Posts tagged windows
Getting your Zune to work in linux, kinda.
May 15th
So alright, yea, I own a Microsoft Zune.
I do really like it as well! (it’s really quite loud even if the antenna for the radio sucks!)
However I’ve recently decided that running Microsoft Windows just wasn’t going to cut it any longer, and with the fit and finish of Ubuntu I haven’t even had a wanting for anything Windows related other then getting music (and more importantly my netcasts and audiobooks) on my zune (well and photoshop…).
Most applications do recognize that I have a media player plugged in (works great for my Sony PSP however!) but being the Zune’s file content is encrypted in a fashion which renders it moot to try moving or deleting content from it that I had to find another way.
Enter in VirtualBox.
Now to be clear I’m talking about the actual VirtualBox from http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads not the one available from the repositories in Ubuntu and I’ll get to why in a moment.
You’ll also need a valid copy of windows. Any flavor that will run the Zune software. I’m using a stripped down version of XP that I’ve cleaned up and slipstreamed using nLite.
Now download your version of VirtualBox using the above link and install it. Ubuntu users will just double click the .deb file and enter in your password and it will begin. The reason we’re using the official (ie: Non-free as in speach not beer) is that there is no USB support in the “OpenSource” version that Ubuntu host’s in it’s repo’s and yea, your going to need USB support.
Once it’s installed we need to setup a new Virtual OS inside of it. There’s TONS of post’s out there that will explain how to setup a virtual box install so I won’t go into detail other then to say that after you have Windows installed and shutdown you need to enable USB sharing by going to: Settings>USB and clicking the USB plug icon with a “+” symbol in it and selecting the Zune that you already have plugged into your pc.
Now of course you should have already installed the Zune Software inside of your virtual os (I shouldn’t have to tell you that should I?) and whatever other software you wish to use. Also the “Shared folders” inside of VirtualBox is quite handy as well. (I’ll touch on them a little later as well)
Now here’s where I might actually be able to save a few of you some headache’s. You’ll probably find out that when you go to the Zune software it’s not able to connect to your Zune even though the linux side see’s it just fine and it’s listed in your device manager on windows, the Zune software keeps telling you to try dissconnecting and reconnecting your player but it still doesn’t recognize it. DON’T bother trying to do that, it’ll just keep returning the same error. Instead, on the bottom of the VirtualBox window you’ll see that same USB icon. Right click it and un-select your Zune and then re-select it.
(also make sure if your Zune is protected with a pin number you’ve already typed that in successfully.)
Now the Zune software should see and have connected to your Zune player!
As for the “Shared Folders” Setting in VirtualBox it’s handy to move music over to your virtual OS instead of trying to figure out other ways and you can, after setting them up inside of the VirtualBox settings, they are located at “\\Vboxsvr” or step by step, open up “My Computer” click on the “Folders” Button, then browse in the file tree to: My Network Places>Entire Network>VirtualBox Shared Folders>\\Vboxsvr. Here’s a screenshot for reference.
I hope that this has helped! I was tired of having a dual boot system and having to restart my laptop every time I wanted to update my Zune (it was messing with my uptime bragging rights in the IRC channel 
) now I just shutdown the virtual os instead and keep on trucking!
Thank you SO much Oracle/Sun for making VirtualBox so great and best of all free as in beer!
Some quick OS Wallpapers
Mar 14th
So it’s been a very long week, and I just wanted a few things to look prettier as I’ve been staring at them for so long. Mostly my computers.
So I cracked into my old habit of photoshop and made a few simple, black, glassy wallpapers for my main 3 (don’t worry a special debian version is comeing up soon!) so here they are in no special order:
crunchbang linux
crunchbang with title
crunchbang linux no title
Windows 7:
windows 7 - normal
windows 7 with a large shadow
and more linux ubuntu this time:
ubuntu linux
I figured being I used the ubuntu font I should at least do one for them as well 
feel free to download and share, as long as you leave atribution to my by providing a link back to this site.
OS Wallpapers by Daniel Stinebaugh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at stinebaugh.info.
And just to show off what it looks like on my system, here’s a screenshot:
Nginx Startup and Shutdown bat files with prompts and auto start at boot!
Jan 24th
So if you’ve read my previous post‘s I’m running the latest stable nginx server here on my local laptop to serve up my own search page 
or for when I’m blocking ad’s to have a page that fills in the void’s (and shows me just how well it does work!) 
But I left out a major point… You will need to open a command prompt and enter the C:\nginx directory and start nginx each and every time you bootup. That’s no fun even for a geek like me that spends half of his time on windows in an ssh terminal running back to one of my many linux pc’s but that’s still something we need to fix and like now!
So I did some digging around on google, and all of the post’s I’m reading say to use the .bat file located in the install, but the latest stable release of nginx DOESN’T INCLUDE THESE or ANY .bat FILES! Needless to say, that meant more work, and a quick intro into the quick grace at simple programming to have things done for you! So, Let’s build the start-nginx.bat file! (Note I’m running Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition, so this should work for you as well but let me know in the comment’s if it doesn’t!)
[codesyntax lang="winbatch" lines="normal" title="start-nginx.bat" blockstate="expanded"]
@ECHO OFF start nginx.exe echo Starting nginx EXIT
[/codesyntax]
We don’t need anything neat or pretty on the start up as we just want it to run with minimal interference to our start up routine (remember this will be automated later) Also note, that this .bat file needs to be in the C:\nginx folder along with nginx.exe for it to work properly!
