Ubuntu Quick Tip: Installing New True Type Fonts

Hey boys in girls out in Admin land! It is I, El Di Pablo coming straight at ya from Bauer-Power with some quick Ubuntu knowlege!

I am always playing around with different fonts and such in Windows as I strive to play around in various graphic programs for promotional material and other stuff. Every once in a while I have to add a new font that I downloaded from the Internet. Most of us know how to do that already in Windows (If not, email help_at_asktheadmin_dot_com), but what about Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is starting to gain share in the computer OS realm, and a lot of people want to know how to do average everyday things on it. One of those things people want to know (I know they want to know because they ask me…you know?) is how to add fonts to Ubuntu.

Well its simple, all you have to do is to download your favorite font. Then in your home directory, crate a folder called .fonts (The ‘.’ makes it a hidden file). Just drag your newly downloaded font into that folder and, you guessed it, you are done!

Just open up your favorite graphics program, or whatever else you use fonts in, and your new font will be ready to go!

Got any other Ubuntu tips you want to share with the group? Hit us up in the comments!

-El Di Pablo of www.Bauer-Power.net

Voiding the warranty on your Verizon BlackBerry 8830 for fun and profit

It’s no secret that I’ve never been a big fan of Verizon, but it’s the cell provider that my employer uses, and since they pay for my cell phone, I don’t really have much choice.

It’s also no big secret that I am a die hard BlackBerry fan (until there is something that has equivalent functionality, including a user changable battery - I’m looking directly at you iPhone).

So naturally when I started working for this employer I got a Motorola Q from Verizon as my work phone (Verizon didn’t have much in the way of modern BlackBerries at that point in time). Ugh, huge mistake, I’ve learned my lesson there, and will never stray from the BlackBerry goodness again. At least until next time something equally attractive comes along.

Well thankfully by the time I became fed up with my Motorola Q’s inabilty to open an email without choking like the star of the latest Max Hardcore movie, they had just introduced the BlackBerry 8830.

So I sucked it up and after several replacement Q’s had the same issues, I told my boss that the Q just wasn’t cutting it, and I needed to upgrade to a BlackBerry. The first few days with the new BlackBerry were pure bliss after enduring six months of pure torture at the hands of the previously mentioned under performing Motorola Q.

Then I had lunch with a friend that had just bought a BlackBerry 8820 from AT&T (basically the same phone with a slightly different feature set). During lunch his phone rang, and I was absolutely floored by the volume of his ringer! It was so loud! I suddenly realized that my BlackBerry 8830’s ringer  sounded positively weak in comparison. As it turns out, this is a common problem with the Verizon 8830 (note to Verizon: learn from Dell’s mistakes, and quit screwing with the firmware of the phones you sell).

Also turns out the Motorola Q that was having issues was not the phone’s fault, I ran into someone with one from Sprint, and it worked just fine.

Well it’s been my experience in the past with Dell hardware that is malfunctioning that like 90% of the time flashing the problem device with the actual manufacturer’s firmware resolves the issue. Ok, mission defined, let’s flash the firmware on the BlackBerry 8830 with  some standard RIM firmware and see what happens.

It turns out that RIM does not have “standard” firmware for their devices. They instead redirect you to download the latest BlackBerry OS from your device manufacturer! Bummer.

Flash forward 6 months to last week (yeah I just pulled off a flash forward and a flashback at the same time, I RULE!). I am once again having lunch with the previously mentioned 8820 owning friend, when he shows me the latest BalckBerry 4.5OS on his 8820. Then he proceeds to tell me that AT&T wasn’t quick enough with the BlackBerry OS upgrades, so he’s figured out how to find generic OS updates and apply them. SCORE!!!

Well not so much, as it turns out. Apparently the 8830 is only carried by Verizon and Sprint, and there is not an updated OS for it available yet. However some quick google searching turns up beta OS forums.

Now, normally I would never, but since there is a release for the 8820, and the 8830 is not THAT different, the beta is probably extremely close to the RTM version. Just one catch, it will void my warranty with Verizon.

But, seeing as there are compelling reasons to update (louder ringer reported on Verizon phones, html email, and the ability to open Office documents attached to email without a BlackBerry Enterprise Server), I took the plunge.

