danny’s space

Taking a laptop to and from work can be useful (it’s good exercise lugging a 3kg beast on your back) but changing the proxy server settings twice a day can quickly become an annoyance.

If your workplace uses an automatic proxy configuration script, you can create two .reg files to set and unset this for you.

For example, to set up the proxy configuration, have the following inside a file, e.g. proxyON.reg:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
“AutoConfigURL”=”http://www.company.com/proxy.pac”

Obviously you need to replace the URL with one appropriate for your circumstances. To unset the automatic proxy, have the following inside another file, e.g. proxyOFF.reg:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
“AutoConfigURL”=-

To ‘use’ the .reg files, just double click them. Tested and works fine with XP and Vista. Not sure where I found this tweak so I can’t reference it unfortunately.

For Firefox, I use the QuickProxy add-on. It’s much leaner than the FoxyProxy tool, which refused to save proxy settings for me.

I post this here in the hope that it might help someone else who is having the same issues as me with making Vista work with an old printer like the HP Deskjet 930C. It’s a lovely printer, quite the workhorse. But when Vista came, printing to the 930C through a networked XP computer connected to the Vista laptop didn’t work, at all.

After a bit of googling, came up with a few websites:

http://thevistaforums.com/lofiversion/index.php/t29452.html, which suggested having the most up to date drivers on the ’server’ machine.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_printer_install_problem.htm, which had general suggestions for making network printers work with Vista.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1464064&page=5, which contained the solution that worked for me.

Basically, you need to make sure that the server machine (the networked computer to which the printer is connected) has the most up-to-date drivers for that printer. Then, instead of adding a network printer in Vista, use the Add a local printer option in the Add Printer dialog, and then Create a new port of type Local Port, and as the Port Name, use \\computername\printername, where computername is the network name of the server computer, and printername is the shared name of the printer.

Vista should then pick the correct driver - if not, select it from the list. Then install the printer, and print a test page - hopefully successfully!

A great thing about digital SLR cameras is that their lenses have threads on them so you can attach various filters to enhance picture quality. Problem is, DSLRs are expensive.

Solution: build an adaptor that fits onto the retractable lens of a digital compact camera that allows the use of a threaded polarizing filter. Found this solution through Google, but I can’t track it down now.

Basically, take one of those old 35mm plastic film canisters (or tube with appropriate diameter for your digital compact lens) and hacksaw (hax0r, ha ha) the end off to form a plastic ring. One end will fit around the retractable lens, and the other end will serve to hold the circular polarizing filter in place. The pictures give a better idea.

An important thing to note: Saw off the end of the tube bit by bit, leaving the appropriate amount of tubing so that when the filter is attached and the assembly is plugged onto the retractable lens, (1) the image is not blocked by part of the tube or filter, and (2) the tube and filter do not block the movement of the lens (e.g. when zooming). When taking photos with this makeshift assembly, there may be a bit of reflection of the lens onto the polarizer - just block the incoming light with your hand.

Usage is simple - just twist, and observe! Some suggest setting the polarizer after locking the exposure (i.e. half-way press on a compact) but I found setting it before works well.

As you can see, the polarizer makes a tasty difference, deepening the blues and greens in this photo from Echo Point, Katoomba.

The woe when Sydney University central IT decided to migrate everyone to the Microsoft Exchange server! Migrate is too kind a word - it was more of an uprooting. As Angela put it, it was a case of outright computer molestation!

We like using Thunderbird for email. It’s open source, free, and flexible. But unfortunately, Thunderbird only manages to talk to email servers using POP or IMAP, and not Exchange. ICT said that we had to use Outlook. HAD TO. The line was basically, “Tough luck, everyone’s migrating, you have to do it as well”. Read: “We love Microsoft and have no idea how to work with other software. The university has decided to install buggy proprietary software so that the vice-chancellor can read your email and share your calendar and personal contacts so bananas to you”. So kicking and screaming, my email was migrated from the good ol’ POP3 system to the dreaded Exchange. I fought it as long as I could, even ignored the emails reminding us to contact the IT team responsible for migration.

But last Friday they came.

And after my email bounced for a few hours while the ‘migration’ happened, I was on the new system. Another case of if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I must say the Outlook web interface was half decent compared to the mediocre horde interface, although it rendered much better in Internet Explorer (bleh, Microsoft) than in Firefox. But the issue was how to get mail onto my computer to read offline, amongst other concerns?

