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Dropbox update

Dropbox

Now that I’ve been using it for a few days, I though I’d give you an update on Dropbox. And it’s all positive. It does a lot more than I realised when I first signed up.

First up, you don’t need to have the Dropbox applet installed to access your files. This is useful if you want to get at your documents when you’re on a public machine. You can upload and download files via a very simple web interface. Of course, the ideal situation is to have it installed and the applet seems to work perfectly on Ubuntu. It’s quick, registering changes to documents and replicating them online very swiftly.

Within Explorer, or whatever you use to browse your PC files, those which are replicated are clearly marked with a big green tick (I assume this is the same for non-Ubuntu systems). Context-sensitive options are added to these files which are worth checking out. Again, all of these can also be accessed via your account on the Dropbox web site.

One I spotted which could be incredibly useful is “revisions”. Every time you re-save a document, Dropbox backs up the last version so that if you’re made a huge mistake it’s really easy to recover an older backup. I don’t know if there’s a way of limiting the number of revisions or whether these take up any of your alloted space [update: no, they don’t – found the info on their FAQ] but it’s an excellent facility and one they should advertise more.

When you start up, Dropbox automatically creates two folders: Public and Photos. Anything stored in your Public folder can be accessed by anyone if you give them the relevant URL. This can be obtained via the web page, or by right-clicking on the file. Popping pics into the Photos folder will share them on your personal page on the Dropbox website in a gallery format. Simple as.

I’ve also tried the page on my Nokia E71 and it works pretty well. The only thing is that it’s the same layout as the default web page so there’s a lot of scrolling involved. I’ll feed this back to them.

Overall, I’m even happier with it than I was before. A great resource, especially if you only need a couple of gig and go for the free option. As before, if you’re interested then please sign up via this link as then I’ll get a little boost on my storage space. Chris did!

Dropbox

Dropbox is a funky new toy I’ve been playing with under Ubuntu but it also works on pretty much any Linux flavour, as well as Windows and Mac.

It’s a file synchronisation program, and one of the simplest I’ve found to use. The free package gives you 2Gb of on-line storage and the little program that runs in the background synchronising things uses very few resources.

Download, install and (in the case of Ubuntu anyway) log out/in to trigger the background process. Register an account and let the program know where your “dropbox” folder should be stored. That’s it.

Linux has one major advantage over Windows in that you don’t have to store all the files you wish to keep synced in a particular folder. Use any old folder for your Dropbox and drag/drop virtual links to other folders into it. These folders will then be read and their contents stored on Dropbox’s servers. Make any changes, add files, delete them… and very quickly these changes will be reflected on the main site.

Updates are logged and a full history is available on your profile page.

A Public Files folder is located in your Dropbox. Any files here are, obviously, publically browseable. In addition, a simple right-click and menu selection will put a URL into your clipboard. Paste this on an email or wherever and the recipient will be able to click on it to get a copy of the document from the Dropbox servers.

I’ve not made big use of programs like this in the past, but for offline storage, file sharing and synchronising between two or more machines it’s an excellent little tool.

If you do download it, pretty please do so via this link – that way I stand a chance of getting my 2Gb storage upgraded for referring you!

Geekiest post ever

Well, geekiest post from me at any rate. Probably.

My last two work days have been hectic to say the least. It was a relief when I handed my mobile in (then got it back and instructed to turn it off before putting it in the box) so I knew I wouldn’t be getting any more calls.

So what have I done? Out of the goodness of my heart, I fixed one of the child care worker’s laptops. It was stuck in an endless loop after downloading some updates. Yes. Vista. A quick Google came up with countless people with the same issue. And the only solution from Microsoft was to not let it happen in the first place. Well done, Bill.

In fairness, they did have three fixes on the website but none of them were any use as they all essentially led you to different paths to use the rollback function in Windows. Which wouldn’t work. Every time I tried it, it fell over. I think one of the files was corrupt.

I eventually ended up hacking together several fixes I found on the web. First off, booting to a Vista DVD allowed to be get on via a command prompt, run a disc scan and patch the registry as per some instructions I found on a Technet bulletin.

This allowed me to actually get into Windows “normally”. However, as several critical system files (a whole three that I was told about whenever I tried to run anything) were buggered, nothing would start. I couldn’t repair Vista with an install from the DVD as it was from Business edition and the laptop had one of the multitude of Home editions on it.

Besides, and here’s a clever thing, you can’t run a repair install (i.e. a restore-over-the-top of the system files) from a DVD boot as you can with XP. And 2000. And NT. And 95. And ME. And 98. YOu can only run this “upgrade” as it’s called from within Windows. So if you can’t get into Vista, or Vista is pooched to the point where you can’t run anything within it, you’re screwed.

