Articles tagged 'Tips & Tricks'

Running Windows applications on a Samba share

1 Jun 2017 | Linux, Samba, Tips & Tricks, Windows

I have some (virtual) Windows machines running in a network of Linux hosts. I keep some Windows applications (most notably, WSUS Offline Update) on an external hard drive that is connected to a Linux host via USB and shared with the Windows machines via Samba. Despite relaxing the Windows security settings more and more, Windows refused to run the applications on the shared drive until I made a change to the Samba configuration on the Linux host.

Fixing Rails deployment errors with Capistrano

28 Aug 2016 | Rails, Server, Tips & Tricks, troubleshooting

After upgrading a Rails web application from Rails 4.2 to Rails 5.0 and attempting to deploy it using Capistrano, I got stuck on “Your Ruby version is 1.9.3, but your Gemfile specified 2.3.1” errors that gave me quite a headache – but the solution is really simple.

Getting back custom program icons in Ubuntu 15.10

26 Oct 2015 | Tips & Tricks, Ubuntu

After a clean install of Ubuntu 15.10, all my custom programs had disappeared.

Prevent host-only VirtualBox network from vanishing after suspend/resume

26 Oct 2015 | Network, Tips & Tricks, Ubuntu, VirtualBox

A simple trick prevents VirtualBox host-only networks from disappearing after resume

Fixing network printing issues on Linux

25 Sep 2015 | Linux, Tips & Tricks, hardware, printing

I have an HP LaserJet P2015dn printer that used to cause me headaches and has been causing trouble for some time now again. …

Garbage user comments in photos taken with Samsung Galaxy S5 mini

21 Sep 2015 | Galaxy, Photo, Samsung, Tips & Tricks

Photos that contain 'garbage' text in their embedded comments can be repaired quite easily on Linux.

Inserting images into PowerPoint at the right size

30 Apr 2014 | PowerPoint, Tips & Tricks

Images that are inserted into a PowerPoint® presentation often do not appear at the right size and may look blurry when the size is manually adjusted after inserting them. In newer versions of PowerPoint, there is a special image setting that can be used to achieve a pixel-by-pixel, non-blurry appearance. But using this setting manually for every inserted image is cumbersome and requires lots of clicks. In this post I show how to set the DPI to a value that ensures proper display.

Turning off scrolling in Excel without a scroll-lock key

21 Mar 2014 | Excel, Tips & Tricks

If the arrow keys do not move the cell cursor in Excel, but rather the entire sheet, then the ‘scroll lock’ function is most certainly turned on. To turn it off, simply press the Scroll Lock key on your keyboard. But what if your keyboard does not have a Scroll Lock key? The solution is simple.

Export Excel charts to SVG files

25 Feb 2014 | Charts, InkScape, Tips & Tricks

Using the excellent Inkscape vector graphics program, it is possible to export Excel charts to scalable vector graphics (SVG) files.

Combining two A5 pages into one A4 page

24 Dec 2013 | Linux, Tips & Tricks, code

In this article, I describe how to create a single A4-sized PDF document containing two copied of a single-page, A5-sized PDF document. This is useful for custom A5 forms that are to be printed in duplicate on A4 sheets, so that two A5 forms can be obtained by cutting the A4 paper.

Fixing LaserJet network connectivity

20 Nov 2013 | Tips & Tricks, hardware, printing

The LaserJet P2015dn printer may lose network connectivity and no longer respond to printing requests. A commonly used, albeit weird solution for this problem is to bake the 'formatter board' on the oven. In this post I describe how I accessed the formatter board in order to bake it in the oven.

Finding files in Mendeley

27 Mar 2011 | Linux, Mendeley, Tips & Tricks, code

Mendeley is a great piece of Software to organize one’s collection of PDF articles. It did a fairly good job indexing the several thousand …

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