Hi,

this christmas, I got a Wacom Bamboo graphic-tablet. I’m VERY happy about it and I played around for some days now. This evening I wanted to create something that should look similar to a graffiti. While painting and using different tools in photoshop, something grow in front of my eyes. It’s so much fun to paint with a pen instead of a mouse!

Well, this picture maybe doesn’t fit to the time short after christmas, but, while painting it, I thought about things that happend in the last days, in the last years and in the last century. I collected some of them and added it softly (and maybe hidden on the first look) to this picture. I don’t want to say much more about it, but I think you understand my thoughts that I had while painting it, if you take a few minutes and simply watch it.

It’s nothing political, it’s just about fears of a lot things that happen these days. It should not be a sad picture, but something to think about it.

You’re welcome to leave a comment and tell me what you think and feel while watching it.

Oh! If you click on the picture above, you can download the 300dpi (DIN-A4) version, which is about 16MB.

Ciao
Dennis

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Hi guys,

so, today after work (it was my last day to work for 2008 ), I played around with my Mac Pro. I just wanted to see a Linux running on it. Don’t ask me why – I’m just a guy who needs to play around.

So – here’s how I got it work:

1st: You need to install rEFIt just before you do anything else. Install the PKG that comes as download.

2nd: Insert your Linux CD (as mentioned in the caption, I’ve used Ubuntu 8.10 (AMD64) for my test) and reboot your Mac. Hold down the Option / Alt key and select the CD to boot it.

3rd: Install the Linux on one of your harddisks and reboot.

4th: Hold down the Option / Alt key again. You will see the disk rEFIt and a disk called Windows. Don’t ask me why, but when I join the rEFIt menu and select the Tux titled with Linux HD, all I get is this:

GRUB _

So, for my surprise, choosing the Windows harddisk, Linux boots up very nice.

That’s it!

I’ve the nVidia GeForce 8800GT in my Mac Pro, so I was in need to install the drivers for the card. Thanks to Canonical, the installation is just a procedure of a few clicks. I was able to use both 22″ displays. I just had to use the nVidia tool that was installed with the drivers.

Little hint: Using Xinerama and the effects coming with Compiz is not possible. You’ll receive a DRI-erromessage. I haven’t played around that, but I think it should be resolveable.

After installing some codecs (incl. QuickTime), it played a Full HD movie (1080p) in fullscreen and let scroll the GoogleEarth planet fast on both screens at the same time. Very impressive.

This machine is an 8 core Xeon beast with 14GB of RAM, so believe me – it’s damn fast!

If you’ve any questions, don’t hesitate to ask in a comment

Ciao
Dennis

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Good morning,

on saturday I opened up my private ThinkPad T41. I was running Win XP and Ubuntu site by site and I was in need to test something on Windows, so I rebooted the notebook and selected “Windows XP” from the GRUB menu.

When Windows opened it asked me (for my surprise) to activate it. I was wondering, because it was installed for a few months and still activated. Ok – well, I was in need to get some data from the NTFS partition and so I accepted the way to activate (again). The next thing I saw was a message, that this version was already activated. I thought “fine” and hit the OK button. Not OK! It logged my out immediatley. I tried it a few times, but no way to get into. Booting to the secured mode was possible, so I could grab my files on a USB stick. Trying to activate my Windows again with a tool won’t work, so I had to kick it from the disk. Damn

I then thought that it’s a good point to try Vista on my ThinkPad. The installation took a real long time and after a lot updates (I had installed it from a SP1 disc), it worked nice, except the graphic card. I’ve a Radeon Mobility 7500 inside this ThinkPad. Lenovo says on their website: “Installed within the operating system”. Hmm nice.. but this OS tells me that it is a standard vga card. After crawling through the web I found a hint to use the Radeon Mobility 9000 driver which really comes with the Vista. Voilá works. Please be warned, that it will NOT allow you to use Aero. The points from the Vista test will be around 1,0 But it should extremly reduce the usage of your CPU and thanks to this, your ThinkPad will/should stay a bit cooler.

