VPN Setup With LT2P & IPSEC
For anyone who's tried to setup VPN it is without a doubt a "black art". The information given by most sites on the net is incomplete, incorrect and sometimes just plain stupid. We setup VPN a while back at work with PPTP and after an initial learning curve managed it relatively easily. We quickly learnt that PPTP is not a very secure method to use and started to setup a L2TP/IPSec connection, this is where the fun really started!
Unipolar Stepper Motor Driver
Synopsis
The purpose of this project was to develop a stepper motor driver for 2-phase unipolar stepper motors that has built in current control. The eventual target project for this driver is for my CNC milling machine that I am currently planning out. This needs a few elements that are combined to provide a full driver.
Apache & PHP Setup in Windows
Installing Apache, PHP, MySQL
Install Apache then MySQL with default options. Download and unzip PHP to C:\PHP\ (or other suitable directory).
VB.NET Move ListViewItems Up and Down
I recently wrote an application where I needed to move items up and down (order them) in ListView in VB.NET and discovered that there isn't a built in method to do so. I decided to share my solution which is shown below. This method can be used to move one or multiple selected items up or down in the list. All tag information and formatting should 'follow' the items moved. This method is easily ported to C#.
Advent VEGA Tablet PC
I have just received an Advent VEGA tablet that I am trialing for work. The idea is to use it as an electronic clipboard for tasks and as a checklist device for reviewing systems. This will primarily be used via an intranet page on our server so special appliiains are not a priority.
We wanted a cheaper alternative to an ipad but with similar features, and I think this could be the solution!
Initial testing is positive, it is easy to use, relitively fast (ok not quite so much as an ipad but certainly faster than some others I have tried) and it seems robust.
CrashPlan Online Backup on QNAP TS-210 NAS
Installing CrashPlan on my QNAP TS-210 NAS in headless mode means that I have an instant online backup of all of my archive data stored on my NAS drive. CrashPlan keeps revision history of all my files, allowing me to recover my NAS to a state at any date should I lose data or overwrite something.
Dropbox
Use Dropbox Dropbox to get free cloud space to store important files, documents, photos, etc and be confident that they are automatically backed up on both your computer and securely on the internet. Install Dropbox on multiple PC's and have the files automatically sync'd between the two.
I use Dropbox to automatically sync my documents between my two computers. This works seamlessly and no sooner have I saved a document on one computer is it ready and updated on the other. Dropbox works faultlessly in all tests I have put it through, simply Excellent.
Delete all Picasa Web Albums
I started to import all of my photos into Picasa but then wanted to rearrange how they were organised and needed to delete all of my albums that had been created (some 200+ folders). The only way to do this normally is to go into each album, drop down the menu, select delete and confirm the deletion. This was going to take a long time! I searched about and found that this can be done using the Google CL tool.
picasa delete --title a|b|c|d|e|f|g|h|i|j|k|l|m|n|o|p|q|r|s|t|u|v|w|x|y|z|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z|0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9
Converting CVSNT to Linux CVS
Today at work we swapped from using CVSNT on a Windows server machine to using CVS for linux on a QNAP NAS storage box. All appeared to be working fine until I checked out a file that was committed as a binary file. I quickly realised that half of the repository was corrupt (i.e. all binary files). After a little bit of research it was clear that CVSNT and CVS for linux are not directly compatible any more as they store the fact that a file is binary in a different format.
In each repository file there are entries that specify file formats, cvs comments, versions, etc. In amongst these is a flag that specifies the file type.
A file specified as binary in CVSNT has a line reading (where the space is actually a tab):
kopt b;
A file specified as binary in CVS has a line reading (where the space is actually a tab):
expand @b@;
