uninstalling FEP client 2010 from windows 8 to update to FEP 2010 with Update Rollup 1

when trying to remove the previously installed (but not supported) FEP 2010 on windows 8 you are prompted with an error …

therefore .. here are the steps to uninstall it …

by default  the 64-bit version is installed to c:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\ … therein you will find the “setup.exe” … rightclick it and change the compatibilty to “Windows 7” an close the window with “OK” …

now run the following command by simply entering it into the start screen search bar and accept it with return …

"c:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\setup.exe" /x

this will initiate the uninstall process …

you may now install FEP 2010 with update rollup 1

installing FEP client 2010 on windows 8 [update]

[update] to install FEP 2010 you no longer need this compatibility setting! please take a look at this post: installing FEP 2010 update rollup 1 on windows 8[/update]

when trying to install FEP 2010 client on windows 8 it results in an error saying that the OS is not compatible …

this post explains how you can run the installation in compatibility mode “Windows 7” …

to get FEP 2010 installed on windows 8 you must first run the client installation .. when running the setup you will shortly see that the installation files are extracted into a temporary folder … remember that folder!

when the error saying “the version of the OS is not supported” shows up don’t close that window just now!

navigate to the temporary folder and create a copy of it … the name of the copy is not relevant as it will be deleted after the installation …

now you may close the installation window showing the error … open the copy of the temporary folder .. in my case “c:\3223ac3d3ab9e9b3851161 - Kopie\” .. and right-click “epplauncher.exe” and click on “settings” …

in the settings go to the tab “compatibility” .. set the mode to “Windows 7” and close the settings window …

if you now start the installation it will run just fine …

future will show whether this installations has any side effects …

[update] to install FEP 2010 you no longer this compatibility setting! take a look at this post

libdvdread4 error - no VTS_TMAPT ?? on linux mint using mplayer or mencoder

when trying to rip a video dvd using mencoder i got the error:

...
Please send bug report - no VTS\_TMAPT ??

after a bit of googling it turnes out this is a well known bug .. and that it’s fixed in “libdvdread 4.1.3-10ubuntu3” so i double checked that the version i was using was the latest via aptitude …

as i did not get an update i searched for a new version and found this one for ubuntu precise:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+package/libdvdread4

so i just downloaded the .deb-file (to both my linux mint 10 and linux mint 9 boxes) and installed it with GDebi …

after this ripping and playback works again …

hacking the Logitech Wireless Adapter (removing the metal weight)

watching the video “Belkin Bluetooth Audio Receiver Hack” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUg-bqDZ4-s made me wonder if one could do the same with the Logitech Wireless Adapter …

and then i also remembered that when standing in front of the (stationary) computer which streams to the Logitech Wireless Adapter it sometimes started stuttering …

after doing the following the stuttering was not better nor worse … i can’t tell if it did help in case of range .. though i could test it .. tomorrow …

[update] well .. just to say i forgot to measure the distance with the hacked and original one … and today i sold my spare (unhacked) one …[/update]

so off i went turned it bottom-up …

removed the foames (i did use the original glue to reattach them afterwards)

then the screws and opened the case

i then removed the metal weight which was glueed to the bottom plate

10 GBit on the QNAP TS-879U-RP with the Intel X540-T2

this is basically my reply in the qnap forums (http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=182&t=60184&p=284960#p284960)

as the Intel X540-T2 card is not yet officially supported by QNAP i asked QNAP for a statement via email .. but as the answer did not result in something like “yeah, you know, it works .. but it’s not yet officially supported” but in a link to the compatibility list (http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=4061 where the card is still not listed but it’s predecessor the X520-T2) i decided to simply buy two of these cards and test them …

i did tell the vendor before ordering that i would test one card first and if it does not work (in the QNAP) i would send the second one back and order a X520-T2 (and wait one month due to delivery bottleneck) … i would then have used the X540-T2 in the computer connected to the QNAP and the X520-T2 in the QNAP itself …

so a couple of weeks ago i did the following:

