Glad I’m not the only one who won’t touch Vista

I’ve been using Vista Ultimate Edition on my work laptop for the past few months even though I disliked it even back then. The only reason it is still on the laptop is that I don’t have the time to wipe and reinstall the laptop with XP Pro.  Hopefully that day will come soon.

I really tried to get to like Vista.  I thought that if I became more familiar with it I might get a change of heart and grow to accept it.  I now know that will never happen.  In fact I’ve come to the completely hate Vista with a passion.  I can’t pick certain features that I individually hate about Vista, it’s the OS as a whole that I detest.  Windows ME 2?

According to a leaked internal memo, Intel are never going to use Vista.  See the article on the Inquirer here (Via).

Nice to know I’m in good company!

Default Password List

http://www.phenoelit-us.org/dpl/dpl.html (Via)

This list should come in handy at some point for anyone working in IT.  I’d be surprised if it didn’t.  It has already helped me out big time!

Links for 2008-02-22

How to download anything | Dew Knight

RipIt4Me Review & Download Link | freewaregenius.com

Shrink DVDs down to size with Amok DVD Shrinker Review & Download Link | freewaregenius.com

Links for 2008-02-14

Happy Valentines Day…and all the commercial crap that goes with it!  Romance my arse, it’s a rip-off!

Anyway, here’s a nice romantic letter to warm the cockles of Intels heart:

A Valentine’s Day Letter to AMD - ExtremeTech

Use Gmail to filter spam from ISP email

I was advised to do this in the past by Donncha but never got around to doing it. Must do it soon to see if I can make do without POPFile on my PC.

How to eliminate all spam mail for free | Life in Student Ministry (Via)

Here’s a pre-defined Google search to find more info on this.

Some other links which may be useful:

Gmail Help - Configuring other mail clients

How to Access Gmail with Mozilla Thunderbird - About Email

Update
Works a charm! I have Gmail getting my email from my ISP, Eircon (misspelling intentional!), filtering the spam, and then Thunderbird is collecting what is left after all the multitudes of spam has been removed. I am not sending my outgoing email through Gmail SMTP server though as the “From” field on emails sent through Gmail contains “????????@gmail.com on behalf of ????????@eircom.net”, so still sending outgoing email through the Smart Telecom SMTP server. Not one spam message has got through yet!

Links for 02-Oct-2007

Adam Pierce » wget and apt-get through a proxy

Links for 01-Oct-2007

HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility

Creating a Sysprep Image Library for Virtual PC

Mausau’s audio plugins for Nero Burning ROM

FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec

QeD - The Ultimate Liveset Cuesheet Editor | TUTORIAL

Links for 27-Sep-2007

Free Hard Disk and Partition Imaging and Backup Software

Links for 17-Sep-2007

bit-tech.net | PC Audio 101 - Introduction

Links for 06-Sep-2007

SoftwareFor.org: Home of Software for Starving Students (Via)

Links for 04-Sep-2007

Four Must-Have Vista Updates - ExtremeTech

Windows: What to Install After Re-Formatting? - Lifehacker
Might give me some ideas to add to my Recommended Windows Software page.

Links for 31-Aug-2007

Windows Vista: 10 Things You Need to Know about Deploying Windows Vista — TechNet Magazine, November 2006
Much as I dislike Windows Vista I’m going to have to learn it sooner rather than later from a work perspective. Windows XP works, why can’t the same be said for Vista?

Links for 08-Aug-2007

Clucking With Penguins: A Beginner’s Guide to Linux - HardwareLogic
Page 4 contains a list of some nice open-source games to install.