To cut a very long story short, I spent 5 hours this morning trying to make Exchange work with Thunderbird, so that it was as if I was back to the old system of email. I hope the instructions posted here will help others in similar positions. For Thunderbird to be able to read Exchange emails using this method, your Exchange administrator must have Web Access enabled and you need to be able to access it. For me, thankfully this was enabled as POP and IMAP for Exchange were both disabled by the very kind admins.

First, you need to download and install the WebMail extension for Thunderbird. Restart Thunderbird, and install the helper extension OWA Webmail, which stands for Outlook Web Access. Basically this method hinges on an extremely useful Thunderbird extension that logs in to Web Access for you and downloads mail from there. After the two extensions are installed, restart Thunderbird again.

Before continuing, you need a few pieces of information: (1) the username that you use to log into Web Access (e.g. jsmith1234), (2) your password (e.g. outlooksucks), (3) your complete email address (not aliases!) (e.g. jsmith1234@mail.company.com) and (4) the URI of the Web Access interface (e.g. http://www.mcws.company.com/exchange).

Start Thunderbird and create a New Account (Tools -> Account Settings -> Add Account). The account type is Web mail, and the Incoming User Name is jsmith1234@mail.company.com, for example. Hit Finish when done.

Then get to the settings for the WebMail extension. Go to Tools -> Add-ons, and click the Options button for the WebMail extension. Make sure the POP server is running (green light showing). Close this dialog, then go to the Options for the WebMail - OWA extension. Access the Domains tab, and click Add. For Domain, enter the part of your email address after the @, e.g. mail.company.com in John Smith’s case. For Uri, enter the URI of the Outlook Web Access interface (e.g. http://www.mcws.company.com/exchange). Click Ok, and select the Accounts tab, and you should be able to see the Web Mail account you created in a drop-down box. You need to fiddle with these settings depending on your Exchange set-up. The Screen Ripper option works for me, as does unchecking Use domain in login request.

Oh, and another thing. Windows Vista doesn’t seem to recognise the alias ‘localhost’. This means that in Account Settings, in the Server Settings for your newly created account, you need to use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost as the Server Name.

After all this is set up, try getting your mail. If all is working, your password should be requested, and your mail should start being downloaded. It was an immense relief that 5 hours of ‘work’ finally paid off.

If this method doesn’t work for you, you may be interested in other methods to access Outlook Web Access. These other methods are, in my opinion, a bit convoluted, besides the fact that they didn’t work for me on Exchange Server 2007.

What does $700 buy you these days? Adobe CS3 Master Collection student edition that can’t be activated. And what happens if you try to activate via telephone and stay on the line after the computer voice with an English accent tells you that you’ll be transferred to a customer service representative because your activation was unsuccessful? Yes, you get transferred to India, home to all the customer service representatives in the world.

I spoke with someone named “Jade” (obviously not her real name) who couldn’t help much and had to “escalate” this issue and gave me a reference number. In fact, she insisted that my serial number didn’t need activating, until I finally convinced her that I was looking at an activation screen. Nothing happened for a while, and I called back and spoke to “Gracie” who more helpfully informed me that many CS3 Master Collections were experiencing this problem, and told me to use the 30-day activation grace period until Adobe figures things out.

Not the worst experience with Indian call centres I must say. The time when I had to ring HP support (transferred to India) was relatively pleasant as well.

Hopefully Adobe pulls its fingers out from where the sun don’t shine and fixes this issue before the grace period expires and many users are left with a 25gb lead weight on the hard disks. You’d expect more from a company that sells this kind of software to professionals.

How do you go from a 3.5mm stereo jack on your laptop to an XLR3 female socket in the church wall that links up to the PA system?

This has plagued me for a while now, and my first attempt at solving this problem involved connecting a 3.5mm male to an Amphenol XLR3 male from Dick Smith using 4-core shielded audio cable. Basically the tip and ring were connected to pin 2 of the XLR connector, and the sleeve was joined to pins 1 and 3. This didn’t really work as there was significant background hum for some reason.

Next tried a few adaptors and cables. Went from the 3.5mm stereo socket in the laptop, connected via a standard 3.5mm male-male stereo-stereo cable to an adaptor that turned a 3.5mm stereo female into a 6.3mm (6.5mm, or 1/4″) mono male, which then fed into another adaptor that converted the 6.3mm mono signal into an XLR male connection to feed into the wall. But that created hum as well.