  • install one X540-T2 card in the TS-879U-RP (Firmware 3.7.2 Build 20120719)
  • connected both ports with each other (as of gigabit standard no more cross cables are needed as the ports figure it out themselves)
  • the admin interface then showed “10 GBit” next to the card .. so it seemed to work just as wanted
  • installed the other card in the computer
  • configured both dual cards to trunks
  • set up a private ip address on each trunk (192.168.1.XXX) as they are direct attached and then also won’t interfere with the LAN network

since then the system is running without any problems and is connected via iSCSI to the computer …

i ran a hdd test (burst speed with SAS 15K disks) : with a 1 GBit trunk was 80 MB/s … with the 10 GBit trunk we now get 360 MB/s …

automatically upload photos taken with the iphone to skydrive [update 2013-08-09]

[update 2013-08-09] as there is now IFTTT for your iPhone you can do it using this recipe “natively” [/update]

i wanted this feature ever since i have my iphone 4s and a skydrive account … but sadly this is not yet possible with the phone alone …

and as i read the article on lifehacker today (http://lifehacker.com/5936429/standing-desks-small-wrenches-and-skydrive-auto+upload/gallery/4/) where mscasslopezan came up with an alternative i thought .. “first thing today is write that post” .. so .. here we go …

@mac users: as there is a skydrive app for mac and icloud somewhat integrated to your os (or am i wrong here) you may do similar things …

for windows you will need the “icloud control panel” from apple (which can only be installed on windows vista and up): http://www.icloud.com/icloudcontrolpanel

and of course the skydrive app https://apps.live.com/skydrive

replace “gpunktschmitz” in the following with your own username  …

first off .. you install the skydrive app with defaults settings .. meaning your SkyDrive-folder will be in you user directory (e.g. C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\SkyDrive\)

next up you install the icloud control panel .. after the installation will have to enter your apple id to logon to your icloud storage …

now you can activate several options which you want to be synchronised .. for what we do here all you need to activate is “Photo Stream” …

you can define two folders within the “Photo Stream” option .. an upload folder (which i set to  C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\Pictures\iCloud-Uploads [don’t remember if that was the default option]) … and a download folder … in a first test i did set the  icloud photo stream download folder to “C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\SkyDrive\Pictures\iPhone” .. meaning any photo taken with the iphone which is synched to the icloud will be downloaded via the icloud control center to your SkyDrive folder specified … this SkyDrive folder is of course then uploaded to SkyDrive …

a disadvantage of this setting is that any photo you delete from that stream will be deleted from the photo stream and thus deleted in SkyDrive …

therefore i changed the photo stream download folder to be “C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\Pictures\iCloud-Download\” (again .. dunno any more if that is a default setting) and set up a script which is run by the windows task scheduler every hour or so:

echo n | copy C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\Pictures\iCloud-Download\* C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\SkyDrive\Pictures\iPhone\
echo j | del C:\Users\gpunktschmitz\Pictures\iCloud-Download\*

the script copies any downloaded photo from icloud to my skydrive folder and deletes the files from the photo stream download folder as it does not make any sense to store it twice on my local disk … i did not check if it is deleted from my icloud itself as it doesn’t matter for me …

remove exif and metadata from jpeg using exiftool

did you ever want to remove any meta data from your jpeg file? such as the software you were editing the image with or the camera type with which you took that photo? or did you even know that some jpgs contain a thumbnail of themselves?

i just found “exiftool”  (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/) which you can use in the windows command line .. with the parameter “-all=” you would remove all meta data …

here the command as an example:

c:\%path_to_your_exiftool_exe%\exiftool.exe -all= c:\%path_to_the_jpegs%\*.jpg

this would remove any meta data … you may want to add the parameter " -ThumbnailImage=" as i don’t know whether these are removed with the “-all="-parameter …

you can see the meta data  by running exiftool without a parameter …

c:\%path_to_your_exiftool_exe%\exiftool.exe c:\%path_to_the_jpegs%\aJpeg.jpg

script for updating ip address on dyndns with ddclient if public ip changed

long time ago (very long) i set up a script which wrote the current date into a file and checked every hour whether the current date is different to that from the file .. and if so update dyndns …

pretty stupid .. right!

so i set up a new .. more reasonable one …

this one checks the current public ip address with the one set on dyndns ip (thanks!) ..

if it differs the dyndns ip is updated with the current public ip address …

you can find it (dyndnsCheckUpdate.sh)  on github within my bash_scripts repository …

i now added this script as cron job to run every 15 minutes …