http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/ NickR's website 53.8481 -1.829 http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-169-ubuntu-8.10-intrepid-ibex-released Available from Ubuntu download page, announcement - Ubuntu 8.10 released.From a users viewpoint, this version offers various new improvements including: Support for 3G wireless devices and improved Wi-Fi support. Nautilus, desktop file manager now has tab support. Encrypted private directories. guest user mode.On a more technical side, there is a newer Kernel - version 2.6.27, Gnome 2.24, Xorg 7.4, Updated Samba for Windows networking, Xen virtual machine.I will be downloading shortly and testing it from the LiveCD, I hope to see improvements with Xorg's auto-configuration ... more (Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:51:12 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-168-darth-scarlett The latest menace to crawl the known universe...Darth Scarlett (Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:12:53 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-167-getting-power-management-to-work-in-ubuntu After noticing that my Laptop was not Spinning down its HDD, I decided to investigate, a quick google and on the first page I found a useful page: Power Management - Ubuntu Wiki . After going through the guide, I noticed that my Harddrive was spinning down very quickly. After a bit of experimentation with different settings for the spindown time, I realise that the issue was with the APM settings overriding the spindown setting. The solution was use a setting of 128 to 255 and the HDD will spin down according to the spindown setting - anything less than 127 ... more (Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:04:53 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-166-my-ongoing-saga-of-moving-to-linux If your wondering where I have been, well, I apart from a summer vacation touring the South of England, I have been migrating slowly to Linux. The distribution I have currently chosen is Linux Mint. I think this is a more polished and stable version of Ubuntu, but not just that, but its default configuration is closer to how I prefer things to be configured.I am still considering using Debian Testing, but am waiting to for Lenny (the current testing) to be released to see how long it takes for the new testing to stabilise.So this ... more (Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:32:20 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-165-mst-defrag-v3-public-beta http://www.mstsoftware.com/en/Products/mst-Defrag/mst-Defrag-newI've been running this for a few days and so far seems 100% stable, well worth testing, especially with the generous 60 day trial.The main new feature is the command line tool which can be scheduled using the built in windows scheduler.This is great, because it gives you the option of both the proactive and the scheduled defrag, which is a unique feature.The proactive mode is great at defragging actual files, but I found it does not do space consolidate very well, by creating a regular schedules you can over come ... more (Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:36:24 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-164-xp-pro.-the-end-is-nigh-30th-june-and-support Windows XP reaches its sell-by date in a few days (with the exception of XP Home "either June 30, 2010, or one year after the general availability of the next version of Windows"). default.mspxMainstream support ends 4/14/2009. That's only 10 months full support left ! Extended support ends 4/8/2014. Which is security fixes only, no new versions of browsers, media players or support for newer products (eg though, doubtful, next version of office might not support XP due to using a Vista only feature that will not get backported to XP).Even with XP SP3 only recently been ... more (Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:48:16 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-159-why-windows-7-will-be-a-massive-success Windows XP was massively popular, Vista is in the Shadows, but IMHO will provide a good stepping stone towards Windows 7, which will be more popular that Vista, which Windows 7 will build upon (and be 100% compatible with).Windows XP has been a very popular OS, it managed to successfully build on the rock solid Windows 2000 and replace the lack-lustre Windows ME in one fell swoop. XP SP2 offered a significant improvements to further improve the reputation and popularity of Windows XP. Read Features_new_to_Windows_XP - Wikipedia, to find out more about about what was new in XP ... more (Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:12:20 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-158-i-am-back My arm is feeling a lot better and am back to blogging.I have been working on an updated version of my gallery code for YACS, I had hoped to get it complete in time for integration for the next big release - YACS 8.6 Macnana, but progress was slow and I missed the deadline. For now I will be concentrating on supporting the website, I shall be moderating the next English chat session on the 19th June and spend some time with documentation. Next week I shall be spending some time testing and helping to bug fix ... more (Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:25:42 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-157-on-the-mend I thought I would share a photo of myself with my broken arm and my little daughter Scarlett, 5 months old. In a week my pot is coming off and I am hoping for some better sleep and be able to type more comfortably.Me and Scarlett (Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:22:24 GMT) http://www.ngrhodes.co.uk/article-155-emule-0.49a-released Emule 0.49a was released on the May 11th 2008.The new features of eMule 0.49a include Kad improvements ( obfuscation, better NAT, flood protection), changes to the messaging system (Captchas), GUI improvements (ability to save searches, search filtering of shared files) and the usual bug fixes and tweaks.You can download Emule from the official Emule site. Download Emule 0.49a (Thu, 15 May 2008 10:28:18 GMT)