Which got me thinking about the shielding, since the shielding in the first cable wasn’t connected at all, and the shielding in the second cable was non existent.

Did a bit of searching, and found something similar to do with an RCA going into an XLR3 male. The solution that worked in the end was to feed the tip and ring of the 3.5mm male through two cores and join them at the other side, soldering them together to pin 2 of the XLR3 male. The sleeve was fed through another core and was connected to pin 3. Finally, the all-important cable shield was soldered only on the XLR end to pin 1. This solved the hum issue, and the stereo signal coming from the 3.5mm socket in the laptop could be hooked up straight into the church PA. Nifty.

One of the youth from church has been asking for work experience ideas lately, and one of my suggestions was working for a computer manufacturer, much like I did back in year 10. But what computer maker would willingly take on a year 10 kid that they didn’t know? So I decided to look up the maker that I worked for back then, PC Club in Rhodes, because I knew the owner’s family.

Little did I expect, when I googled “PC Club Australia”, the first results that popped up were big headlines screaming “Microsoft wins $1.3m in piracy case”. After clicking around the articles (e.g. SMH and Microsoft), a sinking feeling came over me.

Maybe I should remove this reference from my CV…

Thankfully not much has started in terms of research for my PhD, so I can still have proper weekends. A relaxing day at home, dealing with computer maintenance (that actually relaxes me, how weird is that…) and using my favourite power tool, the chainsaw. Not related of course. Our dog’s sleeping posture nicely sums up the day.

Also, while we’re at it, might as well sum up my n3rdy tips for good computer health…

• Use legit Windows - no fiddling with cracks or the like
• Use Norton Internet Security - and keep it automatically updated to keep most nasties out
• Run AVG AntiSpyware free - do a scan every couple of weeks to kill the other nasties
• Use Windows Defender - keep it in the background to stave off spyware and other dodgy software
• Defrag once in a while - although Windows XP does a bit of defragging in idle time, a defragged hard disk can greatly improve performance
• Run HijackThis weekly, and analyse the log file produced - HijackThis can pick up other nasties that other programs don’t detect
• Back up regularly - invest in an external hard disk drive (300gb+ is the way to go these days) or burn things to DVD - a damaged hard disk can really stuff you up - and instead of doing a scary full-system backup, just backup the Documents and Settings folder, the ’system state’ (in Windows Backup), and your data directories

So, that Office 2007 Ultimate student offer was the real deal! Office 2007 is pretty cool on first impressions. This ribbon thing (the revamped toolbar) could take a bit of getting used to. I like Outlook 2007 - the ability to have multiple colour-coded calendars is great because I can plan my experiments on one calendar and my life on another, and only sync the life calendar with my phone without getting reminders to do PCRs all the time. I urge you all to go forth and buy Office 2007 for $75. Bargain!

In other news, our Canon IXUS digicam broke at 180FM after it took a tumble which surprisingly wasn’t my doing. Took the camera to Canon in North Ryde this morning, and was quoted a whopping $295 for replacement of the lens structure. And this camera is only a couple of months old. Late last year, I took our old IXUS to 180 and that broke as well, costing $220 to fix. So the lesson is either (1) don’t buy an IXUS camera because they’re really quite fragile, or (2) don’t bring things you don’t want broken to youth group. Perhaps the second, because there have been many breakages, not just of my stuff.

• Plastic water pistol: $3
• Pool noodle: $8
• IXUS 50: $220
• IXUS 800: $295+
• Various laptops: $unknown
• Seeing the youth grow in Christ: priceless

My goodness. Has Microsoft gone nuts? Got an email from a friend of mine about the Microsoft offer, which is selling Office Ultimate 2007 to uni students for $75! Is it legit? Would Microsoft sell something that’s worth $935 retail for more than 90% off?

Try it and find out: http://www.itsnotcheating.com.au

I reckon the URL seems dodgy. But a genuine Microsoft site has information about it, and so does the SMH.

I’m a sucker for these things so I went along with it. They’ve sent me a product key via email and I’ve downloaded the 502mb installation file. There was a warning during purchasing, however, where Firefox said that information was being sent over an unencrypted connection, so I hope my credit card details haven’t been haxored.