7 Free Replacements For Everyday Applications - Tom’s Hardware

List of free first-person shooters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of commercial games released as freeware - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Links for 01-Aug-2007

How to zap the crap on a new Windows PC - Computerworld

Hands on: Ubuntu Linux – Kubuntu and Xubuntu - Personal Computer World

Hands on: Ubuntu 7.04 - Personal Computer World

Turn Off Unnecessary Windows XP Services | JasonN.com (Via)

Microsoft Office 2007 Viewers

Access 2007 Download: Access Runtime

PowerPoint Viewer 2007

Visio 2007 Viewer

How to view Word 2007 and Excel 2007 files by using Word Viewer 2003 and Excel Viewer 2003

Excel Viewer 2003

Word Viewer 2003

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

Links for 27-Jul-2007

ChrisMyden.com - How To Burn CDs from MP3s Without Gaps Between Tracks

5 Years Married Today

Wifey, you’re so lucky!

Links for 25-Jul-2007

moka5

A moka5 LivePC™ contains everything needed to run a virtual computer — an operating system and a set of applications. It is a full computing environment created by a LivePC publisher and it is streamed from the network to users and run on their computers locally.

Computerworld - Windows Vista A to Z

Computerworld - Must-have Windows utilities for 20 essential tasks

Trouble installing 100.14.09 driver under Ubuntu 7.04(Feisty) - nV News Forums

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally «

eXtropia | Tutorials | Introduction to Web Design | Table of Contents (Via)

Links for 18-Jul-2007

Free Ubuntu Linux E-Books — Ubuntu Geek

NFS Server and Client Configuration in Ubuntu — Ubuntu Geek

Windows NTFS Partitions Read/write support made easy in Ubuntu Feisty — Ubuntu Geek

New Sleek Usplash Proposal for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn — Ubuntu Geek

Automatically unmount cifs (Common Internet File System) partitions — Ubuntu Geek

Links for 09-Jul-2007

Hentzenwerke Moving from Windows to Linux

Links for 09-Jul-2007

HOWTO: Seamless MS Windows in Edgy with VirtualBox and Beryl! - Ubuntu Forums (Via)

Sunday Times: Stop bringing up babies « Kathy Foley

Tagged for Charity Meme by Donncha

Donncha tagged me for a charity blog meme which is intended to link to Irish charities in order to (potentially) improve their pagerank.

The list of charities so far is:

• MS Society Ireland
• Irish Red Cross
• Samaritans
• Cancer.ie - Irish Cancer Society
• Irish Hospice Foundation - Hospice and palliative care in Ireland
• Barnardos - Ireland’s leading children’s charity
• The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity - Polish Charity
• CPR For Schools Across Poland - CPRTraining
• Program of Insulin Pumps in Diabetic Children Therapy - Insulin Pumps For Children
• Non-invasive Neonatal Breathing Support - Infant Flow
• Program of Universal Neonatal Hearing Screenings - Neonatal Hearing
• American Red Cross - disaster relief
• Raleigh Rescue Mission - homeless raleigh
• Samaritan’s Purse - emergency relief programs
• St. Jude Children’s Hospital - cancer research
• Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders - Humanitarian Relief
• American Red Cross - Emergency Preparedness
• AMREF - African Medical & Research Foundation - African Health Development
• DOROT - Programs for Elderly
• Feed the Children - Protect Children
• Service International - Disaster Relief
• Pujols Family Foundation - Children with Down Syndrome
• National Alliance to End Homelessness - Homelessness
• The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research - Parkinson’s Research
• Ronald McDonald Care Mobile Program - Child Healthcare
• Aids Research Alliance - Aids Research
• Wildlife Conservation Society - Wildlife Protection
• Cancer Research Institute - Cancer Research
• Second Harvest - End Hunger
• AARP Foundation - Helping Senior Citizens
• Bubblegum Club - Children In Crisis
• Autism NI - Autism Northern Ireland
• Adoption Ireland - Irish Adoption Charity
• Ireland Funds - Peace and Reconciliation In Ireland
• Dublin Simon Community - Combating Homelessness in Dublin
• Aware
• To Russia with Love
• Debra Ireland
• Focus Ireland
• ISPCC
• NAD - National Association for Deaf People
• Kerry Deaf Resource Centre

I’ve added a link to the National Association for Deaf People which I feel is appropriate as one of my sisters is deaf.

