Tom's blog

Today I was by a client to proceed on a delicate TIBCO iProcess upgrade, and I encounter a strange issue : Oracle Universal Installer (9.2.0.1 or 10.2.0.1) won't launch. If you watch in process explorer , you can see a java process (javaw.exe) launch and die. I found out that it was the default 'temp' (or tmp) directory that was preventing Oracle Universal Installer to launch. On this particular machine, the default setting is : %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp which is expanded to (+ oracle path) : C:\Documents and Settings\matr1x!\Local Settings\Temp\OraInstall2010-05-11_10-08-17AM\jre\bin I've replaced TEMP and TMP environment variable value by 'c:\temp' and I was able to launch the Oracle Installer and perform the installation. (using C:\Install\Oracle\client 9i\92010NT_Disk1\install\win32\setup.exe, C:\Install\Oracle\client 9i\92010NT_Disk1\setup.exe still wasn't working)

I've recently reinstalled my SONY VAIO laptop (VGN-SZ71E/B) with Windows 7 (with dual boot with Ubuntu 9.10, see this howto from lifehacker ). When I try to install the last nvidia drivers I get this error : "nVidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit." So I tried the driver finder from nvdia download page , which one told me that the manufacturer (i.e. SONY) requires that the driver should be downloaded from their website. So I get to the Sony support page to get their last driver... I was a bit disappointed by the experience : They only propose the original driver which is as old as prehistory (November 2007) and 32bit while my windows 7 is 64bit. After a google search, I've found laptopvideo2go website which provide a decently recent drivers (v190, July of 2009, while the last from nvidia is v195) and a modified INF file that allow the driver to install on your laptop. Go there...

(note : this post will be improved soon) I'm changing my server to a new machine as the existing one as capacitor leak issue on the motherboard... I switch from sme server to ubuntu server. And as I was almost finishing the migration of my cvs repository to the new server, I asked myself : and what about SVN ? and Bazaar on which I've read about on mysql developer site ? And git, the VCS used for the linux kernel made by Linus Torvald himself (GIT and the Kernel) Here is a site that help me to have an idea of the feature of each VCS : http://www.versioncontrolblog.com/comparison/Bazaar/CVS/Git/Subversion/index.html I've made a try with GIT, but due to a poor eclipse plugin which development seems to have stalled. I've chosen to try Bazaar. And here is links that answer my main concern : CVS to Bazaar migration Through SSH connection Eclipse plug-in I've also mainly choose Bazaar because I already know cvs quite well, and made some try on SVN, but didn't know B...

At one of my client office, their computers runs under windows 2000. I needed to access a windows 2003 server with a RDP Client. Windows 2000 does not have mstsc.exe installed, but the one for windows XP works well with windows 2000. Terminal Services Client comes in two versions, 5.1 & 6. The 6 needs a Genuinue Advantage validation (I didn't try but I don't think ti's possible under windows 2000 to have this validation), but the 5.1 here : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/tools/rdclientdl.mspx don't ! Run the installer, click next until the end and then WindowsKey+R, type mstsc et voila !

Windows XP is (reeaallyy) often updated for security reasons, and after installing these updates, you have to restart your computer... (Linux doesn't have this flaw !) But I always want to postpone this restart because I'm working on my computer (really :op) and I've a lot of things open (Eclipse, RSA(sadely), Firefox with loads of tabs etc...) So, once the update installation is finished, I click the 'Close' button instead of 'Restart Computer' button... and from this moment on I'll get disturb every 10 minutes or so with a popup that steal the focus of the application I'm working on... and really... it pisses me off ! It's annoying and can be dangerous for your work, as sometimes I was just about to click in the area where the restart button is when the popup suddenly appears, which make restart the computer while I had some unsaved editors open or something else at work... grrrrr.... So what's the solution to that ? A crack, registry hac...