Restoring Anquet Mapping
4th November 2007
One of the issues with an upheaval like that which I have experienced over the last week is that some things get messed up. Because of my hillwalking, I have electronic mapping for planning my excursions into the outdoors. My choice for this has been Anquet; I evaluated it, and it did what I needed. While I could have gone further with the evaluation, I couldn't be bothered with the hassle. Since it's a Windows-only offering as far as I know, good old VMware really proves its worth for this.
Though the software itself is a free download, it's the maps where they make their money, particularly with the 1:25000 scale mapping. I have a lot of 1:50000 mapping so it was with some disappointment that I discovered that it was no longer usable because licences had got lost. Some of the data files needed updating anyway, so I went ahead and did that to get something back. While that exercise cost me some money, I got licences and unlocking was possible. For the mapping where there were no updates, I needed to delete it and download it again, a slow process taking up many hours due to the size of the files and the way that Anquet delivers them. The updating had taken a similar amount of time.
At the end of this, all was well again. However, it would have been better if the licences hadn't disappeared and Anquet had a better way of restoring things than they do. I shouldn't have had to re-download several gigabytes of data, even if it was better than having to fork out more cash to replace what I had.
Moving Emails from Outlook to Evolution
3rd November 2007
It seems a little strange to my eyes, but Evolution cannot import Outlook PST files. On one level, I see a certain amount of sense: after all, Outlook is a Windows application and Evolution remains resolutely on the Linux side of the divide. Nevertheless, it is still a pesky nuisance.
The cure is, very oddly, to import data from Outlook into Mozilla Thunderbird and pop the Thunderbird files into the Evolution mail folder. Both Evolution and Thunderbird share the same file formats, so all is hunky-dory, since Evolution should just realise that they are there and bring them in.
That's what happened for me, and I have now migrated all of my old emails. Evolution's single file import wizard is there for those times when a spot of extra persuasion is needed; the data files are those without the file extensions. As it happened, I didn't need it.
Turning the world on its head: running VMware on Ubuntu
2nd November 2007
When Windows XP was my base operating system, I used VMware Workstation to peer into the worlds of Windows 2000, Solaris and various flavours of Linux, including Ubuntu. Now that I am using Ubuntu instead of what became a very flaky XP instance, VMware is still with me, which I am using it to keep a foot in the Windows universe. In fact, I have Windows 2000 and Windows XP virtual machines available to me that should supply my Windows needs.
An evaluation version of Workstation 6 is what I am using to power them and I must admit that I am likely to purchase a licence before the evaluation period expires. Installation turned out to be a relatively simple affair, starting with my downloading a compressed tarball from the VMware website. The next steps were to decompress the tarball (Ubuntu has an excellent tool, replete with a GUI, for this) and run vmware-install.pl. I didn't change any of the defaults and everything was set up without a bother.
In use, a few things have come to light. The first is that virtual machines must be stored on drives formatted with EXt3 or some other native Linux file system rather than on NTFS. Do the latter, and you get memory errors when you try starting a virtual machine; I know that I did and that every attempt resulted in failure. After a spot of backing up files, I converted one of my SATA drives from NTFS to Ext3. For sake of safety, I also mounted it as my home directory; the instructions on Ubuntu Unleashed turned out to be invaluable for this. I moved my Windows 2000 VM over and it worked perfectly.
Next on the list was a series of peculiar errors that cam to light when I was attempting to install Windows XP in a VM created for it. VMware was complaining about a CPU not being to run fast enough; 2 MHz was being stated for an Athlon 64 3000+ chip running at 1,58 GHz! Clearly, something was getting confused. Also, my XP installation came to a halt with a BSOD stating that a driver had gone into a loop, with Framebuf fingered as the suspect. I was seeing two symptoms of the same problem and its remedy was unclear. A message on a web forum put the idea of rebooting Ubuntu into my head, and that resolved the problem. For now, I'll be keeping an eye on it, though.
Otherwise, everything seems to be going well with this approach, and that's an encouraging sign. It looks as if my current Linux-based set up is one with which I am going to stay. This week has been an interesting one already, and I have no doubt that I'll continue to learn more as time goes on.
Setting up a test web server on Ubuntu
1st November 2007
Installing all the bits and pieces is painless enough so long as you know what's what; Synaptic does make it thus. Interestingly, Ubuntu's default installation is a lightweight affair with the addition of any additional components involving downloading the packages from the web. The whole process is all very well integrated and doesn't make you sweat every time you need to install additional software. In fact, it resolves any dependencies for you so that those packages can be put in place too; it lists them, you select them and Synaptic does the rest.
