Essential Freeware
Firefox – web browser
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html
Firefox plugins
- Adblock Plus – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
- BetterPrivacy – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623
- DownThemAll – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201
- Firebug – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
7-zip – file compression/decompression library
http://7-zip.org
CutePDF – virtual printer: print to a PDF
http://www.cutepdf.com
Avast – antivirus
http://www.avast.com
Picasa – picture and video organizer
http://picasa.google.com/
Generic List<T> to DataTable using Reflection
The following function takes in a System.Collections.Generic.List<T> and returns a System.Data.DataTable with the properties (via reflection) of T as columns. [ Read more » ]
C# Serialization
Xml Serialization and Binary Serialization to a Base64 string [ Read more » ]
VirtualBox 3.1 – Install Windows XP Guest on Ubuntu 9.04 Host
VirtualBox 3.1 significantly changed the way that harddisks, dvd/cd drives and floppies are mounted. The following steps are to install Windows XP as a guest on an Ubuntu 9.04 host with a IntelAhci SATA controller.
Make sure you download the Windows XP Intel SATA Drivers and unzip to extract “F32.IMA”.
[ Read more » ]
bubbletip! A jQuery Coda-style bubble tooltip plugin
Download
http://code.google.com/p/bubbletip/downloads/list
Demo page
http://uhleeka.com/demo/bubbletip/
Features
- multiple tips on a page
- multiple tips per jQuery element
- tips open outward in four directions:
- up
- down
- left
- right
- tips can be:
- anchored to the triggering jQuery element
- absolutely positioned
- opened at the current mouse coordinates
- anchored to a specified jQuery element
- IE png transparency is handled via filters
Tested (lightly)
- IE 6 on XP
- IE 7 and 8 on Vista
- Firefox 3.5 on Vista
- Chrome 3.0 on Vista
- Safari 3.2 on Vista
Examples
MOUSEOVER to open a tooltip above, below, to the left or to the right of any element.
MOUSEOVER a trigger element to open a tooltip above and below a target element.
VirtualBox BSOD p3.sys
After converting a physical machine to .vmdk via VMWare Converter, I got a BSOD indicating that there was a problem with p3.sys when trying to boot. The Windows XP system was running on a PII 600mHz Dell Optiplex from the year 2000.
To fix, boot in Safe Mode and run the following at a command prompt:
sc config p3 start= disabled
Install Windows XP Guest on Ubuntu 9.04 Host
Create a Windows XP VirtualBox guest from scratch using a SATA harddrive.
- Download the Windows XP Intel SATA Drivers and unzip to extract F32.IMA
- Hit F6 during setup to select the Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M)
sudo -i
VBoxManage createhd --filename /srv/virtualbox/harddisks/CHANGEME.vdi --size 20480 \
--variant Standard
VBoxManage createvm --name CHANGEME --ostype "WindowsXP" --register \
--basefolder /srv/virtualbox/machines
VBoxManage modifyvm CHANGEME --memory 1024 \
--boot1 dvd --boot2 disk --boot3 none --boot4 none \
--sata on --sataportcount 1 \
--sataport1 /srv/virtualbox/harddisks/CHANGEME.vdi \
--dvd /srv/virtualbox/iso/WindowsXP_sp3.iso \
--floppy /srv/virtualbox/floppy/F32.IMA \
--nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0Limiting network file transfer throughput with rsync
To transfer a large amount of data (200GB) across a 100mbps network without saturating the connection, I used rsync with the –bwlimit=KBps flag.
Transferring from Windows to Ubuntu 9.04, I first mounted the windows share:
sudo mkdir /mnt/winshare sudo mount -t smbfs -o username=user,password=pass //winserver/share /mnt/winshare
Next, run rsync with a specified bwlimit. Optionally, unmount the share
sudo rsync -vrR --delete --delete-excluded --bwlimit=6144 /mnt/winshare/* /destination/ sudo umount /mnt/winshare
Ubuntu 9.04 Server Install with Software RAID1 and LVM
For the sake of reliability and flexability, I wanted to install Ubuntu 9.04 Server on a Dell PowerEdge using Software RAID1 (reliability) and LVM (flexability). Software RAID1 was also considerably cheaper (except for the time it took to figure this out) than adding in the $200 Dell SATA RAID contoller. [ Read more » ]
Windows XP Change HTTPS Port Binding
On Windows XP, to change the HTTPS secure port binding (e.g. to port 444 instead of 443), run the following adsutil script at the command prompt:
C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts>cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/1/securebindings ":444:"
Return:
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. securebindings : (LIST) ":444:"