VirtualBox Shared folders

I had some problems in using the method everybody seems to be using when wanting to share a folder between the WinXP host and the guest OS Ubuntu.

You may find everywhere that you need to execute the following command:

sudo mount -t vboxfs sharename mountpoint

This seems to give a protocol error.

On one of the fora there was an alternative that did work however:

sudo mount.vboxfs sharename mountpoint

This seems to work fine.

Thanks to entry found here.

virtualbox copy machine and disks

This are some procedures to follow if you want to copy one machine in Virtualbox into an other machine.

Method 1:

Export as a Open Virtual Machine Definition. (export appliance)

Then Import it again.

The very annoying thing is that by default the image files get copied into the personal VirtualBox directory ... which may not be nice to manage.

The files have to be released, copied, reloaded and linked again before the VM can see them.

Method 2: Physical copy of the hard disks

This method does not copy the machine definition ... which is no hard work to do anyway.

Supposing the hard disks that you want to copy are in one directory, just copy the directory and for the correct way of working, give the new disk image files a name corresponding to its use.

My personal standard is to prefix the directory containing the files with the name of the machine. (ex. UBUNTU_SOA). Each file in turn is also prefixed by this name.

Then the files need to get a UUID unique to all the files in the world (?).

This is required because VirtualBox uses this UUID in the registry of Virtual Media.

I found this info on this link.

The basic command when the file is already copied is:

VBoxManage internalcommands setvdiuuid "The name of the file to rename”

If the files are not copied from their original location:

VBoxManage clonehd “the old name of the file” “the new name of the file”

After this the disks can be defined as new virtual media names ... and since you followed the convetions ... the name and purpose of the files will be clear.

The command VBoxManage can be found in the installation directory of VirtualBox

Tax-On-Web op Ubuntu

Hieronder gecopieerde informatie over hoe op Ubuntu Linux naar taxonweb te kunnen gaan.

Onderaan volgt de link naar het originele artikel.

Eid / Taxonweb : Linux 1 - Windows 0

Submitted by luc on Sun, 24/06/2007 - 15:09

Tax-on-web op Ubuntu in 30 seconden:

$ sudo apt-get install libacr38u libacr38ucontrol-dev pcscd
$ sudo apt-get install beid*

Open /usr/share/beid/beid-pkcs11-register.html in Firefox, wacht even en klik op "Install". Er verschijnt "The "Belgium Identity Card PKCS#11" module is now registered."

Cardrreader verbinden, kaart insteken, surf naar http://www.taxonweb.be/ en je kan je belastingaangifte invullen. Op die tijd heb je met Windows net de driver voor je cardreader gevonden. ;-)
Als er nu nog iemand een oplossing kon vinden voor de x86-64'ers onder ons...

De link naar het origineel artikel:

http://www.stroobant.be/eid-taxonweb-linux-1-windows-0

Met de nodige groeten

Definieren van USB printer op Apple Airport Express

't is ni voor het één of het ander ... maar de Apple spullen zijn dik onderwaardeerd.

Sinds een half jaar in het bezit van een airport express en de funcitionaliteit is omonwonden verbluffend: 

• draadloos netwerk tot draft-n 
  
• usb connectie voor het aansluten van een netwerk printer
  
• aansluiten van uw hifi keten om uw mp3 tjes overal af te spelen
  

Dit laatste stukske is wel gelimiteerd omdat dit enkel werkt in iTunes maar soit ... het zij wat het zij ... dat werkt dan ook zoals het moet en niet anders ...

Afin het probleem is hoe een usb printer die aan de Apple Airport Express hangt te registreren onder uwen old fashion Windows xxxx.

FF rondsurfen in google en hopla : volgende link ... hierbij gezet onder het motto 'ere wie ere' toekomt ...  : http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2003072510530643

Het gaat daar wel om de zwaardere broer van de express ... de extreme.

Dus de stappekes:

• ga naar control panel > printers en faxes
• rechts klik in de lijst van printers (of gebruik een eventueel beschikbare shortcut) en selecteer 'add printer';
• Selecteer (na next geklikt te hebben in een weer overbodig Microsoft scherm) locale printer en deselecteer autodetect, klik next
• In het scherm 'selecteer een printer poort', selecteer voor de creatie van een nieuwe poort, en zet het type naar een tcp/ip poort, klik next
• in de wizard (weeral een nieuwe) klik eerst next. In het scherm voor de host. Vul hier het IP adress in van de airport express. Pas eventueel de naam aan. (dit is de nieuwe poort naam);
• Dan wordt er gevraagd welk het type van apparaat is, omdat het default type niet automatisch kan bepaald worden. Het gaat hier over het protocol dat moet gehanteerd worden ... en ik veronderstel ook de default poort die gebruikt zal worden. Gebruik hier het 'hewlett packard jet direct' (wat een printer software laag over tcp/ip definieerd die door de apple airport express gebruikt wordt)
• Daarna wprdt de poort gevraagd .. maar hier kan je de default nemen, gezien die een gevolg is van het protokol dat in de vorige stap ingesteld werd; klik daar dus next;
• Dan wordt de printer gevraagd. Hier moet je het juiste merk en type instellen. Na selectie, klik next;
• Dan kan je de naam instellen hoe de printer gekend is op je Windows brol; klik daarna next 
• Blijf next klikken ... Tot het ding gedefinieerd is.
• Indien je de printer als default printer wil gebruiken defineer hem dan ook zo.

