TechComm Labs

The picture Reynolds provided of the new Honda jet got me thinking. Have you noticed how sci-fi continues the trend of having the control center for a vehicle up front and exposed? Naval ships started with the control station exposed on the quarterdeck. In Hornblower’s time, the captain was expendable and expected to be right out there in the midst of the battle. Things have changed. Modern navies have control rooms in protected spaces below decks. Even cargo ships are creating secured spaces in engine control rooms as a means to deal with the pirates off Somalia.

But cars and planes still place the cockpit or control center up front so the pilot or driver can actively steer the vehicle along a safe route. The need for that is changing. Experiments have shown that an airplane can be safely flown when the pilots have no access to exterior windows. Automatic parking has started to show up in automobiles to facilitate hands-off parallel parking.

That view up front is prime real estate. Even in airplanes such as the 747 that have multiple decks, the passenger deck stops short of the nose to give way to radar and other instrumentation. This paradigm follows to sci-fi where rocket ships have the control cabin in the nose. It seems that the control center needs to move to a more protected area, especially in space ships. That can increase security as well as leaving prime real estate for passengers.

It is the passengers who want to see with their eyes. The pilot, navigator, captain, helmsman and other control officers can see better with other means. If fact, if they turn into robots, they may not even have their eyesight close to their brain. Then only thing you’ll need a human for is to hit the off switch if something goes awry.

To set up a CIFS share On the Netgear ReadyNAS DUO so it requires a login as a user who is a member of a group:
On the Share Listing CIFS TAB
Default access: DISABLED
Write-enabled users [checked]
groups:[group name]
enable recyle bin
automatically set permissions on new files and folders
Advanced Options tab
folder owner – [share name]
group – [group name]
group rights rw
everyone rights rw
grant rename and delete privileges to non-owner

The automatically set permissions is needed so the members of the group can share rw access to files on the share. This is supplemented by the “grant rename …” – that allows a lot of flexibility to anyone who logs in as a user who is member of the group identified as the write enabled listed group.

The login user and the group need to be defined before setting up the share. The share owner is defined by the system when the share is named.

Smashing has a list of common web page usability problems. Number 6 “No way to search” includes form code for Google or Yahoo site searching. Such as

<form action="http://www.google.com/search" method="get">
<fieldset>
<input type="hidden" name="sitesearch" value="smashingmagazine.com" />
<input type="text" name="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="" />
<input type="submit" value="Google Search" />
</fieldset>
</form>

Well, a lot of thoughts about technologies related to communications, home computer systems, amateur radio, multi-media and other communications technologies just didn’t seem to fit in an RV blog – Zephyrs – nor did they really fit in a current issues blog – Whispers. So here is a new one on a topic that has been looking for a home for a long time.

Some have been at the TechComm Labs corner of the Leipper Organizations. Whispers was considered for a while. But when things don’t fit they just aren’t comfortable. It seems the effort belongs here rather than at Sierra Nevada Airstreams. Dreamhost has now upped the ante on their quick installs making a new blog and its frequent software upgrading a set and forget issue.

So a new home is established. We’ll see if this one is comfortable

RSS feeds can be one way to easily keep up on a lot of stuff. The RSS pages that are called feeds have dated changes with headlines than a feed reader can use to help you see what is new and changed. The Linux Feed Reader Liferea does a good job of providing the tools to categorize and structure your RSS feed page links and present the entries in ways that allow skimming to find items worth deeper inspection. Several features provide good flexibility and utility in keeping up with the news.

First is the ability to create folders containing collections of feeds. The trick is to have folder collections that don’t accumulate more than a hundred or so new items at a time between all of the feed pages in the folder. All of the feeds should be on a similar theme so their feeds tell a common story, too.

Feed pages often have suggestions about how often they should be checked for changes. Liferea allows you to override this suggestion so you can reduce your net traffic. You can also update just one folder and everything in it instead of all of your feeds at once.

Filtering and sorting allow you to see only the new feed entries by date or by headline. With a good folder structure, you can view the unread items in a folder as one big list or open the folder and browse each feed.

The presentation of the entries can be combined as a long list of headlined entries or as a headline list with the selected entry in full below the headline list. This allows you to choose the best way to put the feeds on your screen for how you are perusing them.

There are plentiful shortcut keys and it is easy to launch the web browser with the full entry. You can also launch the full entry page in a Liferea tab if you’d prefer to use it to browse the web pages for the feeds.