Here’s the pimpish part, the shutdown .bat file. (I mostly just modified the file I found here) but it works great!
[codesyntax lang="winbatch" lines="normal" title="stop-nginx.bat" blockstate="expanded" highlight_lines="11"]
@echo off
echo Stopping Nginx…
:SETYESNO
set /p yesno= Would you like to kill nginx? [y/n]:
if “%yesno%”==”" (echo You didnt enter anything – try again..) & (GOTO SETYESNO)
if /I “%yesno%”==”n” (GOTO NOKILL)
if /I “%yesno%”==”y” (GOTO KILL) else (echo Unrecognized command – try again) & (GOTO SETYESNO)
:KILL
echo.
echo Killing Process…
nginx -s stop
GOTO QUIT
:NOKILL
echo.
echo Aborting kill…
:QUIT
echo.
pause
[/codesyntax]
There’s also an interesting idea on turning nginx into a window’s service if your into a bit more of a hacking mood then I was at 2:30 am writing this.
Also you can change the commands I’ve highlighted on line 11 with any one of the commands from the nginx site such as let nginx shutdown gracefully, reload itself etc. just remember that each line will execute in a command prompt as if you typed it so let your minds wander on this one! .bat files are your friend! (also as a side note if you don’t want to have to click any button to continue replace pause on line 18 with exit)
Now let’s get nginx running on our bootup. Right click the start-nginx.bat file and select “Create Shortcut”. Name it whatever you like and then right click the shortcut you just made and cut (or copy) the shortcut and let’s add it to our startup folder in the all programs list.
Click your start menu, choose all programs, scroll down to the startup folder, right click it and choose “Explore” or “Open” and paste your shortcut into this folder. (allow any prompt’s that windows throws at you for needing admin right’s) and you should be good to go!
If this worked for you or you have any questions that google can’t answer or just want to say thanks please feel free to post a comment! That’s why I do this!!! You’ll notice the lack of ad’s or shameless begging for donations, all I want is your thanks!
Truecrypt Stepping Up Encryption and Plausible deny-ability.
Jan 15th
Now if your paranoid I’m sure you’ve already discovered the great and mighty Truecrypt to encrypt your whole drive, but there’s a lesser reported feature they’ve included that will give you another reason for “plausible deny-ability” in so much as you don’t wan’t to be hastled by air traffic control asking your password’s, or even tip them off that you have your full drive encrypted in the first place, How about when you boot your pc for them, the dredded “Missing operating system” message pop’s up instead of the truecrypt boot manager?! Here’s how you do that.
Of course I’m assuming you already have Truecrypt installed and your drive encrypted. If you don’t there’s a ton of posts out there that will help you along the way.
Boot into your OS of choice and open Truecrypt. Open the Settings Option from the menu.
From the Setting’s menu, choose “Preferences” which will open another window full of options.
From that window, Choose the button at the bottom that say’s “More Options”
From the menu that pop’s up, choose “Encryption Settings…”
This will bring up yet another window, that will have the setting’s we’ve been looking for. Put a checkmark in the first box “Do not show any text in the preboot…..” and then choose what you’ld like it to say instead, such as “Missing operating system” but DO read the notes below as they tell you stuff like no text will be displayed when you enter your password or an incorrrect password. Good to know before you think you really did corrupt your MBR!
That’s it! Now when you power on your PC you’ll be greeted with the scarry word’s “Missing operating system” however you’ll still be able to login and your OS should start without any issues! So again, I say Thanks Truecrypt!
(on a side note you might wan’t to bring along an old copy of your XP install disk just in case someone at the airport or what have you, does ask why your bringing a broken laptop with you.)
Linux Mint 7 Gloria
Jun 17th
Well I’m actually enjoying today so far! I have now pretty much expelled Window’s from my life (other then one old laptop with 7 on it for my zune to update) and have also started a slight movement with my group of friends!
My Total is now 4 people that I’ve gotten to switch over to Linux!
I’ve been using Linux for about 2 years now and the latest version “Linux Mint 7 Gloria” has blown me away as well as my 2 roommates, and a friend that had problems with a new hand me down pc that had vista on it and really didn’t have the balls to run it properly. (Sad that these day’s you have to benchmark your PC to see what version of Windows you’ll be able to run!) So I told her that I had an OS that was free, she didn’t have to buy it, for life, and would run better on her hardware then what she had before. She agreed as she didn’t know much about PC’s anyways and I assured her that Linux was now really easy to use. She’d never heard of linux in the first place so she had no pre-conceived notions about it and I found that a great relief as I didn’t have to fight to get her to see my points.
After I had gotten her system installed and connected to the internet I went to the bathroom. By the time I returned, she had already figured out how to change the background, window borders, font’s and was talking to her myspace friends. If that’s not a tribute to user-friendly then I don’t know what is!
My Second roomate I just got the other night, but he’s still clinging to XP so I told him I could have it dual boot, which he was blown away by, not knowing about partitions etc. so he’s now running it as well! He commented the other night, “Hey is it just me or does firefox and everything just load faster?” I told him it was because it’s a lightweight system without the drawbacks of windows just to keep it simple and not invite a bunch of questions. (if you knew him you’ld know what I mean..) and when I told him he’d never have to defrag again I think that’s what pulled him over.
So Linux Mint 7 Gloria – You’ve taken my breath away. Keep doing what your doing!