Hierna kan je je printer rustig gebruiken.

Om toch maar weer de vergelijking te maken,De installatie op de macbook pro is beschrijfbaar in twee stappen, waarvan er één nog niet eens in de voorvermelde lijst staat:

• Sluit de printer aan de airport express en zet hem aan
  
• Verifieer, ja ... dus niet configureer, in de airport setup utility of the printer herkend werd.

Het speelt waarschijnlijk wel in mijn voordeel dat de printer een HP vrij standaard model is ... maar dan nog, het is een klein verschil ... maar telkens je iets op de apple computer moet doen denk je twintig stappen te ver. Ik vraag me ten stelligste af welke depressies mensen ondergaan die van een Apple noodgedwongen en overhoeds overschakelen op een of andere windows brol.

Afin de groeten;

 

VNCServer op Ubuntu Server/Desktop

This topic ... it was missing.
For the sake of all the Tims and Toms I still have some work here.
I want to point them for the moment to a number of documents that already exist and which I have used in the past to get it working on Ubuntu.
So here they come
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=795036

Valid xorg.conf file for linux OBI for DELL 630 Laptops

Seems like the next piece of text may be rather important if you are running the linux OBI on your laptop.
Everybody knows Marc De Weerdt ...(hope his name is in the correct tense) who provided the piece of plain ascii characters to be posted on this Hawtoes blog. Caught him correcting the file for one of our most junior people who came only just out his egg and started working with Linux. At least ... it's an intelligent chicken.
After you used it, be so kind to sent him all the honors. As well as ...any complaints and questions ...

# Xorg configuration created by pyxf86config

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "be"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "LeftEdge" "120"
Option "RightEdge" "830"
Option "TopEdge" "120"
Option "BottomEdge" "650"
Option "FingerLow" "14"
Option "FingerHigh" "15"
Option "MaxTapMove" "110"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.3"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.75"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
# VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
# HorizSync 60.0 - 60.0
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "Dell E228WFP"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 60.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection


Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "vesa"
VideoRam 393216
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1440 900
Depth 8
Modes "1440x900"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"

#Modes "1680x1050" "1440x900" "1280x800"
Viewport 0 0
Virtual 1024 768
Depth 16
Modes "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Windows Explorer extremely slow to open

Symptoms:
When pressing the Windows+E key - which should open windows explorer immediately - it takes a long time before something happens.
Consequently opening a word document or excel sheet are also slow.

Reason for slowness
The reason is not known to me ... but the solution may work in your case ...

Solution
After ruling out a number of straith forward reasons like unavailability of network paths ... one of your last resolutions may be a problem in some Microsoft - or what had you thougth - temporary files.

Solution
In order to solve the problem, it is very well possible that you must create an other windows local admin user, if none accessible user exists. The next scenario foresees the steps including the creation of the extra account

Solution Steps

• Create a local admin user if none exists yet which is different from the user who has the problem;
• Log off as the user having the problem;
  
• Log on as this admin user;
• Go to the following directory
  c:\Documents and Settings\<profile>\local settings\application data\microsoft
  ;
  
• Locate in that folder a folder named 'windows' ... what had you thought ;o)
• Rename - or delete if you want to - the folder to something else (eg windows.old)
• Log off as the newly created or exisiting other admin user;
• Log in as the user who had the problem;
• The windows folder will be created again;
• For some wonderful reason ... this will solve the problem;

Hope this helps ... don't ask why it helps ...

Overwriting files in use by Forms Server

Problem
This is standard behaviour since the server uses memory mapped i/o or ... it considers the file as
part of the working memory environment.
This method is ideal for a production environment but ... not for a development environment.

Solution
Setting the environment variable FORMSxx_MMAP to a particular value (0 or False, depending on the version of the server) will disable the memory mapped i/o mechanism.
Depending on the version of the server other variable

The variable
Forms version 4.5, 5.0, 6.x and 9.x use the FORMSxx_MMAP variable.
Later versions use the variable FORMS_MMAP

The value
Upto version 6.x the value has to be set to 0 for disabling and 1 for enabling the memory mapped i/o.
From version 9.x onward, the values are TRUE for enableing and FALSE for disabling the feature.

An example:
In a 10g environment you would have to insert a line in the .env file for your environment like the following
FORMS_MMAP=FALSE

Vista and Samba

Mandatory Shouting

Well ... nice trick of MS again to try and be incompatible with the rest of the world.

What's the problem?