I played around with the system, but (of course) it seems like Windows Vista is kinda slow on this 1.6GHz Pentium-M CPU and with poor 1Gig of RAM, so after playing for a while and trying to get it fully working (also with the Lenovo System Update Tool), I kicked it also from my harddisc and installed Windows XP last night. This morning I started to configure my Windows XP. Of course I HAVE TO call Microsoft to activate my very own copy of Windows XP *sigh*. I can’t remember when the online activation worked the last time. That is a very odd and annoying think Microsoft!

So, that’s my little story about the ThinkPad T41 and a hint how to install the graphics card if you really want to have a real slow OS on this very nice notebook. I for myself will go back to my Windows XP / Ubuntu 8.10 combination.

Oh – if you wonder that I didn’t have an image/snapshot. I have, but that is possibly the evil thing that results me in not being able to login.

Have a nice day!

Ciao
Dennis

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Good morning,

I’m working since 9 months OnSite at Cisco in Düsseldorf, but until last Thursday, I had no chance to use the Cisco TelePresence system which is installed in one of the meeting rooms in the office.

Normally, I don’t write a lot about my work, to not get in trouble because of internal stuff that could be written accidentally, but this time, the content is really public related, so I’m not afraid to type this here

Here’s a picture of a TelePresence system (I think some of you have seen this before) that I’ve found on Cisco.com press material, so it’s under Copyright by Cisco Systems.

Isn’t it stunning? All three large displays are connected to the other rooms somewhere in the world, if you connect them. All this seems to be controlled by the nice colorful IP Phone in the middle of the desk. While the meeting, you were filmed by one of the three cams which are located at the top of the middle screen.

What I didn’t know before I sit in this meeting and chatted with other Cisco locations in Munich and Berlin, the TelePresence switches to the current speaker. This happens, because with 2 other large versions of the system, you’ve 6 available videos to share on just 3 screens. The trick is, that, when you talk for more than 4 seconds, the system automatically switches the other locations to your view. Very nice, but when people are talking at the same time, it’s a bit confusing Well, normally just one person speaks in a meeting.

Also the video itself was stunning. It’s delivered in FullHD from one location to the other via fast broadband and I couldn’t see any boxes or other compression related mistakes on any screen while the meeting. Amazing.

When you sit in this room (have I said that I love those chairs? I want such a chair for my home office..!) the sound is recoreded in 3D, so if someone who sits on the left site in for example Munich, you will hear this person on the right site in Düsseldorf. Sure, it doesn’t work like a mirror, that would be confusing. Ah by the way sound. You’ve a directional microphone in each desk (you can see those 3 black/silver bubbles) and a nice Mute-key allows you to shut up. Sound is as if the person located somewhere else sits right on your site.

A funny thing that I’ve noticed is that on the white wall below the screens, you are able to share presentations/desktop/videos and so one, thanks to a beamer which is mounted under the middle desk. The larger version of the TelePresence (for more than 6 people) has a 4th display above the 3 video screens to share a presentation and is mounted to the roof of the room.

Please notice, that this is no public relation article, I was just so impressed that I decided to tell you about.

Ciao
Dennis

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Hi guys,

so this is about a big step regarding to our local network (again). I’m sure some of you know the great software of Scalix, a really nice eMail, Calendaring & Collaboration platform. The best thing is: there’s a Community Edition available which means, you can run a local server with MS Exchange like – or even better features, for free!

Yes! It is really free for a limited number of users. We’re 2 persons here plus maybe some family members, so we POSSIBLY reach the 5 free Premium User Account limits, maybe not. I said better than Exchange and that’s true. If you’ve ever used the SWA (Scalix Web Access) and OWA (Outlook Web Access), you’ll notice one thing: OWA ONY works good on Internet Explorer (6+). If you are like us and run Mac OS X or Linux, you’ve a very bad version when you log on OWA from Firefox, Safari or some other better browser than IE. Well, SWA allows you to use the browser or your choice. In my mind – since Firefox has released version 3 – that is Firefox – also on my Mac. The Plugins/Addons are such great and I everytime use some of them which makes my weblive much easier.

Another big plus to go with Scalix is the point, that it allows you to connect directly with your iCal (or Evolution, Ligtning etc.) calendar. Of course you may send invitations and handle meetings like you know it from Exchange/Outlook. There’s also a Outlook Connector available for free!

So – what’s the point that I want it so badly and have to re-organize our LAN (again )?

