Applications and installers should not require admin privilege

Recently, I have seen new class of applications which make more sense - these applications can be installed and used by a standard user without UAC pop-up. Some of these applications are:

Amazon Kindle for PC - installs in "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Amazon\Kindle For PC\application"
Google Chrome - installs in "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application"
Microsoft Live Mesh - installs in "C:\Users\user1\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Live Mesh"

Any standard user on Windows 7 (and I suppose on Windows Vista and Windows XP too) can install these applications and use them. The installer does not ask for admin password (no UAC pop up). And the application runs smoothly without and UAC pop-up.

Other apps which come to my mind in this category are PortableApps.com apps.

There is no reason why other applications should require admin password unless they are installing a device driver.

VLC Media Player - the best media player

1. VLC hotkeys do not work on playlist window.
2. How to keep vlc always running.
3. VLC's interface is ugly and its skins do not have the functional interface of the native interface. How to improve vlc interface or make its look cooler while keeping the functionality?
4. How do you get the menubar in VLC with skin?
5. When VLC is running with skin, VLC does not appear in the taskbar and also not in ALT+TAB list - a huge problem.
   

Problem:
Sometimes VLC hotkeys do not work in skins.

Solution:
Currently hotkeys do not work in playlist window. In skins, if the focus is on the playlist, then hotkeys wouldn't work.



VLC's skin mode and skins have many problems and give a frustrating experience. The native interface of VLC is the "least worst option".

Control iTunes on your computer from your iPhone remotely using Remtoe app

Get this app:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/remote/

How to setup:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1947

Troubleshooting:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1741


The only problem I faced during first time setup was some firewall settings - iTunes was allowed on public network, but not on private network. I just allowed it on both networks and the whole setup worked like a charm.

Once first time setup has been done, next time you want to use iPhone to control the iTunes on your computer, follow following steps (this is the only sequence of steps which has been working for me consistently):

1. Close iTunes on your computer.
2. Launch 'Remote' on your iPhone.
3. Start iTunes on your computer within a few seconds.
   
4. 'Remote' on the iPhone should show the iTunes library on the computer.
5. In the Settings of 'Remote' on the iPhone, set "Stay Connected" = ON.

Once 'Remote' gets disconnected from 'iTunes', you need to restart iTunes and Remte app both which is a pain in the ass. Even if you keep Remote app running on iPhone, it will disconnect from iTunes after a some idle time. Even with the setting "Stay Connected" = ON.

This feature look cool, but I am not how much useful this feature will be since I don't have a desktop (I have a laptop) and I play my music by connecting speakers to my iPhone. What I needed was a way to control my iTunes on iPhone from my laptop. There are some solutions out there, but they require jailbreaking, but I have been avoiding jailbreaking because that's a whole new beast - lot of features, apps and security issues.

VMWare Workstation way better than VirtualBox

I have been using VirtualBox for last few months, but I always felt it was missing the finishing touch. So finally, I decided to try VMware Workstation. I immediately felt at home.

Here is something which I noticed immediately:

1. VMware Unity is far better than VirtualBox Seamless. Unity actually integrates windows in the guest and host OS pretty well - a single task bar for all windows and alt+tab switches between all the windows. Not with VirtualBox. VirtualBox Seamless seems to be a feature added for the sake of list of features, but is actually useless while VMware's Unity is actually useful.
   
2. VMware supports 3D graphics. Aero works in the guest OS. In fact, Windows Experience Index of the host OS and guest OS is very close.
   
3. Snapshot and clone management is pretty slick in VMware .
4. My initial experience is that VMware is much faster than VirtualBox - starting, stopping, running.
5. Virtual network management is quite good in VMware .
6. Single window for all VMs in VMware.
7. VMware stores everything about one VM in a single directory which is very convenient for backing up or copying to another machine.
8. VMware has a cool feature called "Easy Install" where it will install the guest OS unattended - another very useful feature.

Fedora 10 and Ns2-2.33 compilation problems

I got the following compilation problem while building ns2-2.33

Conflicts in following files ('const char*' with 'char *'):
common/packet.cc:48 int p_info::addPacket(const char *name)
common/packet.h:248 static int addPacket(char *name);

Solution:
Remove 'const' from packet.cc.

After this it built successfully.

ubuntu 9.10 and NS2 2.33 installation problem - make: *** [tk3d.o] Error 1

I was getting this mysterious error while installing NS2 2.33 on Ubuntu 9.10:

make: *** [tk3d.o] Error 1
tk8.4.11 make failed! Exiting ...
For problems with Tcl/Tk see http://www.scriptics.com

Here is what worked for me. I installed a few packages, and it fixed the above problem:

sudo apt-get install tcl tk build-essential autoconf automake libxmu-dev libtool


Unfortunately, there are many more problems. Ubuntu 9.10 has lot of problems with backward compatibility. I thought Ubuntu was different from other Linux distributions and would respect the backward compatibility, but it has disappointed me. Some guys have done some hard work on making ns2 work on Ubuntu 9.10, details on this blog - Easiest way to install ns2 on ubuntu 9.10. But I am not comfortable with this one. So I am going to revert back to Ubuntu 9.04 and go with that.

Linux is very good at sucking your precious time.

Missing /etc/initab in Ubuntu? Ubuntu replaces Init with Upstart

I hate fragmentation in Linux.

Here comes more fragmentation and one more headache to learn in Linux world.

Ubuntu replaced init with upstart. That is why there is no more /etc/initab. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart .

It is supposed to be a big improvement. Then why not push for it to be part of LSB. In that case, this will be a standard on all Linux distributions and we don't have worry with too many headaches.