I am very satisfied. Especially the built-in support for UMTS modems perfectly fits my needs since I am sort of a stroller.
I used to go online with an “old” CardBus PC Card (PCMCIA). On the back of the card it says Option Globetrotter GT 3G Quad and it came with a real UMTS flatrate (50./month) of the German provider E-Plus.
Anyway, E-Plus is the worst provider ever and I can only recommend everyone to never ever demand any of their services. Although I have to admit, their support is nice and friendly and each time I called they gave me a bonus (5. or 20.) to compensate for my bothering. But this is no help if you want to go online and they simply won’t let you half of the time for whatever reason. There were times I almost freaked out.
Since I rely on a good network connection to do my job my employer now ordered a “Vodafone Mobile Connect Card (Express) UMTS Broadband” (wow, what a name) for me and on its back it says: “Option“, “Model: GE0301“, “Qualcomm 3G CDMA“, and on the box “Option Etna Express“.
It supports HSDPA and HSUPA with a bandwidth of up to 7,2 MBit down- and 1,45 MBit upstream. 
Besides, it is a ExpressCard34 which takes less space in my pocket. This is pretty cool so I could test my ExpressCard slot which works just fine. For those not having such an interface Vodafone encloses a PCMCIA adapter.
Actually, Feisty Fawn comes with all the drivers needed (usbserial). The only problem is that the vendor and product ID of the card are not known to the system, yet. To find out those IDs you issue a
# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
on the commandline and somewhere in the results it says something like
P: Vendor=0af0 ProdID=7001 Rev= 0.00
S: Manufacturer=Option N.V.
S: Product=Globetrotter HSUPA Modem
The information needed is in the first line. You may add it to a file called /etc/modprobe.conf (which you may have to create) but for Kubuntu I thought /etc/modprobe.d/options would be a good place. For information about the syntax of the file type man modprobe.conf. There I added the line:
options usbserial vendor=0xaf0 product=0x7001
I then rebooted and the next time I inserted the card it got bound to /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyUSB1, and /dev/ttyUSB2. Almost exactly the behavior of my old card except that I now surf reliably and at a much higher speed. When will you?
MP3 tag - Album Artist equals TPE2
I really don’t care too much about the ID3 specifications I only want my audio files to be correctly displayed in various media players. One problem I came across is the “Album Artist” tag. This is a quite important tag since I like to sort my files by album. Usually this is no problem since all titles are performed by the same artist and thus the album artist equals the title artist. But as soon as you are having compilations this is not true anymore. In this case the album artist should be “Various” while the title artist fields reflect the actual artists. Furthermore, the “Album Artist” field is required to identify albums with the same name (e.g. “Best Of“). Otherwise, all titles would be part of the one album “Best of“.
So I checked the ID3 tag tools for Linux but I couldn’t find the “Album Artist” field. I checked out the specs for ID3 v2.4.0 but it didn’t help much either. Well, further searching the web with a search engine of your choice revealed that the “TPE2” field is used by media players such as Window Media Player and iTunes (>v7). This field/frame may usually be added through the advanced options or alike of a file.
I haven’t tested other players so far, but I will keep yous informed…
FYI
Today I’d like to give an update on two tools already known to most tool fetishists. Everybody knows PuTTY and probably everyone is using it to connect to SSH servers from a Windows box. But lately I had to reset a Cisco Catalyst switch from the serial console and since the Hyperterminal is not part of Windows Vista anymore I had to look for a utility to help me out. Well, what can I say? It surely helps to read what is on the screen. PuTTY is capable of doing serial connections. I just love this tool. Now, please someone tell me a situation I could use this raw thing.
Well, and the other tool I just discovered a cool function of is dd. One great thing about *nix machines is that they already come with so many basic tools right away. So the task was to create an ISO image of a CD. My first hit was K3B and it worked, of course. But then I doscovered that a simple
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/user/image.iso
does also do the trick.
It's all out there on the streets...
...you just gotta pick it up.
Well, last week I started this new blog series of mine: “Tools for fools”. Again, this is an effort to start writing some more posts on a more regular basis. Anyway, what’s the story behind it. In this series I’m trying to introduce pretty neat tools to my fellow readers. This time it’s about listening to podcasts while on the run for people without an iPod.
I have to admit that this iPod thing is pretty handy when it comes to listening to podcasts that have a certain length. Especially the feature to remember the position where you stopped listening for every single piece of media and synchronizing it between the device and a PC is really cool. But at what price? iTunes is crab, overload and for sure an information gathering tool for Apple comparable only to the Google empire. I know there are alternatives but then why should I carry an extra device around if I already have one that offers much more valueable features? Yes, now everybody’s saying: “Get the iPhone, dude”. Although I like being called “dude” I don’t like the iPhone. It’s ugly, too large and doesn’t even offer 3G. I guess the usability is Apple style again and it really rocks but 500 bucks? No way, I stick with my Sony Ericsson K750i (I know it’s 3G neither).
What a great mobile phone. I got a 1GB “Memory Stick Pro Duo” which is fairly enough for my needs. Besides making phone calls with it I mostly use it to listen to podcasts. I travel a lot by train and therefore I like long ones starting from 30 minutes up. And this is the only drawback of my K750i: the media player sucks. Why is that? Well, the fast forward/backward is non-adaptive. This means it seeks and rewinds with a constant speed and this speed is so slow it deadens your fingers. So if you are listening to a 90 minute podcast and you interrupt at 45 minutes you’re really fucked up. How are you gonna come back to that position?
My solution to the problem is called mp3splt. This nice little command line app let’s you split MP3 files w/o re-encoding. For my podcasts I like to split them into chunks of 15 minutes. I simply run a
mp3splt -t 15.00 [mp3 filename]
and off it goes. A file of a 60 minutes length will be splitted into four pieces. But that’s not all. A line like
mp3splt [mp3 filename] 05.00 58.00.23
will result in a file starting from minute five up to the 58th minute and 23 hundreds of a second. “Why would I wanna do that?” you ask again. This is where the next cool lil’ comline app comes into play: Streamripper. This tool lets you record an mp3 stream to your harddrive. Personally I use it to record radio plays from German radio stations. For example Deutschlandfunk broadcasts the “Mitternachtskrimi” (midnight crime thriller) every Saturday at 00:00 AM. On my “always-on” server I added a cron job with the following entry:
0 0 * * 6 streamripper http://dradio-live.mp3.t-bn.de/dlf_live -a -A -l 3600 -d /home/username/my_streamrips
This line starts Streamripper every Saturday at 00:00 AM and lets it record for 3600 seconds or one hour. The file is saved to the home directory of the user. I forgot the use of the other options but you will find out.
The result is a file with the news at 00:00 AM included. And not every radio play is exactly 50-55 minutes long. So I need a tool to cut it: mp3splt. We’ve come full circle.
Oh, one last thing. Both apps are available for Linux and Win. Now isn’t that something?
About
Originally this site was intended as a project site. The goal was to define standards for the perimeterless network using
open-source software. To be honest I simply do not have the time for such a thing. So what is left is a blog with sporadic
posts that are either helpful for myself or I think are helpful for others, too since I had a hard time finding information
on the Internet. Think of it as a knowledge base.
Ehm yes, somtimes I write down my two cents on any topic that may go through my mind at that point in time ;-)