Thankfully, it was recognising some devices shoved into the USB ports including my memory stick. So via a command prompt, I copied over versions of the files it was whinging about from Dave’s laptop (also running Home Premium) which allowed me to run the “Upgrade” option from the DVD he had for his machine. Not before copying all his files sideways and off the C: partition, of course. Can’t be too careful. That was a memory test in itself, trying to remember how to use xcopy.

Bloody hell, Vista takes a long time to install. I ended up leaving it overnight.

Finally, ta-da, bootable laptop. I then put SP1 on. Another overnighter. Then the 30-ish patches that sit on top of it. That ran most of the day.

After approximately 20 hours of processing (rough guess as I was asleep for a lot of it) we had a working laptop. Well, working and crippled by Vista.

I know I bash Vista a lot. And after this experience it honestly does deserve it. Every time you want to do something system-y it asks if you’re sure. Only the prompt doesn’t always appear at the front of the screen – it lurks behind other windows so you don’t know what’s holding up the whole process.

Oh, and I installed OpenOffice on Ben’s laptop as well. On an old 2000 box it takes less than 5 minutes. On Ben’s pretty new Vista laptop it was over 20. W…T…F?!

Another lad had less luck. His new Sony Vaio demonstrated its magnificence… by displaying a small green LED and making a quiet “whirr” when powered on. And that was it. And it wouldn’t switch off. That one’s heading back to the UK for a warranty repair.

Incidentally, what’s happened to Vaios? They used to be sleak and sexy. Now they’re chuggy big things in flexible, cheap-looking cases.

Next big job was to supply the hotel with a second PC. It would have to be an old clunker, but the child care manager was happy enough with that. Anything so she didn’t have to engage in armed combat with the hotel manager to get onto the main PC. Where he is usually busy playing Space Invaders or shooting zombies.

Allegedly.

This took ages. I picked an old Windows 2000 box at random and set it up. Thankfully it still had an Office license on (version 2000), so no need to explain to another person that OpenOffice is just the same. The only hiccups were in getting the data off the main PC onto it, and converting her emails. The main PC runs XP and Office 2003.

Now there is a conversion utility for going 2003 -> 2000. But you don’t need it. Simply create a new PST file (File… New) in 2003, and select the option to make it Office 2000 compatible. Copy all your existing mail into this new set of folders, copy the new PST file onto the Office 2000 machine and run a simple Import.

Oh, yeah. The copying. The second PC wasn’t in a convenient place to have a network cable draped to it so I dug out one of the handy-dandy wi-fi dongles that Netgear include with their wireless routers. We’ve got a ton of them kicking about. I ran the disc, it installed, no problems. Nice little gadgets.

Problem 1 – no wi-fi. Someone had “knocked the router off the stool or something, I think” according to the hotel manager. Which reads to me that he did it… unless he happened to find it on the floor in which case I’ll believe him. Either way, this came with a weird symptom – the wi-fi broke.

OK, that’s not what’s weird. What’s weird is that when I logged onto the router it told me it was a Netgear DW834. When clearly on the case it says it’s a DW834G. The only difference between these models is that the G has wi-fi capability. There were no options in the menu for wi-fi or anything. Bizarre.

A quick scan on the internet told me that one problem is the wi-fi card inside the router being knocked loose. This isn’t an issue with v3 upwards, as it’s built onto the same board. But the v1 and v2 have a separate little daughter card.

So, easy. Open it up.

Not so easy. In their infinite wisdom, Netgear decided to use stupid little bevelled star-shaped screws instead of something nice and simple. No tool I’ve ever found will get these damn things open.

So I resorted to a subtle blend of psychology… and extreme violence (points for spotting the reference if you’ve got this far through the post!). I got one of the staff to help me rip the bottom off. Then clipped off the spare plastic and undid the screws with a pair of pliers.

Sure enough, the daughter board was loose. A quick shove and all was wi-fi with the world.

Next, to transfer files. I found out the hard way that even though the 2000 box pretended to install my USB stick, it crapped itself when I tried to access it. So dragging them from a share on the old machine… nope. Same problem. Open folder, no icons, machine craps out.

Next option, push files using shared folders over the network. Nope again. Every couple of meg (and I had slightly over 200 of them to shift… zipped) I got an error that the network location was no longer connected. Maybe I was overloading the wi-fi, or 2000 just couldn’t keep up. I don’t know.

Final solution (no, I didn’t gas the PC) – memory stick into XP box, copy data, walk through the snow to office, copy data to CD, back to hotel, load from there.

