Hosted Virtual Desktops (HVDs) offer organizations a way to scale staff productivity without the traditional CAPEX overhead that comes with purchasing computers in bulk. However, with so many vendors available, picking the right HVD platform can be challenging. Below are some of the best HVD solutions we’ve tested, and what they’re best suited for. The […]
The Best HVD Solutions
Secure Workspace for Remote Work
Remote work is on the rise, but so are cyber threats and risk of mismanagement. Below, we’ll break down some key steps administrators can take to improve both security and staff efficiency for their remote work workspaces, as well as touch on some proven management platforms, to make remote management much easier. Why Security Matters […]
GNUCash 1.6.3/LFS
I posted some earlier stories in the NetAdminTools Desktop area about struggling with GNUCash. I did eventually build up an LFS system, which I’m writing and posting this article from. There is some good information on the LFS site about getting various combinations of software running on LFS in the hints area. In particular, the […]
Using Dynamic Backgrounds With KDE
In this article I showed how to update the background of an X desktop with various text status dumps. I have been using IceWM because it has always been the most stable window manager. It was also useful when bringing up an OS from source, as IceWM can be compiled quickly. KDE has a lot […]
Using the MMC to disable Windows Messenger
We have not found a way to easily disable the Windows Messenger service on XP via the application. You can use the MMC (Microsoft Management Console) to do this, though. Select start–>run, enter mmc, and click OK. Select Add/Remove Snap-in, Add, Group Policy, Add, Local Computer, Finish. Here is a graphic of the appropriate part […]
Firefox Passes 25 Million Mark
Firefox has enjoyed 25 million downloads in 99 days. We have been using Firefox here at NetAdminTools for the last couple of months, and are very impressed. For more info, see this article. We have to celebrate with a nice image from factorycity.net: The popup blocker works well, and the rendering is beautiful, at least […]
XP Pro ACPI, XP task scheduler issues, and a C twist
There are a variety of issues surrounding ACPI on XP workstations. XP is tied very tightly in to ACPI. The immediate result is, by default, Microsoft’s support for ACPI saves the world a lot of electricity. That is, the information economy kills a lot less wildlife and puts less toxins in the air that we […]
Setting the Gnome Desktop Background With a Script
You can use these two commands to set the Gnome desktop background: gconftool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /path/pic.png gconftool-2 -t str –set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_options “centered” This will put the picture in the center. If you want to fill the background with the picture use stretched.
Dynamically updating desktop background with text
Ever wish you could dynamically update the background image of your desktop? Here is a perl script that takes an existing background, finds out the current stock/index prices, and adds the prices to the image. Just put it in your crontab. You could just as easily put ping response times for various servers on your […]
Using Ldconfig To Set Library Locations
Gozer needs libgiblib to work right. I like to install strange libraries like this into /usr/local/lib. I put all of the source into /usr/local/src that isn’t part of the main RPM system. Even when I compiled and installed giblib, though, it wouldn’t work right: [usr-1@srv-1 ~]$ gozer gozer: error while loading shared libraries: libgiblib.so.1: cannot […]
What to do when your user’s hard drive dies
One of the most likely parts to fail on a typical workstation is the hard drive. The user powers on in the morning, and the BIOS screams “Unable to Boot!”. Now, much work can often be done via the web, or at least, the user won’t freak as much if they can at least access […]
Reading RSS Feeds with Outlook 2007
Outlook 2007 has the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. Just scroll down to the RSS Feeds folder under Personal Folders, click on the RSS Feeds. Right click on RSS Feeds. Choose Add a New RSS Feed. Enter the location of the RSS feed into the box: Here is what the NetAdminTools.com RSS feed looks […]
Windows XP Service Pack 1
Windows XP Service Pack 1 is out and available here. We had better luck with the network install. The network install is a lot larger; however, the update wizard that was supposed to download just what our workstation needed timed out when contacting the server. A retry started the whole download again. A straight download […]
Rotating a Video with Mencoder
If you import a rotated video off of your phone or other device, here is a quick command to rotate it 90 degrees: mencoder -vf rotate=1 -o hx.avi -oac pcm -ovc lavc hx.mo Some more details are in How to rotate an AVI or MPEG file taken in Portrait.
Managing Disk Quotas on Windows 2000 / XP
One challenge for systems administrators is convincing users to store their files on a network share rather than on their local hard drive. Disk quotas on Windows 2000 and XP can be used to force users to do just that. To enable disk quotas for the users, log on as an administrator, right click on […]
Xfce Tips
If you lose your borders around your windows in Xfce4 and your mouse pointer over the desktop is wonky try: xfwm4 –replace rm -rf ~/.cache/sessions
Getting Eterm Compiled
Eterm is awful cool. One problem, though, is getting the Imlib2 and Freetype dependencies worked out. I’m assuming that Freetype2 is installed and running, as well as dependencies for KDE. This should be the case for most distributions and if you follow the BLFS instructions for KDE. Also, check out an article from 2001 on […]
Funky MP3 Car Players, and the Scripts That Load Them
Oh my. I had no idea about what was running my music. Now I know quite a bit more, and I thought I would share. My collection is very convoluted, but I didn’t know it. No, I had no idea. How did I get to the messy state I’m at today? I started converting my […]
Tricking out your desktop with Blackbox
After Ximian locking up my console hard, and general disgust with complicated window managers, I decided to trick out a minimalistic window manager. For those of you that are interested, check out Blackbox. The source is 235k. I kid you not. Funny thing is that I wanted to use a more configurable xterm, so I […]
Starting NVIDIA Drivers Automatically
If you have a Linux box and an NVIDIA card, the best drivers are available directly from NVIDIA here. If, after installing the drivers, they don’t start up automatically, you may need to add the correct alias to your /etc/modules.conf file. I’m going to assume that you are running a 2.4 kernel with loadable modules […]