Well, I’m crazy for eMail solutions as long as I can remember. I’m fascinated of Outlook & Exchange, but using it is expensive. Sure, you can go and buy a Windows Server 2003 SBS for 400 Euros nowadays and you’re fine then. It’s not the money (even if I have to say, that 400 Euros are a lot for an outdated software!). No, it’s not just the point that Scalix Community Edition is free, it’s more that it’s also based on Free Software. In this case – for us – it means switching out server from Debian Etch to Cent OS 5. So, I have to fiddle out how to enable AFP on Cent OS and have to learn a lot new things, because it’s really different from “apt-get”-like Operating Systems like Debian & Ubuntu.

What do I need to set it up?
First of all, the server itself. Out new Athlon64EE server with 4GB of RAM and 2TB+ of storage is a very nice machine to start with. Even though, if you want to have your own mailserver stored in your basement in your own rack, like we will have it soon, you also need a fix IP address and – even more important than this – you’ll need a correct Reverse-DNS entry!

So here’s the story about Reverse-DNS and why it is so important.

Reverse-DNS, that’s what you get when you make an nslookup on an IP.

Let’s see what I get here currently, so I log in to my terminal right here on my OS X and get my IP from my friends service Dein IP-Check.

dockmaster-2:~ dieta$ nslookup 87.156.12.245
Server: 192.168.0.1
Address: 192.168.0.1#53

Authoritative answers can be found from:


What you can see here is the Reverse-DNS entry from my current provider which is the Deutsch Telekom (I’ve reported a lot in the past and IPTV still sucks ).

The entry itself is p579C0CF5.dip.t-dialin.net. (yes, the point at the end belongs to it, regarding the arpa guidelines). So – if you now send an eMail from this host and this is sent for example to GMX or Webmail (2 large german Webmail providers), you possibly never get a response. Reason? Well, it’s based on a dynamic IP and because of Spam-Protection, they only allow real servers to send eMails to their services. Of course, our own server is a “real” one, but not in the mind of the internet. It’s just a computer on a regular DSL connection.

Thank god, there’s a great provider here in Germany which will help us out, Manitu. They sell a flatrate for Telekom DSL users for cheap 9,99 Euro / Monath and they give you a static IP and also a Reverse-DNS. I will use klein2.de as my domain for eMails, too, so the Reverse-DNS will be set to klein2.de, too. Not it’s just much better to set the DNS entries to a fix IP, the server will work perfectly with large providers.

Oh – and Manitu don’t save data. That’s most important for the German users here. A law back in 2007 wanted all ISPs in German to store connection data for 90 days and Manitu is one of the providers who don’t do this. Also, they use regenerative energy to power their serverfarm (served by a near hydroelectric power plant). So this provider is a win/win! The support is fantastic and super fast!

Finally everything seems to be complete to rumble. I just downloaded the Cent OS 5 ISO for 64bit PCs (which is by the way a free way to get an enterprise class Linux system which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux), we’ve the eMail/Calendar & Collaboration Suite Scalix as Community Edition also free and of course, we have the server.

Are there concerns?

Honestly, one last thing: the Community Edition doesn’t (and will never thanks to licensing fees to Microsoft) be able to use the currently-under-development ActiveSync module for Scalix. This is only allowed for the Small Business Edition which is a bit too expensive for 2 users .

What does that mean? Well, the dream of eMails on the fly on our iPhones will not be realized with this solution. Well, currently we use the webserver for eMails and we don’t have this feature. Does it really care? Sure, would be really nice to have, but it’s not a feature we urgently need. Checking eMail could be done on a less period scan by the iPhone itself, if you want it, so. Thanks to iCal & syncronisation via iTunes, we will be able to push our meetings, calendar entries etc to the iPhone the old-school way.

I’ll keep you updated on this. I think I’ll start working on this an installing the Cent OS today after work or tomorrow and over the weekend.

Oh – why do I call this “Second spring”? Easily explained: I’ve tried this in the past and I just kicked this suite because I wanted to test how the ActiveSync thing with the iPhone works with a trial of Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007. As mentioned before: It’s a better go with free software, which is also free – as free beer (or coke in my case) – and has much better features and works better with our OS X computers.

Have a nice day!

Ciao
Dennis

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