Now, who’s next, seeing as not too many people read my blog? Over to you Eoin.

Update
I’ve added the Kerry Deaf Resource Centre to the list as my sister no is longer involved with the National Association for Deaf People, but I’ll still leave it on the list.

Links for 29-Jun-2007

Keyboard Ninja: 21 Keyboard Shortcut Articles :: the How-To Geek

The Physiotherapy Site | Local Physiotherapist | Qualified Physio

Links for 28-Jul-2007

7 Secrets of the Super Organized - Dumb Little Man (Via)

39 Ways to Live, and Not Merely Exist - Dumb Little Man

Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity | zen habits (Via)

40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation - Dumb Little Man

7 Simple Things that Reduce Energy Bills (2 minute video) - Dumb Little Man

Hack your Brain and Increase your Memory Power - Dumb Little Man

How to Memorize Anything (Via)

DIY: Skip the Mechanic for simple Car tasks - Dumb Little Man

18 Tricks To Teach Your Body - Men’s Health (Via)

Free Online Dance lessons. Learn today, free dance lessons online! (Via)

7 Ways to Build the Exercise Habit | zen habits (Via)

101 New Uses for Everyday Things | Life Skills : RealSimple.com (Via)

Links for 26-Jun-2007

Geek to Live: The Usable Home - Lifehacker

Geek to Live: Run Windows XP inside Vista with Virtual PC - Lifehacker

The 15 tools every homeowner should own - Improve & Repair - MSN Real Estate

Windows Vista and Office 2007 Combined Evaluation VHD Available (Download page)

Eddie Lenihan Seanchaí - Storyteller
Tales of Myth, Magic and Mystery for adults and children!

Recycling Guide - hardcore treehugger style « Confessions of a Closet Environmentalist

Free Online Virus & Malware Scanners

VIRUSTOTAL - Free Online Virus and Malware Scan (Via)

Jotti’s Malware Scan (Via)

Links for 19-Jun-2007

Technophilia: Organize your digital photos with Picasa - Lifehacker

Links for 18-Jun-2006

Use the Windows Key for the “Start” Menu in Ubuntu Linux :: the How-To Geek

DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2007)

Password Chart (Via)

Lifehacker Useful Ubuntu Posts

Ubuntu: Thirteen things to do after you install Ubuntu - Lifehacker

Linux: The best free Ubuntu apps for newbs - Lifehacker

Hack Attack: Top 10 Ubuntu apps and tweaks - Lifehacker

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ubuntu applications - Lifehacker

Some Useful Ubuntu Commands

It’s been a long time since I played with linux so yesterday I installed Ubuntu 7.04 on a laptop and PC at work.  I wanted to use PCLinuxOS 2007 TR4, especially as I preferred it’s interface and all the included software, but found after installing it that it’s difficult finding help for it, but help for Ubuntu is everywhere.  Something to do with the fact that it is the most popular distro, possibly? 

Anyway, I wanted the laptop and PC to dual boot with Windows XP Pro and I wanted to use the XP boot menu as default.  Anybody complaining about me not using LILO or GRUB as default bootloader can feck off!  I created
a 150MB hda1 partition for /boot and installed GRUB here.  In order to get the necessary file to add to Windows boot menu i used the following command:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/hda8/ubuntu7.bin bs=512 count=1

More info on this can be found here and here, and by searching Google.  I’m not going into details on everything I did, I just want to record the main commands for my own future reference to save me having to search Google next time I want to use them!

After install I was having display problems so, thanks to the  FixVideoResolutionHowto in the Community Documentation for Ubuntu I used the following command to reconfigure xserver:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

I also installed 915resolution using:

sudo apt-get install 915resolution

After I installed an ATI Radeon VE AGP video card I removed 915resolution using:

sudo apt-get remove 915resolution

Now back to learning!