A couple hours and some torrent downloading later, I have the 4.5 OS running on my Blackberry, and guess what? The ringer is LOUD!!! Finally I can hear my phone ringing without it being right next to me.

And I must say, while slightly slower than the previous 4.2 OS (which I am going to chalk up to it being a beta OS), the improvements are really nice.

For me, losing the Verizon warranty is totally worth it. And I guess technically if I ever have an issue with the phone, I can always revert back to the original 4.2 OS before calling Verizon support.

Admin’s Arsenal: mRemote

I don’t know about other admins, but I manage a LOT of remote connections in a typical day. Some days it seems like I don’t do much other than look up passwords and user names for all the remote connections I need to make to get my daily duties handled, well it used to anyway.

I’ve used many terminal mangers, and the only one that had met my needs for managing all of the remote connections I handle on a day to day basis is mRemote. The author describes mRemote as:

mRemote is a full-featured, open source, multi-tab remote connections manager.

It allows you to store all your remote connections in a simple yet powerful interface.

Currently these protocols are supported:

• RDP (Remote Desktop)
• VNC (Virtual Network Computing)
• ICA (Independent Computing Architecture)
• SSH (Secure Shell)
• Telnet (TELecommunication NETwork)
• HTTP/S (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
• Rlogin (Rlogin)
• RAW

Now while this program has a “portable” version, it is not a portable application in the true sense of the term, as it depends on several applications that must be installed on the machine mRemote is run from to be truly useful. Here are the requirements for running mRemote:

Supported Operating Systems:

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista

Prerequisites:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
• Microsoft Terminal Services Client 6.0
  Needed if you use RDP. mstscax.dll and/or msrdp.ocx must be registered.
• PuTTY
  Needed if you use Telnet, SSH, Rlogin or RAW. Included in all packages.
• Citrix ICA Client
  Needed if you use ICA. wfica.ocx must be registered.

ATTENTION!
mRemote was only tested under 32bit environments, so 64bit systems are unsupported but may run mRemote just as usual.

Bearing that in mind, all of the machines I would run mRemote from will already meet these prerequisites, so for me, it is as good as portable (I run it from my USB drive anyway).

Also there is a bit of controversy over this program, as the author is looking to take it commercial. However since it is currently open source, even if he does in fact go that route in the future, I’m quite sure that someone else will pick up where he left off with the open source version.

You can download mRemote from: http://www.mremote.org/wiki/

Our resident GP expert talks about everything BUT Group Policy!

This week, I’m taking a break from Group Policy stuff.

If you think these tips of the week, since they’re not GP-related
aren’t that useful, then let me know, and maybe this will be the first
and last issue like this.

But here goes. All about NOT GP stuff:
Read more »

Access US Only content from outside the US.

We hate censorship here at AskTheAdmin.com especially when it affects us! So if you are trying to access US content that is exclusively available to US residents and you happen to be in another country we have a solution for you!

Check out http://www.ipdisguise.com/.

Here is a little more information from their site:

IP Disguise is a free online web proxy to let you surf past censorship. Our reliable and secure proxy site allows you to browse any website. Log on to all your favorite sites, surf around and keep in touch. Use our proxy at the office, in school, at college or just about anywhere!

Please use our proxy service we provide in a sensible manner, any illegal activity that is detected will be forwarded to the appropriate authorities.

Do you use similar tools? Got a better one? Put us on in the comments!

_TheAustralianAdmiN_

Dude your Dell Died 5 hours ago… HP breaks the 24 hour barrier on Laptops.

We told you good things were coming from HP! We saw this awesome laptop with the ability to run for 24 hours. YES you read that correctly 24 fricking hours! Check out this announcement from HP…

Your life doesn’t stop moving when your notebook battery dies. That’s why we’ve been working to bring you batteries that last up to 24 hours.¹

A new HP EliteBook 6930p with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and Ultra Capacity Battery¹ outlasts the Dell Latitude™ E6400 by up to five hours, so even if you don’t want to work all day and night, you’ll be able to.

With HP batteries you get:

•	Up to 24 hours battery life1
•	More solutions – pick the one that suits your needs
•	A safer and more reliable option that features the latest technology and meets the highest safety standards
•	Quick recharge with HP Enhanced Fast Charge® technology

» Click here for more details