The Binary Idiot

Adventures in Administration: USB Extension Cables over Cat5e Ethernet

AdamD. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:33:55 +0000

While working as an admin you come across some unusual requests. We have a conference room at work where we've been requested to have a fixed-position USB webcam, but they want to locate the usb cable approx 25+ feet away. They've also requested not to have a lot of running cables in the room, so this means also hiding the cables away in the wall. This would also mean some kind of adapter/extension cable. Looking around online, you can buy USB extension cables (some powered), that run 50-ish feet, but they're usually in the $40+ range. I'm cheap, so I wanted a viable alternative.Read more »

Stop Online Censorship Before It Begins.

AdamD. — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:02:17 +0000

Via FightForTheFuture.org: Want a window into the minds of our opponents? Former Senator Chris Dodd — head of the Motion Picture Association of America — says that China censors its Internet, so we can too: “When the Chinese told Google …Read more »

Gnome Shell 3.2 and Multiple Monitors

Robert Hollencamp — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:33:52 +0000

Gnome Shell has great support for multiple monitors; here are some of the configurable tweaks you can make to multiple monitor setupsRead more »

Debugging Java Deadlocks with VisualVM

Robert Hollencamp — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:48:21 +0000

Example of debugging a multi-threading deadlock in Java using VisualVM.Read more »

Windows 8 Developer Preview – First Impressions

AdamD. — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:10:21 +0000

I don’t think this site could be considered Windows-centric by any means. The majority of articles I post tend to lean heavy on Linux with a smidgen of Mac OS X thrown in for good measure to stir the pot. However, I …Read more »

No Timezone Redirection for Non-Windows RDP Clients?

AdamD. — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:40:21 +0000

As I previously mentioned, we're rolling out some Fedora-based thinclient-like devices in our warehouse that boot up, connect to wireless, and then immediately start a full-screen FreeRDP session to our 2003 R2 terminal server, which is situated on the GMT timezone, with the "Allow timezone redirection" Group Policy option set. We run an (Windows-based) application on there that is central to the manufacturing process, that also relies on access to correct timestamp information, which is must pull for multiple timezones based on the host client that is connecting. That's where the issue is.Read more »

Free Google Plus Invites (Seriously)

AdamD. — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:15:08 +0000

This has probably been beaten to death around the web already, and just about everyone and their brother is already on there, but I keep hearing on podcasts and the like that invites are still hard to come by. Seriously? …Read more »

Netbeans Conditional Breakpoints

Robert Hollencamp — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:01:33 +0000

Netbeans has some pretty big issues working with conditional breakpoints; a description of the issue and an easy workaround.Read more »

Realtek RTL8191SEvA Wireless in Fedora 15: Now Out-Of-Box!

AdamD. — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:00:28 +0000

As an update to an earlier post, there's now mainline kernel support in Fedora 15 as of 2.6.40 for the Realtek RTL8191SEvA wireless chipset. This is a huge win for a lot of people, as a lot of small nettop/netbox/netbook devices make use of this wireless chipset and it's variants. As mentioned, the 2.6.40 kernel in Fedora 15 contains a lot of features from 3.0, which is currently available in Rawhide, but there's no need to grab that just for this wireless.Read more »

Gnome Volume Change Preview

Robert Hollencamp — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 04:39:17 +0000

Gnome on Ubuntu Natty 11.04 does not play preview sound when you change the volume; learn how to enable this optionRead more »