Category Archives: Computer

Computer related stuff

Exporting PuTTY Sessions

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I use PuTTY a lot, both at home and at work and for many different reasons and projects. Normally my saved sessions are not something I need to worry about moving around, my work sessions stay at work and the sessions I use at home stay at home. Recently, however, I had need to backup my PuTTY sessions in preparation of having my laptop replaced at owrk. I did some searching and found this article describing how to export and import the registry key that contains all your PuTTY connection settings. After reading through the article I realized that alternatively it would just be easier to create a .bat file containing this command:

regedit /ea putty.reg HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY

This command says to run regedit and export (/ea) the registry key  (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY) to a file (putty.reg) that you can later merge back into the registry by right clicking the resulting file (putty.reg) and choosing “Merge” from the context menu.

NOTE: Never merge registry settings into your registry that you are not certain of the origin of, it can be very dangerous!!

Murphy’s Law

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Well, as Murphy would have it, it’s not the power supply that died on the web server which leads me to believe it is something on the motherboard. Luckily I will be able to return the one that i bought and get some of the money back, less a re-stocking fee and shipping of course. I have taken down my file server so that I can use it’s hardware to bring the web server back on line. I think this little fiasco has a small silver lining. Instead of replacing the motherboard I am going to replace the file server with a NAS solution, specifically the Western Digital My Book World Edition II, which has 2TB of storage capacity. I’ll configure it with RAID1 which will mirror the drives and give me 1TB of storage (with a second copy) which is still almost 10x greater than what my current file server has. The old file server will continue to act as the web server until further opportunity presents itself to move it to better hardware.

Webserver’s Dead

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After all this time, the web server has finally taken a pretty heavy hit. While the box is technically up and running the system is inaccessible and the hard drive doesn’t seem to be spinning. However, when I place the drive in an external bay it spins up so i know it’s not the drive. I think it might be that the power supply is no longer pushing enough power to spin everything up. It’s a long shot, but my other option is that it’s something on the motherboard. Seeing as power supplies are cheaper than motherboards, I am going to attempt that route first. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Harmony is AMAZING!

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Came home from work tonight and immediately grabbed the 880 off of its charger and fired up the Logitech software. After pushing the initial configuration to the device and trying it out, I can honestly say this remote is awesome! There is still some configure changes that I think I am going to make if I can figure them out, for instance the way my TV works is that to go to S-VIDEO I need to press the input button twice and the Harmony doesn’t seem to relay this. It does, however, allow you to press a “help” button and it walks you through resolving any issues. One of the things I found that I can configure and think is really cool, is the background of the LCD display that everything shows on, that’s a nice touch Logitech. But, seriously, this remote rocks! I now only need one remote instead of six!

Harmony’s Here

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The Harmony 880 arrived today, it got here a lot faster than what I thought it would and I am pleased by that. I was hoping to get it all configured and start using it tonight, but according to the instructions I need to let the battery charge completely first. I am very happy that the auction description was accurate, this remote is brand new and was still in the factory packaging. I was able to install the software and begin configuring in my devices because the device configuration is apparently stored in the software and online in my Logitech account (which I had to sign up for) and will be retrievable if I ever wipe my computer. Getting all my devices configured took some time though, mainly because I needed to get model numbers off of them. The really neat thing is that I can add these devices to activities which will all be controlled by pressing a single button. For instance I set up an activity to “Watch Tivo” and assigned it to a hot key, now when we press that button (hopefully) what will happen is the TV will get turned on, it will be set to the appropriate input (AV1) and the stereo  w ill turn on and be set to the appropriate input (Audio1), the remote will then control the volume (through the stereo) and changing the TV channels (through the Tivo) and have all the Tivo remote functionality (pausing TV, playing back pre-recorded shows, etc) all in one remote. If this all works tomorrow the way I think it should then I am going to be extremely happy with this remote.

Logitech Harmony 880

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Today I won an eBay auction for a new remote for my TV, and every other remote using device in my entertainment center! For a while now I have been rather unhappy with the fact that I have six different remotes for the items in my entertainment center, but I had been dealing with it. However, the other day, a glass of soda got spilled on the remote for my stereo and it is now no longer functional. The device that I bought today should fix that issue and replace all the other remotes in my “collection”, including my Tivo remote. The remote is a Logitech Harmony 880 (no longer on their site, but here is the 900) and I have heard really good things about it, if it performs even half as well as I hope then I am sure I am going to be very happy with this remote. In addition to being able to control up to 15 devices, the devices that it can support are continnually expanding through its online database. You configure the remote by connecting it to the computer via a USB cable and logging in to a Logitech account. My buddy Will at work showed me his account (he has two different Logitech remotes and loves them) and it looks really cool. The image to the right is a stock image I found of the remote and its charging cradle. Can’t wait until this arrives so I can configure it and try it out!

Movie Code

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Because I will likely forget the code snippet I used to display the video of the basketball game, I am going to post it here so I can easily find it again later. Also, it may help someone else, who knows?

<object classid="clsid:02bf25d5-8c17-4b23-bc80-d3488abddc6b" width="480" height="385"
codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab#version=6,0,2,0"><param
name="name" value="[NAME-HERE]" /><param name="align" value="left" /><param name="src"
value="[URL-TO-VIDEO-SOURCE]" /><param name="autoplay" value="false" />
<param name="controller" value="true" /><embed type="video/quicktime" width="480"
height="385" src="[URL-TO-VIDEO-SOURCE]" controller="true" autoplay="false"
align="left" name="[NAME-HERE]"></embed></object>

Google Offers Blog Transport

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Today I stumbled upon this article which explains that Google has released a new open-source project called Google Blog converters that are designed to aid in moving a blog from one service to another. The scripts are written in Python and currently support conversion between the export formats of LiveJournal, MovableType, WordPress, and Google’s own Blogger service. This means that shouls I ever want or need to I could export this blog, which is written with WordPress, to any of the other services currently available. Though I am currently not proficient in Python, this would give me an excellent reason to learn it should the need arise.

That didn’t take long

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So today I actually spent a few moments to try and figure out how to rip a DVD and place it on my new iPod, and a few minutes was all I needed. I performed a quick search on Google and found this tutorial that showed me a rather easy process to perform the conversion. I know have X-Men: The Last Stand on my iPod, and as soon as Rick lets me borrow his copy of The Boondock Saints (as mine is back home) that will be on their as well. Now I need to get my CDs from my truck and pull them down into iTunes and everything will be all set. On this next trip home I will have to remember to bring back all my old MP3s, so I can get my entire collection onto my iPod.

Joining the masses

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Tonight I finally joined the masses and purchased an MP3 player, more specifically I purchased a Black 30 Gig video iPod from the Apple Store at the Mall of America. I had been wanting one ever since my last extreamly boring flight home, and although it set me back a few hundred dollars, I think it was worth it. I also purchased the extended warranty plan and a case for the iPod to help protect the screen and such. I actually saved some money on the purchase because it turns out that as a Thomson employee I get a discount at the Apple Store, thanks to Rick for reminding me of that. Now I just need to get all of my MP3s off disks and learn how to convert my DVDs and I will be all set.