Categorie archieven: Geen categorie

Linux Mint or Ubuntu on a HP Zbook 15 G2?

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Because Windows 10 is the latest official supported version, I managed a Windows 11 version. But in preparation for my mothers pc with Windows 10 for the occasional bigger screen and printjob I decided to test both on the Zbook. Mostly my mother uses her iPad and sometimes a bigger screen comes in handy. Investing in a new Windows pc would be overkill.

Ubuntu installed flawless on the Zbook, but the surprise was after installing: no automatic booting. The rEFInd Boot Manager by Roderick W. Smith – https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/index.html – came to the rescue; installing rEFInd and setting Ubuntu as first made it automatically boot. Then came shutting down in the docking station de Zbook usually resides: after shutting down the Zbook powered on again!

Time to try Linux Mint and guess what: same issues. Workaround for now is

efibootmgr -n 0004

Being automatically executed by cron after booting, entry 4 is Linux Mint.

Powering on after shutting down is resolved with installing laptop-mode-tools as advised on https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=199810. For now I use the Zbook with Linux Mint with the main reason that Firefox is installed as a system package, not as a snap.

Another difference is the size of the ISO’s:

  • 2,8 GB for the linuxmint-22.1-cinnamon-64bit iso
  • 6 GB for the ubuntu-24.04.2-desktop-amd64 iso

Veldmanbrug memorial

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Going through our photo database I came across the original Veldmanbrug memorial plaque:

Original Veldmanbrug memorial plaque

Original Veldmanbrug memorial plaque

Which went missing shortly after the 2012 memorial day. And was replaced with a new one before the 2013 memorial day:

2013 memorial day at the Veldmanbrug

2013 memorial day at the Veldmanbrug

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Veldman bridge is located here:

Location of the Veldman bridge

Location of the Veldman bridge

 

Location in Google maps.

If you ever come across the original memorial plaque; it is stolen property!

Nokia Lumia 800 met Windows Phone 7.8

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Windows Phone 7.8 was installed with Nokia Care Suite, making it a fresh install, no update.

Using it I noticed 3 differences so far:

  • Of course the home screen with smaller / more tiles
  • In WP 7.5 in the locked screen the music buttons where always visible, now only shortly after pressing the power button and the the disappear
  • Nokia maps faces north instead of east

A challenge was making screenshots: http://qatsi.ath.cx/diverse/lumia_2013-01-26.html

All the points mentioned earlier still exist

Nokia Lumia 800 user review

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In this article I’ll write about a Nokia Lumia 800 I have since november 1th. My first impression is that Nokia made a smartphone and what the smartphones can do, it does it well.

A con and pro list very biased by having a Nokia E7:

Cons:

  • no hardware keyboard
  • Internet Explorer behaves peculiar – like since Windows Mobile 6.1; agentstring is “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; NOKIA; Lumia 800)”
  • OMTP AV connection is incompatible with previous Nokia AV headsets
  • no auto answer, known from the beginning as discussed in Microsoft Community
  • no weeknumbers in the calender
  • can’t pinpoint a location in Nokia drive and “drive to that location”, an address has to be entered to use a location to drive to
  • only contacts can be exchanged via bluetooth, no other data like songs or picture
  • Nokia music and “Music and videos” is confusing they are different ways to access to local stored media
  • no hardwired way or app  to make a screenshot

Pros

  • Complete package: with a cover
  • Without cover the phone is easily held; doesn’t slip through fingers and with cover that is even better
  • earphones with symetrical wires and microphone in wire to right earphone
  • Nokia Drive finds its location fast
  • Voice of Nokia drive talks over bluetooth
  • syncs with Google calendar
  • 8 mp camera is easily accessed when phone is locked: press and hold camera button and camera function becomes active
  • music can be paused or stopped when phone is locked

There are more points and those are the differences between Symbian and Windows phone. For now the Lumia will be used for private use and the E7 for business, or when convenient.

Windows 7 variants

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Thanks to the people behind http://code.kliu.org/misc/winisoutils/ I could help someone with a laptop that had a completely broken harddisk with Windows 7 home premium installed. Off course never made a backup / recovery DVD so my hands were empty.

Using the eicfg removal utility is a pice of cake and the result nice:

Windows 7 universal install DVDA universal installer DVD is always handy.

But the subject covers this post very well: the Windows 7 DVD I used with eicfg removal utility is unusable for a Packard Bell laptop as is explained on Microsoft answers (in dutch) http://answers.microsoft.com/nl-nl/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/product-key-home-premium-werkt-niet/756bbf93-1977-42b0-a3aa-c6c594d19974

PostgreSQL database encoding

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My personal favorite database is PostgreSQL. In the time I started with it, it cold hold large objects, in my case images and still am very satisfied with it.

http://qatsi.ath.cx/cgi-bin/cath_pub?laatste is an example of it. The images shown are not retrieved directly from the database, but that’s another issue.

Creating new databases I wondered about the encoding to use and stumbled over this page: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jdbc/2004-11/msg00075.php

So for now a reasonable encoding is utf8.

 

 

HP Proliant DL380 G5 network issues, update your firmware!

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At work we where having troubles with HP Proliant DL380 G5 servers: after 2 days or so the server – both Windows server 2003 and 2008 – is only reachable at the network shares. No login possible, neither at the console or trough rdp.

It started with a Windows Server 2003 and I found a registry entry that made it possible to login and then reboot the server. The registry modification is described at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815266

Lately a Windows Server 2008 started having the same network issues. Updating the NIC and RAID controller drivers didn’t solve the issues, but changed the behaviour – made the server faster unreachable.

That made me download the latest firmware DVD, run it in auto mode. And low and behold the server stays reachable and does its job!

Other server have jet to be updated, but that’s a matter of time.

So keep your firmware up to date!

 

 

 

 

Windows 7, rdp server 2008 and 2003

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Last week I had a new surprise connecting with rdp on a Windows 7 box to a 2008 server left the remote desktop connection startscreen forever there after asking for the credentials. The only way to end rdp was with taskmanager or logging off leaving a unclear eventid 1002 in the eventlog. But I was still able to connect to Windows 2003 servers (apologies for the dutch text):

Stumbling upon a page that it is certificate related I renamed the Windows 7 box and low and behold I could make a rdp connection to the Windows 2008 servers! After renaming the box back to its original name it still worked.

Anyone who can shed inside info is welcome.