Liferea is a straightforward feed reader with sufficient capabilities to be quite useful. Its major drawbacks are in a slow startup and some pauses while it get its database in order.

Are you one of those who automatically heads for the bookstore when you get a new system or some heavy duty software? Those days are changing as you can often find good books online. They don’t have the charisma of a bound book but they are convenient and often free.

Koroush Ghazi has an online book at the Tweaking Guide that you should check out if you want to learn about Vista (or XP). These books might be considered teasers to encourage you to buy the deluxe edition but the tease is good solid stuff.

The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion (TGTC) is the complete system optimization guide for Windows users. Designed for novice and advanced users alike, it is written in plain English to help you genuinely understand all aspects of Windows and your PC. The guide covers every major topic, from the correct installation of Windows and critical drivers and software, through to recommendations for every significant setting and feature, all the major performance and convenience tweaks and customizations, as well as detailed troubleshooting advice. There are also links to a range of reliable free applications for optimizing and maintaining your system, as well as to important resources for finding out even more about Windows and your PC.

The free download is 268 pages of solid, no holds barred, text. No frills, no page after page of dialog boxes and screen captures, just a solid rundown of the various aspects of your system, what they do, how they work, and what you can do with them to improve your system.

A book like this is a good one to have available to read in small chunks. Pick and choose topics and get an overview of some aspect of your system. There are links to utilities that you can use to start a deeper exploration.

Other resources:

Tweak Hound – has some Linux stuff, too

John Barnett Computer Journalist, Windows Vista™ Support – check out the FAQ and the how-to guide sections.

Star Support Vista Tips – a list of nifty tips

A backup is insurance against loss or device failure. With a good backup, you can rebuild your system so it is just like you had it at some point in time. There are number of different types of backup that serve different needs.

The device backup is one that doesn’t understand the data on a storage device. It just understands the device and how data is stored on it. These are sometimes called image backups. They store and image of the data on the device. Where these are particularly useful is for making copies of a new device before you do anything to it, like a new computer with a system on its hard drive, or for a system you customize and want to copy on like hardware.

The system backup is used to be able to restore critical system files and settings. Since systems may make the computer unusable, these backups often have their own limited system so they can be booted separately from the normal system. That allows them to repair or replace the normal system to bring it back to a known good state.

The data backup copies the files on your computer that don’t involve system settings and are usually created by the applications you run. These are your documents, pictures, and other data that are important to you but not needed to make the computer function properly.

Every backup needs a device that can store the backup copy. This ranges from the side by side copy that many applications make when they modify a file to a file on a permanent media like a CD-ROM that is stored off site in a safe and secure place. There are a number of companies that also provide their backup media that is available over the I’net so you can use the web to backup your data.

There are variations and options and flavors of these three basic types of backup. Some device backups do know about the data on the device so they can compress it to make smaller backup sets. Later versions of Windows have restore points that texas holdem poker online gratispoker bonus ohne einzahlenpoker kostenlospoker sign up bonuspoker game setpoker real money bonuspoker texas online gamebwin pokeronline poker without downloadlimit texas holdempsp poker spielonline poker kostenfreinetzwerk poker spielpoker strategy netpoker online spielen ohne geldpoker spielen ohne anmeldungempirepoker bonusparty poker deposit bonus codepoker game sharewarestrip poker pc spieltexas holdem kostenlos downloadentexas holdem online spielenpoker gratis downloadspoker strategienpoker 10 bonuspoker game freewarewww party pokervc poker bonus codetexas poker netgratis online poker,gratis online poker ohne anmeldung,gratis online poker gamesomaha poker online spieleonline poker usapoker turnierepoker regeln full houseparty poker casinopoker gratis deutschpoker spiel geldpoker online spielen texas holdplay omaha poker onlineholdem poker online spielenparadise poker bonuspoker spielen im internetonline poker browserpoker texas holdem downloadenpoker downloadenonline poker flashtexas holdem poker online spielenonline games poker texasregistrierungs bonus code party pokerpoker sets allow undoing system changes. The Mac has its TimeVault which is a periodically updated snapshot of selected data, similar to using rsync on a Linux system.

In an Ubuntu Linux environment, PartImage anc Clonezilla are useful for device backup. For system backup, remastersys will allow you to create a bootable DVD to restore your system. Data backup with periodic snapshots is well handled by rsync with a shell script. Foogazi describes 5 possible options for backup, too.

