Advogato blog for hacker

HOWTO: Convert any video format to any video format (snippets)

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:04:36 GMT

I’ve recently started creating some screencasting tutorials with my Linux laptop using recordMyDesktop and find myself having to convert the video to various other formats before I can share it with my Windows colleagues, or upload it to YouTube. I’ve done some of this before for converting video for use on my BlackBerry over here and [...] No related posts.

HOWTO Enable “God Mode” in Windows 7

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:07:35 GMT

This past weekend, I “upgraded” my Lenovo Thinkpad x61s laptop from XP Professional to Windows 7 Ultimate, in preparation for some new gadgets I’m planning on testing with it. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows I’m definitely NOT a Windows fan, but I do have to use it for some of my proprietary peripherals, [...] No related posts.

Removing and Editing Windows “network” Passwords

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:10:29 GMT

My work machine constantly locks me out of my two corporate accounts there, depending on which resource or website I’m accessing while connected via the VPN. When I access the parent company’s web infrastructure, my ML corporate ID is locked out. When I access some of the ML sites and resources, my BAC corporate ID [...] No related posts.

Free unlock codes from AT

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:06:25 GMT

I’ve been seeing all of this chatter on the web, YouTube and everywhere else about unlocking phone handsets, so they can work on any provider’s network. There are dozens of companies out there who offer unlock codes for any phone, any provider, for a fee of course. You can get them on eBay, you can [...] No related posts.

SOLVED: Windows 7 networking in VMware Workstation and ESXi

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:32:41 GMT

I’ve been using VMware Workstation for many, many years and I run a few hundred gigabytes of virtual machines for development and testing on various platforms. Some of these include physical machines that have been converted to virtual machines (using VMware Converter, which used to be called P2V [Physical 2 Virtual]) and some include purely [...] Related posts:

Ruminations on Baggage

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 03:04:35 GMT

The more and more I expose myself to people from all walks of life, the more I realize… almost everyone tries to offload their baggage onto anyone who will listen. Look, EVERYONE has baggage. Those who say they don’t, are lying. It’s not that you have baggage, or don’t have baggage, or have less or [...] Related posts:

HOWTO: Repair your Outlook PST file from the commandline

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 04:04:33 GMT

The more I use Outlook 2007 for work and other data capture, the more I loathe how fragile the “Personal Storage Table” (.pst) file format is. You can’t relocate it on a network share because Microsoft’s locking mechanism will fail, and trash the data. At random times Outlook will just “hang” when trying to read [...] Related posts:

SOLVED: How to Delete RSS Feeds Folder from Outlook 2007

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:11:29 GMT

I don’t use RSS feeds inside Microsoft Outlook 2007 at all, although it’s an enabled feature by default. I only use Outlook for work, and while connected to the VPN, there is no way to get to the feeds anyway. If I want to read RSS feeds, I’ll use Google Reader or similar tools. I’ve [...] Related posts:

Quick-n-Dirty Math from the Shell

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:07:05 GMT

I find myself needing to whip out a calculator a dozen times a day, but my calculator is never at my fingertips when I need it and the “Calc” application on my BlackBerry is too clunky to use with the trackball. I needed a faster way to do some quick math when I’m around the [...] Related posts:

Microsoft is Still Propagating the Malware Problem

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:12:16 GMT

Haven’t we learned enough about viruses, malware, spyware and other malicious behavior online to avoid … running unknown executables to get to content? (video, documents, images) The AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs virus should have been enough to keep people from double-clicking unknown attachments and files that they couldn’t recognize, but apparently not. This morning, one of my daily [...] Related posts: