Normally, DVDs play well on Debian Linux. Never experienced any problem with that. But recently, I tried to play a shop-bought DVD - and it didn’t work out with Kaffeine. The message I got was:

“Your DVD is probably crypted. According to your country laws, you can or can’t use libdvdcss to be able to read this disc…”

OK, the solution is as follows:

First, install the libdvdread3 - package

apt-get install libdvdread3

After this, you need to install the libdvdcss2 library, which can be downloaded on this page. Please, choose the right one, according to your architecture. For example, like that:

wget http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/deb/libdvdcss2_1.2.5-1_i386.deb

And install it:

dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.5-1_i386.deb

After this, the encrypted DVDs play like a charm.

Recently, my cousin was asking me for help with her computer. Traveling for 500 km just to help her, is too expensive. So I was looking for an easy remote access tool. I didn’t want to explain for two hours, how to install VNC-Server.

Second thing: I wanted to make sure, that I can listen under Linux. It’s simply too complicated to always switch between two operating systems.

What I found was:

UltraVNC SC

This tool comes helpful, if you want somebody to just click, and the connection will be established. You have to create a txt-file, upload it, and your personal .exe will be created. There are enough UltraVNC howtos online, so I don’t want to go into detail here.

The interesting thing is. If you want to listen with Linux, you can try several VNC-derivatives. Sometimes, connections have been established, but you didn’t get pictures. So, finally, I used wine and downloaded a ultravnc-viewer only. And ran it under Linux like that:

wine vncviewer.exe -listen

Then I started the created UltraVNC SC program. And: et voila, it was working.

Hey, today, I found in my logfile, that somebody was looking for that phrase:

hp+c3600+what+can+it+be+useful

*rofl*

Don’t know, whether he/she got an answer. But I can answer it now: It can’t be useful. Because it is slow, heavy, complicated and consumes more energy than an average aircraft.

The only thing it absolutely is: It is cool. If you wanna show off, have it. (I have two HP workstations. C3600 and B1000)

:-)

BTW: He/she ended up here.

When using MS Project for planning your projects, you will most certainly want to make a printout of your project for showing off.

But, if you do so, MS Project starts your printout at the todays date. If your project will start in the future, you waste a lot of space on your schedule. What can you do, to make MS Project create a printout, where your schedule fits on one page?

First step: Go to: file - Page Setup and choose “Fit to one page”

Second step: File - Print and choose “Dates from … to …” Enter the dates of your project.

As a result, you should get a printout, which shows your schedule fitting on one page.

If you create a large table in Excel, and you want the first header rows to be printed on each page, you can do it like that:
File –> Page Setup –> Sheet
Choose the rows, you want to be printed on each page.

First of all, it’s not that MS Word is not capable of doing all the things I need - but it’s soo complicated. It takes a lot of time to format the text. And to make sure, that word does not apply this special format to all headlines but only to this special one.
And, if you need to start a new numbering somewhere, e.g. for the appendixes - it takes time and nerves to make it work.

So, looking in the past, I must say, I am so happy for writing my diplom-thesis with LaTex. LaTex does not have a WYSIWYG (What you see, is what you get)-editor. But it’s more like: WYGIWYW - What you get, is what you want. It simply works, and always in a perfect quality.

I wonder, why engineers have to work with Word. Somehow engineering and word are something contrary…