Returning to the job in hand, my shopping list included Apache, Perl, PHP and MySQL, the usual suspects in other words. Perl was already there, as it is on many UNIX systems, so installing the appropriate Apache module was all that was needed. PHP needed the base installation as well as the additional Apache module. MySQL needed the full treatment too, though its being split up into different pieces confounded things a little for my tired mind. Then, there were the MySQL modules for PHP to be set in place too.
The addition of Apache preceded all of these, but I have left it until now to describe its configuration, something that took longer than for the others; the installation itself was as easy as it was for the others. However, what surprised me were the differences in its configuration set up when compared with Windows. There are times when we get the same software but on different operating systems, which means that configuration files get set up differently. The first difference is that the main configuration file is called apache2.conf on Ubuntu rather than httpd.conf as on Windows. Like its Windows counterpart, Ubuntu's Apache does use subsidiary configuration files. However, there is an additional layer of configurability added courtesy of a standard feature of UNIX operating systems: symbolic links. Rather than having a single folder with the all configuration files stored therein, there are two pairs of folders, one pair for module configuration and another for site settings: mods-available/mods-enabled and sites-available/sites-enabled, respectively. In each pair, there is a folder with all the files and another containing symbolic links. It is the presence of a symbolic link for a given configuration file in the latter that activates it. I learned all this when trying to get mod_rewrite going and changing the web server folder from the default to somewhere less susceptible to wrecking during a re-installation or, heaven forbid, a destructive system crash. It's unusual, but it does work, even if it takes that little bit longer to get things sorted out when you first meet up with it.
Apart from the Apache set up and finding the right things to install, getting a test web server up and running was a fairly uneventful process. All's working well now, and I'll be taking things forward from here; making website Perl scripts compatible with their new world will be one of the next things that need to be done.
Ubuntu: an appraisal of hardware support
31st October 2007
After a painless start with Ubuntu, I have been able to overcome the obstacles placed in my way thus far. In fact, it is certain to yield a goodly number of blog posts, never a bad thing from my point of view. And so to this instalment...
For this post, I'll stick with the hardware side of things. Compared with previous voyages into the Linux universe, I have not encountered any "brick walls" placed in my path. Though audio support was one bugbear in the past, Ubuntu simply took care of that with no intervention from me. Then, I popped in a CD and music was played back to me, leaving me with the same confidence with MP3 files. In the same way, graphics were set up to my liking with having to lift a finger; while there is a proprietary ATI driver available, I'll stick with the standard set up since it easily works well enough for me. Printer set up needed a prod from my end, but it got on with things and found my HP LaserJet 1018 with nary a bother and all was set up rapidly. All other items of hardware but one scarcely merit a mention, so seamless was their detection and set up.
The one piece of hardware that made me work was my Epson Perfection 4490 Photo scanner. Though it wasn't supported out of the box, a spot of googling was all that it took to find out how to set things to rights. In fact, the best answer turned out to be on Ubuntu's forum, hardly a surprise really. The step-by-step instructions sent me over to Epson's repository of open source Linux drivers for the correct files; I did need to make sure I wasn't selecting 4990 in place of 4490, a straightforward thing to do. I snagged Debian RPM's and used alien to convert them to DEB files. Running dpkg as root did the installation and quick checks with the sane-find-scanner and scanimage commands revealed that all was well, to my clear relief.
Hardware support has always been an Achilles heel for Linux but, based on this experience, the Linux community seem to be more on top of it than ever before. The proprietary nature of the devices is an ever present challenge for driver developers, so getting as far as they have is an impressive achievement. It's a long way from roadblocks due to tempestuous support of modems, sound cards, printers and scanners and I seem to have got over the biggest hurdle on my Linux journey this time around.
Switching from Windows XP to Ubuntu
30th October 2007
After a pretty rotten weekend attempting to keep Windows XP running, I finally lost the will to persevere and began yearning for stability. That has taken me into the world of Ubuntu; I am writing this in Firefox running on the said Linux distribution. Thanks to the wonders of VMware, I have been able to observe the swish and slick nature of Ubuntu, and I must that it did sway me. Installation has been slick and efficient and is a dream compared to XP, let alone previous Linux incarnations that I have encountered over the years. Start up is also speedy. All in all, there appears to be a certain confidence about the OS that was sadly absent from my Windows experience in recent times.
