Peter's Blog

One of many great things about Mac is that you can do a lot of stuff just after launching your computer for the first time. So here is another one, you can create iso image of your CD/DVD just using apps which are already in the OS. Lets start then:
1. Put the disk into your drive.
2. Go to Apps -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.
3. Choose your disk from the list on the left and click New Image.
4. Browse to location where you want to save the image, put the filename you desire and select DVD/CD master as Image Format.
It would create cdr image, so now you need to convert it to iso. You can do it with single command in Terminal:
hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o .iso .cdr
That’s it. You have created iso image of your disk without using any third party software! Isn’t it just great.

Quick note how to list files without directories.

Windows:
dir /a:-d

Linux:
ls -l | grep ^-

Second command should work also in Mac OS X from terminal, but will have to check it just to be sure.

Remote Desktop Gateway is a role of Windows Server that allows you to connect with hosts in your network through its encrypted gateway. I’m quite impressed by this service and decided to write a little HowTo, so it would be easier for others to deploy it. I’ve actually hit two birds with one rock, because I’ve written it using xml and php, so it was opportunity to learn something useful. Final effect can be seen here. As you’ll notice thanks to xml and simple php form you can choose between English and Polish version of text.

If you’ll examine my xml then you’ll see that I still have some problems with links, so I’m keeping it in different tags, but I hope to deal with soon. Current workaround is working fine, but it’s far from being elegant (although it’s not visible to end user at all). Enjoy!

I’m using Debian Linux as a second operating system. Previously I was using it only for my servers, but now I’ve decided to start doing some software development on it. As I love bash environment, the choice of text editor was pretty obvious, Vim, the greatest editor ever made. But problem was that I like my syntax to be colored, it’s easier to write program code then. No problem, I thought, quick searching via Google gave me the “:syntax on” command which should enable what I’ve wanted. After typing it in my Vim I’ve received a message “command not available in this version”, WTF? So I’ve searched and searched, and searched a little more:) And finally solved it!

To have colored syntax in Vim on Debian:
1. Login as root.
2. Execute “apt-get install vim-full”.
3. Edit “/etc/vim/vimrc” and uncomment line with “syntax on, by simply deleting ” sign.

That’s it! It’s working now. Last step (3) is not necessary, but it gives colored syntax to all users without need of typing “:syntax on” command every time Vim is started. Hope it would help somebody, because it took me a while to find this solution, so maybe I would spare this to you. I know it’s not best solution, because it’s installing a lot of stuff which you (and I) will probably never use, but for now it’s the only one I have. If you know how to get same result with less things to be installed, please let me know.

Good news to all people for whom being private in Internet counts. Some Netherlands based company started to provide free, that’s right completely free, VPN service. It’s enough to register and you can enjoy 128-bit encryption over your Internet connection which would gain you some privacy. You don’t have to install any software, just configure VPN connection in your system. Of course as it’s new and it’s free be careful, because all your Internet traffic would go through their servers first. I would not do any credit card transactions when connected with their VPN for the time being, lets wait and see if there would be no bad words about it in Net. But for any other type of activity I suggest to give it a try. For now it’s pretty fast, but we will see how it would go when it would start to be popular. Now go to their website itshidden.com and enjoy!

Quick tip of the day. If you want to install Google Desktop on Vista 64 bit do as follows:
1. Click Start menu -> Run or tap Windows sign and “r” at once on keyboard.
2. Type “cmd” and press Enter.
3. Navigate to folder which contains GoogleDesktopSetup.exe (Google Desktop installer).
4. Type GoogleDesktopSetup.exe /force

That’s it! Your installation was just started, proceed with the wizard to setup application. Enjoy!

UPDATE:
Now Google Desktop supports 64bit operating systems! Read here.