The lack of a web browser that works well with Linux is one of my (and many other peoples) big complaints. For those network administrators out there contemplating a migration to GNU/Linux on the desktop, the traditionally buggy performance and lack of features of web browsers for Linux is a huge stumbling block. I have […]
Mozilla 0.9.4 Released
Funky MP3 Car Players, and the Scripts That Load Them
Oh my. I had no idea about what was running my music. Now I know quite a bit more, and I thought I would share. My collection is very convoluted, but I didn’t know it. No, I had no idea. How did I get to the messy state I’m at today? I started converting my […]
Xfce Tips
If you lose your borders around your windows in Xfce4 and your mouse pointer over the desktop is wonky try: xfwm4 –replace rm -rf ~/.cache/sessions
Rotating a Video with Mencoder
If you import a rotated video off of your phone or other device, here is a quick command to rotate it 90 degrees: mencoder -vf rotate=1 -o hx.avi -oac pcm -ovc lavc hx.mo Some more details are in How to rotate an AVI or MPEG file taken in Portrait.
Reading RSS Feeds with Outlook 2007
Outlook 2007 has the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. Just scroll down to the RSS Feeds folder under Personal Folders, click on the RSS Feeds. Right click on RSS Feeds. Choose Add a New RSS Feed. Enter the location of the RSS feed into the box: Here is what the NetAdminTools.com RSS feed looks […]
Using Ldconfig To Set Library Locations
Gozer needs libgiblib to work right. I like to install strange libraries like this into /usr/local/lib. I put all of the source into /usr/local/src that isn’t part of the main RPM system. Even when I compiled and installed giblib, though, it wouldn’t work right: [usr-1@srv-1 ~]$ gozer gozer: error while loading shared libraries: libgiblib.so.1: cannot […]
Setting the Gnome Desktop Background With a Script
You can use these two commands to set the Gnome desktop background: gconftool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /path/pic.png gconftool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_options “centered” This will put the picture in the center. If you want to fill the background with the picture use stretched.
Firefox Passes 25 Million Mark
Firefox has enjoyed 25 million downloads in 99 days. We have been using Firefox here at NetAdminTools for the last couple of months, and are very impressed. For more info, see this article. We have to celebrate with a nice image from factorycity.net: The popup blocker works well, and the rendering is beautiful, at least […]
Using Dynamic Backgrounds With KDE
In this article I showed how to update the background of an X desktop with various text status dumps. I have been using IceWM because it has always been the most stable window manager. It was also useful when bringing up an OS from source, as IceWM can be compiled quickly. KDE has a lot […]
Free Program That Prints Clipboard Text
We ran into an interesting problem with PuTTY. PuTTY doesn’t have a print-screen function. We looked around for an application that would simply print the clipboard. True, you could do something like ctrl-v, ctrl-p in notepad, but then you have to change focus, which is distruptive. With PuTTY, you simply highlight text with the left […]
Getting Rid of Plain Bash Prompts
Are you tired of looking at an ugly bash prompt like this?: -bash-2.05b$ Well, if you add this line to your .bash_profile: export PS1=’\[\033[01;31m\]\h \[\033[01;34m\]\W \$ \[\033[00m\]’ You will get a red hostname (up to the first .) and a blue current working directory: servername directory $ For more info, see the prompting section of […]
LindowsOS 3.0 Review
*The* significant point about LindowsOS is that you can buy preconfigured systems at Wal-Mart. Further, the systems are *cheap*. $199 for a PC with an OS installed. For GNU/Linux to be widely embraced as a desktop that is accessible by everyone, this is what needs to happen. We wondered just how easily Lindows was to […]
Fix Pesky Newlines When Copying/Pasting In Vim
In this article, I fixed my backspace, and it has worked since on every system I’ve logged on to. I had one lingering problem though. When I select text in Vim by highlighting with the first mouse button clicked, when I paste the selection into another terminal, I get extra newlines. This is really nasty, […]
Fix Pesky Backspace Problems With Terminals
One thing I like about Eterm is that the users of Eterm, and the author, are serious terminal geeks. I’ve often wondered how, exacty, the backspace works (or doesn’t work). As I flit around different systems and programs, the behaviour is often different. Anyway, I ran across a nice tidbit here that explains what is […]
Gentoo 1.4_rc2
We decided to give Gentoo GNU/Linux a try. We had tested a previous incarnation, but weren’t entirely happy. This time, though, we were impressed enough that Agatha is using it as her main workstation now. For those of you unfamiar with Gentoo GNU/Linux, it is a source-based distribution. Sorcerer, and LFS are other examples. LFS […]
Change Default Printer on Windows Using Defprint
If you wish to change the default printer on a users Windows box via a script, defprint is what you need. Stuart Anderson wrote this fine piece of freeware; however, the site referenced in the file is not available. We put a copy up on NetAdminTools here. Use defprint /P to list your printers: C:>defprint […]
Getting Eterm Compiled
Eterm is awful cool. One problem, though, is getting the Imlib2 and Freetype dependencies worked out. I’m assuming that Freetype2 is installed and running, as well as dependencies for KDE. This should be the case for most distributions and if you follow the BLFS instructions for KDE. Also, check out an article from 2001 on […]
Tricking out your desktop with Blackbox
After Ximian locking up my console hard, and general disgust with complicated window managers, I decided to trick out a minimalistic window manager. For those of you that are interested, check out Blackbox. The source is 235k. I kid you not. Funny thing is that I wanted to use a more configurable xterm, so I […]
GNUCash 1.6.2 Compile/Installation
[[LFS Notes: This article worked.. kinda… for my existing Red Hat 7.1 system, and was actually the inspiration for exploring LFS. See the GNUCash 1.6.3/LFS article.]] A few days ago I wrote about improvements in Mozilla. The release of the new Mozilla has made my desktop experience with GNU/Linux oodles better. I decided to push […]
Gnome 1.4 from Source
[[LFS Note: This article was based on my Red Hat 7.1 install. See GNUCash 1.6.3/LFS and the hint on LFS for more info on installing Gnome for LFS or you want to dig really deep into the libraries.]] In the article on GNUCash 1.6.2 Compile/Installation I mentioned that Gnome was more stable after I had […]