You have a new pc (or already an old one) with Windows Vista on it and you are not able to connect to Samba drives, either by windows explorer or by the 'net use' command. A typical symptom you will notice on protected drives is the fact that the username/password combination is never accepted.

If you have Windows Vista Home you will not be able to connect to Samba Shared drives. Nice ... hmmm ... Just Microsoft alike.

How to solve it?

After looking around the internet some solutions are available but most of them seem not to be valid work arounds.

1. Upgrade Vista to a "Professional" level
The Vista standard installed on most private customers' pc's is a basic version from which MS has seen it appropriate to remove some tools from the more professional versions which you need to solve these kinds of problems.

An upgrade costs ... 100 € at least ... so ... to me not valid.

In case you have the more expensive version you should use a program which lets you handle the local securi!ty policies on Windows Vista: secpol.msc. This is missing from the Vista Home versions.

2. Go to a an OS which is worthwhile and not purely commercially oriented.

The solution can be reduced to a choice for the best distribution for your particullar situation.

Ubuntu linux has some flavors for any kind of objective ...

This is a challange too ... but it will work out fine unless MS-depending programs need to be run, which would be a strategic error since everything is moving to open-internet technology.

3. Change a registry value ...

Found this on the following link : http://forums.techarena.in/windows-vista-network/670498.htm and is valid for the Vista Home distribution

In short:

• go to the registry (windows-R type regedit and press the run button)
  
• select in the left pane registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA
  
• Select in the right pane the value LmCompatibilityLevel (the value will be 3, stored in hex)
  
• Doubleclick on the LmCompatibilyLevel item, a box with the value will apear.
  
• change the value to 2 (some say 1) I set it to 2 and this seemed to work (maybe this depends on the version of Samba your target is running)
  
• press the OK button
  
• exit the registry editor
  
• Some say a reboot is required some don't. Quess the best thing to do is reboot.
  
• Then try connecting by the command "Net use" from the command line or by mapping the network drive in windows explorer.
  
• This should have solved it.

The fact is that MS is considering that a certain security protocol is in place for all external sources ... which seems not to be the case. This is where the '3' comes from. (see also http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4434907782.html )

Hope this did the trick for you.

Oracle Jinitiator - Left handed mouse bug

As if I would like to tell that a mouse is a bug.

Problem:
See metalink bug 2200274
When the functions of the left and right mouse buttons are switched under ms-windows, the function of the selection mouse button, originally the left button, is lost, resulting in having only a context button on the left button.

Research< style="font-weight: bold;">Solution:
A valid solution is to go to a JPI configuration, for the newbies, 'a java plug in'.
This makes the deployment of Jinitiator obsolete but makes the presence for the correct JRE mandatory.
A test with version 1.6.0.10 worked very fine and solved the left-right mouse button problem.

Steps:

First,
Create in your formsweb.cfg file a new configuration section ... or better copy the one you were using. For those of you who did not use configurations ... this is a good time for starting doing so.
A config is identified by squarebrackets like this:
[ MyJPIConfig]

Second,
Point the basehtml files to point to the jpi files:

baseHTMLJInitiator=basejpi.htm
baseHTMLie=basejpi.htm
baseHTML=basejpi.htm

Third,
Configure the archives to be loaded by means of the archive_jpi tag:
archive_jpi=frmall.jar,laf.jar,

Fourth,
And ... this should come first ... But since people only remember the last thing they are told ... I'm putting this as the last thing to do.
Enable the correct download of the JRE to be used and set the set the correct identifications for the plugins to be used.
Normally you would download it and then put it on your intranet with the correct url.

Fifth,
This is optional ... but gives some additional configuration possibilities:
envFile=
form=
userid= if no connectstring has to be used.
pageTitle=
width=
height=
separateFrame=
lookAndFeel=
colorScheme=

Now you should have something like the following:

[ MyJPIConfig]
baseHTMLJInitiator=basejpi.htm
baseHTMLie=basejpi.htm
baseHTML=basejpi.htm
jpi_download_page=http://jan.hellings.be/jre/jpi_16010_windows.exe
jpi_classid=clsid:CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0010-ABCDEFFEDCBA
jpi_codebase=http://java.sun.com/update/1.6.0/jinstall-6-windows-i586.cab#Version=1,6,0,10
jpi_mimetype=application/x-java-applet;jpi-version=1.6.0_10
envFile=ApplicationEnvFile.env
form=startform.fmx
userid=defuser/defpassword@defconnectstring
otherparams=buffer_records=%buffer% debug_messages=%debug_messages% array=%array% obr=%obr% query_only=%query_only% quiet=%quiet% render=%render% record=%record% tracegroup=%tracegroup% log=%log% term=%term%
pageTitle=MyPageTitleTexteke
width=1280
height=750
separateFrame=true
lookAndFeel=Oracle
colorScheme=blaf

Conclusion
It seems to me that performance is much better using the newer version of JRE than the one provided by Jinitiator.

Greetz,
Jan.