Being able to view TIFF images in your browser is not something many people really need to be able to do. Being able to view the US Patent Office patents because Google Patents or some other resource just doesn’t cut it for some reason is an example of where the need to view TIFF images is necessary.

Some of the options include:

What you have to keep in mind is that some viewers are stand alone programs and some integrate with your web browser as a plug-in so you don’t need to download the TIFF image to your drive to view in a separate program but rather can see it as just another web page. Browser plug-ins need to be compatible with your browser of choice and you should check for this before downloading or installing them.

The USPTO image viewing instructions for full page images lists two free TIFF image viewing plug-ins. Here are some notes on installing AlternaTIFF in a Microsoft Windows environment and the Firefox web browser.

There are two problems with AlternaTIFF in a Vista environment. One is potential conflicts with other plug-ins that think they should be the TIFF viewer. The other is the conflict between the AlternaTIFF registration process and Vista security protections.

The first problem is usually with QuickTime. You will need to run that program and then edit the preferences MIME page so Quicktime is not listed as the application for TIFF images.

The second problem needs a couple of tricks. The first is to be able to unzip the Netscape compatible installation file provided as a self extracting archive. Vista usually treats zip files as if they were folders but a self extracting archive is an executable first. You will need something like infozip’s unzip to unpack the archive. The second trick is to run the Vista command prompt as administrator so you can do the unzip and then run the setup1.exe to install and register AlternaTIFF plugin.

Trying to run the self extracting archive for the AlternaTIFF Netscape style plug-in installation and registration, even if run with administrative privilege, encounters security blocks. This is probably due to the nature of successive executables in the process. A manual unpacking and then running the setup program from a privileged command line seems to solve this.

See also the previous post Searching the USPTO, TIFF images on the web.

One strength of the Mozilla projects Firefox and Thunderbird is their extensibility. The base application has got web browsing or email message management covered but you can add on many extensions as you choose to make your life easier and better implement your style of doing things. The biggest problem is likely to be to figure out what to use. Here are a few extensions to get you started.

Extensions are files with an ‘.xpi’ file extension. If you hit a link to one of these files in Firefox, it will attempt to install the extension directly. For Thunderbird extensions, you will need to download them to your computer and then, from Thunderbird, select them after selecting ‘add tool’. As a security precaution there is a delay before they are installed and you may be prompted about where it is OK to go ahead or not.

Note that the numbers in the links below refer to the Mozilla add-on page number so you know the link is to the official Mozilla website.

Thunderbird Extensions

Image Zoom (addon 139)- help make images fit your screen.

Nostalgy 2487 – keyboard shortcuts to change folder and move messages

Xpunge 1279 – clean out the trash and compact folders with one click of the mouse.

firefix Keyboard shortcuts 2487 to change folder, move/copy messages, with
folder name auto-completion

If you have duplicate messages (e.g. from merging folders or downloading messages several times) you can use this tool 956 to find and remove them from the selected folder and its subfolder by rightclicking on a folder and choosing “Remove Duplicate Messages”.

Add blocking – see addblock 1865 and Element Hiding Helper 4364 and Filter Uploader and Filterset G to help addblock figure out what to block.

Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them. Right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu — the banner won’t be downloaded again. Maybe even replace parts of the banner address with star symbols to block similar banners as well. Or choose a filter subscription, then even this simple task will usually be unnecessary: the filter subscription will block most advertisements fully automatically.

quote collapse 347 – this shrinks long quotes so you only see the first line unless you click on the expand mark.

Firefox extensions

CoLT 1812 – add copy link text to the context menu

FireFTP – an FTP client

Flashblock 433 – replaces Flash objects with a view button for optional viewing

OpenOffice.org Menu – navigation menu for access to OpenOffice.org applications

Password Exporter – export and import saved passwords

ScrapBook – save web pages and organize them

ubufox – if using Ubuntu

Unhide Passwords 462 – show passwords in plain text when editing a hidden field

Uppity 869 – navigate up one level in the web page’s directory structure

Web Developer – adds a menu and toolbar with various developer tools

Other resources

For a bit about what is involved in writing these extensions, see Writing Firefox/Thunderbird Extensions or the Mozilla Developer Center

Chris Lott has a list of Indispensable FireFox (and Thunderbird) Extensions and there is Firefox add ons at cybernet new. A search will likely find more such lists on the I’net.