Still, I am not deserting the world of Windows completely, though. As it happens, I installed Ubuntu on a spare hard drive that I had, so the Windows installation is still out there. In addition, VMware virtual machines should allow me to stay in there without the ever present risk of a PC getting rendered inoperable. There is also the unfinished business of making myself at home on Ubuntu, hopefully without my wrecking anything. I have yet to give my hardware a full workout to check that all is well. Setting up a web development capability is also on the cards, as is getting those virtual machines. Assuming that there are no showstoppers, it could be an interesting ride.
One mouse at a time please…
29th October 2007
I am referring to computer pointing devices, of course. Though his may sound a daft thing to do, I have two mice attached to my main PC. One is my ergonomic Evoluent, a device that I am growing to like a lot. To explain the set-up of the other mouse, I am going to have to say that I use a Belkin OmniCube 2-port KVM switch so that I can have two PC's controlled with the same keyboard, mouse and screen: the main machine and a backup for when things go awry. To the switch, I have attached the base unit for a Logitech MX700, my usual mouse at home until my hand troubles began (the symptoms now seem to be easing, thankfully).
Strangely, I cannot just have the KVM cable for the keyboard attached to my main computer, or the keyboard itself seems to lose contact. Alternatively, I cannot seem to get the KVM switch to recognise the Evoluent either. The result is that I two mice attached to a PC and the thing will not boot up in those circumstances. Unplugging the Evoluent and doing a cold boot seems to do the trick; the wonders of USB mean that I can always hook it up when all is running fully. I still must sort out my set-up, though...
More digital than film?
26th October 2007
Despite the rampant progress of digital photography, I have continued to stick with film and sit astride the fence. While that is something that I wish to continue, my most recent trips into the outdoors have seen me use my Pentax K10D exclusively. That, however, could be something to do with the subject matter.
My most recent trot took me into what might be described as featureless moorland, a tricky subject to capture in the best way. So, possibly because of the lesser likelihood of success, I stuck with digital since any lack of success costs less. Previous trips took me out and about locally where I live and where I seem more likely to use digital, possibly because I have been around the area a lot with my film camera anyway. Also, the vistas, as pleasant as they are, do not possess the drama of the likes of Highland Scotland, the English Lake District, or the mountainous parts of North Wales.
Running multiple files on Windows using just two batch commands
25th October 2007
Repairing Windows installations like I have had to do all too often in the last few weeks means that I have a load of updates that need to be performed. My preference for using Shavlik NetChk Protect means that I have a folder full of executable path files. That encapsulates the first step: creating a folder and adding the files that you want to run. The next step is to run a command like this:
dir /b * > exec.bat
The /b is the switch that gives a bare file list and that is stored in exec.bat. Running exec.bat affords a bit more automation. While it is that this might need a spot more sophistication to be truly automatic, it's still a good start.
Evaluating an ergonomic mouse
24th October 2007
Recent hectic mouse work has left my right hand feeling the worse for wear, so a recent opportunity to try out a colleague's Evoluent VerticalMouse 3 was one that I took up. I gave it a go for a day, and it left me impressed enough to go out and order one for myself. It's not a cheap item, with some selling for a smidgen less than £60 and others selling for significantly more than this. Also, it is a handed item; the latest version is available to right-handers like myself, along with an earlier one for lefties. While It will work with Windows 2000, the supplied software is for XP and later.
The idea behind the gadget is intriguing: rather than having your hand held parallel to your desk as with a conventional mouse, you have it almost perpendicular to it. The claim is that when you have your arm this way, it is less likely to get tired. The arrangement may sound as if it might not work, yet it does in practice: your thumb is the anchor for the hand and the little finger (lúidín in Irish) rests on a little ledge that stops it getting dragged along either the mouse mat or the surface of the desk. This arrangement does allow you to relax your hand on the mouse. You get the usual mouse functions plus extra buttons that you can use to go back and forward through web pages; even without installing the included software, you get these. However, I have observed drift of the mouse cursor across the screen of my home PC when the unit is not being moved around. At first, I wasn't sure what was causing this, but it now appears to be the mouse mat that I was using. I'll continue to give it a go.
Update: a mouse such as this really needs you to rest your arm on the desk for it to be at its most helpful. Though that's fine for work, my home set up had me stretching my arm and that leads to a lot of discomfort. That isn't the fault of the mouse: it is actually telling me something useful. The primary cause is a pull-out keyboard drawer that I have to use due to a lack of space on the desk itself. So, I raised my full tower computer case a little from the floor and now use that as a platform for the mouse. While I know that it's an unconventional approach, it seems to be working so far, and I can make further adjustments if needs be...