SSL, certificates, VPN and WebDAV under Windows 7

Under Windows 7 (and Vista too, I think) WebDAV and VPN fail if you use a self-signed (and therefore, untrusted) server certificate. Too bad that error messages are cryptic, and talk about failure to establish connection, or something like it, but never complains about SSL cert. Hmm. If you try to access such server with IE then (unlike Firefox) there is no way to turn off warnings. Also, if you try to play media from such website, IE and Firefox  will launch associated media player (WMP in my case), which will also fail to connect to net resource to play it. Long story, short, kids – use trusted certificate if you need to use SSL in Windows.

And the good news is that now there is a provider of free SSL certificates (really free, not a 30-day trial as some advertise), who is also included into default Windows Certificate storage as a Certified Root Authority. This is Free SSL service from Startcom. With their cert for my server, WebDAV and VPN began to work.

 

The only fly in the ointment – Windows 7 implementation of WebDAV is buggy and slow and compared to Ubuntu.

Bad dudes vs Dragonninja

 

Occasionally stumbled upon this youtube video. I must confess that this was one of my favourites some 20 years ago. Now I need to figure out how to get it to play under Vista in full HD.

Update: Here are links to Bad Dudes ROM, NeoGeo BIOS, latest MAME commandline emulator, Extramame GUI for MAME (Vista compatible). Installation is well explained under last link (ExtraMame). I couldn't get the games running in full screen, with strange error "failure to create direct3d device", but it runs well in windowed mode. 

 

There is a movie based on this game (or vice-versa) and I am going to download it if I find it. So far, quick search over piratebay did not return any results.

Friday fun: Guy Kawasaki tortures Steve Ballmer on stage

This week's "geek fun" crown definitely goes to the Guy vs. Steveb@microsoft.com (or stevenb@microsoft.com , was it?)

The video is long. In fact is, it is one hour long, but I found it worth every minute of it. They touch on Bill's departure, Yahoo bid, Xbox, Facebook, Vista failure in the marketplace, Macbook Air, Silverlight2, Firefox vs IE8, etc.

via  Guys' blog How to Change the World

UPDATE: would you believe, Guy himself visited a trackback link to this blog, and pointed out a spelling mistake. Fixed now. Danke, Guy.

My silent PC solution

My PC have never been silent enough,  but since installing 4 SCSI disks it became too loud. Luckily, there was storage room behind my hometheater screen, so, after some thinking and studying prices of SSD drives (the best one at the moment are from Mtron, 800 EUR gives you 16GB of lightning fast (120 Read, 100 Write MB/s)), I decided that it is cheaper and easier to go the low tech way, i.e. drill a hole in a wall for power, HDMI and some USB cables and move PC to a room where it will not be heard, no matter how loud it is.

First, power cable went through the wall.

Then, all the rest -video connection, ethernet, printer and 2 USB extenders for wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard.

After connecting all cables, turning PC on, booting Vista and testing that everything works, it is time to put my bike where it used to be in the storage room.

Now, back to enjoying a totally silent and wireless setup of my home-theater / gaming rig.

   

And last thing, now I do not use "shut down" option when I want to switch off my computer. I use "sleep" only. To Microsoft's credit, there is an option, to wake up the system with USB mouse or keyboard. And it works flawlessly even with wireless keyboard. Voila! No need to go to the server room to push that button.

Weekend fun: Smart home appliances

 

Foxmarks for Firefox3

Firefox 3 is coming. I keep testing its builds about once a month since at least December. And the recent beta is really a mature and fast product. (Being FAST really counts when you run it on 600MHz AMD Geode UMPC as I do). The only reason keeping me from fully switching to it, was absence Foxmarks plugin compatibility with it. Not anymore. Foxmarks blog announced limited beta enrollment yesterday. I signed up. Countdown to jump over to new Firefox begins...

Samsung P9 UMPC - Wow!

Via CTitanic. Well, not to be outdone by HP, Samsung leaks a teaser of their own. This looks waaay more interesting than HP device. As a matter of fact, I would second CTitanic' s opinion that this is the most amazing concept I have seen in two years. Bingo. Have a look at this video. A double slider umpc/gaming pad with detachable screen (if I see that correctly). Yummy.

Too many hard drives in my PC

Originally, I wanted to call this post "too many hard drives in my desktop", but I cannot call it a desktop, as it sits in the drawer. Shall I call it an underdeskPC?

 

My PC contains 130GB and 320GB PATA, 4*37GB SCSI in virtual raid 0, and today I added 1TB SATA Seagate. Photos taken yesterday, during addition of 1TB SATA drive. In the usual life my PC looks a bit more civilized though.

 

Addition of extra drive is a necessity and preparation for an upgrade that I plan very soon. Current PC is pretty old rig - Pentium4 with 2GB RAM and ATI Radeon X1950 sitting on an AGP bus. I have already decided to go with Q9400 and correspondingly fast motherboard based on X38 or X48 chipset with 8GB of DDR2. I am only waiting for Nvidia 9800x2 announcement and card availability to press that UPGRADE button.

Friday Night Quiz: What's wrong in this picture? :)

Who is the real winner in HD wars?

Below is the cut out from a respected online hardware guide.

I believe that they miss the point here. The guys that will grow their business on the HD wave, will be likes of Nvidia and Seagate, rather than any physical disc player company.

Get a mac?

Some friends of mine like to bitch about Windows and say that if not due to (company policy, historical reasons, lack of time, etc) they would definitely switch to mac. Right...

Get a mac... is a very broad advise. Like "get a Nokia". Which one? Desktop? UMPC? :)) Laptop? Well, taking into account that apple is still not in the ultra portable and ultra mobile league, I assume that people meant a desktop. Mmkay... Below is my desktop.

To make it clear - it is not a working tool for me anyway. It is an enterainment and gaming center for my 40" LCD. It is a place to watch HD torrents and play DX10 games. And it plays nicely with my other Windows XP and WinMobile and Symbian computers. I remotely access it from laptop and UMPC, I sync my work files among those 3 devices, I access my movie/mp3 library, etc. Yes, yes, it all can be done on Apple. Maybe. With some dual booting tricks to run Vista to play games.

I just somehow do not have incentive to learn another OS. Why should I?

QTTabBar adds tabs to File Explorer in Vista and XP

QTTabBar from QuizoApps is the best little software surprise this year for me. It adds tabs to Vista and (!) XP folders. It adds customized buttons to the toolbar. It is a huge usability boost to file management. And it is free. recommend it for everybody.

But wait, it is not over, QTAddressBar adds Vista style Folder path navigation to XP machines. Since I still have XP on my UMPC and corporate laptop, this is a very welcome extra too.

Here are some screen shots of other useful features that it adds.

1) Folder preview tip in file pane and 2) on tab bar and 3) the highlighted gridlines in details view.