*Phew*

In amongst all this, I also sorted out a fax for one resort, fixed an Outlook error elsewhere, reconfigured email in Switzerland, had a printer delivered to an area child care manager, tested a phone line in Les Gets (it was broken), configured and sent out three routers, sorted remote desktop access on a contract manager’s PC, repaired a damaged Word install, flattened my desktop PC and passed it on to a colleague, got Twhirl running under Ubuntu on my laptop using the now non-beta Adobe AIR, documented far too much stuff…

…and developed a cold. Just in time for heading home.

Bugger.

As ever, I’m glad to be popping home for a short while. I’m definitely glad to be getting a rest. It’s been a lot of work here. But never boring! And it looks good on the CV.

Yes, I still have some stuff that’s not done, but it’s nothing too important and a lot can be done from the UK. Still, I’m out of time and no need to worry. In 12 hours from now I’ll be in a minibus heading for Geneva Airport.

And I’m really looking forward to it. I need a comfy bed to curl up in and someone to feed me hot fruit juice!

Adding new items to Windows’ “New…” menu

I recommend OpenOffice to most people, especially with the new version 3 being such a well-rounded tool. Far cheaper than MS Office and the best of all the free office applications.

However, one thing niggles me about it and that’s the right-click menu you use on your desktop or in My Documents to create new files. By default, if you right-click and go to “New…” you have the option to create new files for all the sub-utilities you’ve installed – Calc, Write and so on – but in their own formats. The ODF formats used by OpenOffice are all well and nice, but nobody not using OpenOffice can load them (at least unless they get some kind of filter pack for their own application). This is much the same as sending a MSOffice 2007 .docx file to a colleague running Office 2003.

Creating a new MS Word-compatible (or Excel, or PowerPoint…) file within OpenOffice is easy. You either “Save As…” or set your default format within the preferences. However, I’m sure I’m not alone in prefering the old “Right-click… New… Word document” method on my workspace.

So – here’s how to do it. I’ll step through it for Word and let you work out the details for the other formats.

Create a new, blank Word-compatible file. This will be your template for forthcoming new documents so you could add extra information if you’re always going to follow one format. Save this with the filename “word.doc”.
Move this file to the folder C:\Windows\shellnew or C:\WINNT\shellnew. If the folder doesn’t exist, then create it. Note that “shellnew” must be in lower case.
Now the scary bit… Start button… Run… regedit. You’ll now be tinkering with the registry. You can seriously stuff your machine if you’re not careful, so take backups, follow instructions etc etc. I won’t be help responsible if you fluff this.
The top hive is called HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Open this and scroll down until you find “.doc”. Open this up and right click it. Select New and then Key. Call this key “ShellNew” (no quotes). Again, note the capitals.
Right click this Key and add a new string value. The value should be named “FileName” and its value should be set to “word.doc” – again, no quotes in either.
It can take a while for this little change to filter down into the system, so either be patient or force a reboot. Once the context menu has been refreshed, you should now have an option to create a new “Microsoft Word 97-2003” document.

And there you go. It’s fairly easy to repeat for the likes of Excel and PowerPoint files.

If you want to complete the trick and get rid of the context menu items for creating new OpenOffice format files, locate the entries in the registry hive for .odt (text), .ods (spreadsheet), .odp (presentation) and so forth. You’ll likely want to keep the ones for maths and drawings.

For each of the ones mentioned, open the item up and locate the key with the item’s full description (usually the first key) – for instance “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.odt\opendocument.WriterDocument.1”. Open this key and locate the “ShellNew” subkey. Highlight this and delete it. You will no longer have an option to create new “OpenDocument Text” files.

Repeat as necessary for the others.

I hope this is useful!

It’s all Vista’s fault

Windows Vista, as we’re all aware, is to blame for many of the world’s ills. Or at least mine when I have people turning up with their own laptops and asking me to configure them.

However, I didn’t realise exactly how pervasive its evilness truly was until yesterday. I was stripping out some old Java installations on an office PC using the remarkably handy JavaRa utility. Little plug for this – it’s a teeny self-executeable that can save you a ton of hard drive space by removing old versions of Java automatically. By design, Java leaves these in place in case some programs need them, but generally they’re a waste of space. I got around half a gig of HD space back by running this little beastie.

Anyway, it decided to crash and I got the usual option of reporting this to Microsoft. I did, not expecting much, but actually got one of those little “Click here for more information on this problem” links. Unusual when it’s a small freeware utility that’s fallen over. Intrigued, I clicked through to the MS support pages.

Where I was told that “This problem was caused by Windows Vista“. Not JavaRa after all.

A surprise, in honesty. Seeing as the machine I was working on was running Windows XP. Screenshot follows for those who doubt me!

Unusual error message - click to embiggen

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