Let me get this straight

://tools.google.com/dlpage/webmmf

Why can’t we all just get along?“

Google has decided to throw its weight behind WebM, the new more “open” video format that competes with Apple’s H.264.

In a post a month or so ago, Google announced that future versions of Chrome will drop support of H.264 in favour of WebM.

Of course, Microsoft wont play ball and build WebM into IE9 (their upcoming latest browser), prompting Google to create an Internet Explorer 9 compatible plugin to enable WebM playback in that browser.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has seemingly put their muscle behind H.264, announcing their Extension for Chrome that enables H.264 playback in that browser.

So Microsoft is making extensions for Chrome to enable a feature Google left out, and Google is making plugins for IE that Microsoft left out… Why aren’t they both just working on their own damn browsers?

Thanks to Google Operating System for the story.

My Small Issue With the Windows Live Sync Beta

Had a strange problem using the new Microsoft Windows Live Sync Beta. It’s working fine on one of my computers, but on the other one, it drops a letter when I set up a folder to sync.

See what I mean?

For example, if I want to sync a folder like D:\My Videos, the program accepts the folder I want as D:\y Videos and then creates this new folder for syncing. Or it might sync D:\Archives as D:\rchives. On my other computer - no issues.

Investigating a bit, I discovered it doesn’t happen on my other drives (C:, F:). My D drive is different, in that I’ve moved the location of my My Documents folder to D. In a quick test, I discovered that moving it again to a subfolder of D removes the issue. It’s not a permanent solution however, as a) I like having my documents folder in the root of my secondary drive, and b) I would have to move 220Gb of data to an external drive and back again as you can’t move the location to a subfolder of the current location.

So I’ve sent feedback to Microsoft using the inbuilt “report a problem” menu in the beta. I did it in two parts though, so this post is my way of putting it all in one place, and on the off chance that someone is having a similar issue, they might get some comfort knowing that it’s not their fault (well it is, but only ever so slightly).

Creative Commons: What, Why and How.

Creative Commons Configurator
Adds a Creative Commons license to your blog pages and feeds. Also, provides some Template Tags for use in your theme templates.George Notaras

I’ve used this plugin here and elsewhere to add a Creative Commons licence to the items I publish. Publishing something as Creative Commons means you still retain full copyright to the material, but gives others permission to use portions (or all) of your work on their own sites as long as they meet your guidelines. The choices can be a combination of the following:

  • Attribution - the person who uses your content must link back to you.
  • Non-commercial - the work they do must not be used for commercial gain.
  • Share Alike - the work they make must also be put under a Creative Commons licence with the same terms.

The nature of the web is to share and republish things you find interesting and useful and to add your own take on it. By making my writing CC licensed, people can share what I write without fear of copyright claims (as long as they agree to my terms). I in turn other people’s CC licensed photos in a lot of my posts. CC helps to make the web richer and more useful by opening up things that might otherwise be locked away on their own sites.

If you don’t plan to sell your work or make money off it, or feel like contributing to your community in some way consider putting your work under a Creative Commons licence.

I DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER WAS A BLOGGER THEN I FOUND OUT THAT SHE IS AND SHE DID A POST ON CREATIVE COMMONS AND PUBLISHED IT BEFORE I DID AND MY MIND IS BLOWN SO I’M LINKING TO HER POST ON CREATIVE COMMONS SO YOU CAN GET MORE INFORMATION IF YOU’D LIKE TO READ IT SHE STUDIES COMMUNICATIONS AND SHIT SO SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT AND SHE HAS A TWEETER ACCOUNT TOO. HOLY CRAP.

Bozo, the Clown Communications Minister

“This is probably the single greatest breach in the history of privacy.”

Steven Conroy on Google’s (accidental) collection of unsecured (and essentially public) wifi data from people who don’t know how to set a simple password on their wireless Internet connections.

Conroy

I once caught a clue THIS BIG! Then I let it go.
By kjd.

Really, he needs to stop talking if he ever wants anyone to take him seriously in a technological capacity ever again. Can’t he just have a 13 year old check his speeches before he gives them so they sound at least vaguely knowledgable?

Favicons

Quick plugin plug1

by `A bunch of favicons` by dantaylor

Favicons are those little icons that websites display in the address bar (or in the open tab in Chrome). They’re usually about 16 pixels square (which is tiny) but it adds a bit of professionalism to your site, and lets people figure out which site is yours if they have dozens of tabs open. You can get plugins for photoshop that will let you save files as “.ico” files so you can create a favicon.ico file. Then you can upload your file to your website and link to it and… well it’s easy, but kind of annoying to get right.

Enter Shockingly Simple Favicon:

Shockingly Simple > Favicon A simple way to put a favicon on your site. – matias s

Install and activate and follow the instructions on the configuration page. The page includes better information than I’ve provided here, and a whole bunch of ideas for creating your own favicon.

Go to it!


  1. see what I did there? 

Some Neat WordPress Plugins

Previously I wrote about some plugins I love for making writing posts easier. This is a list of the little plugins I love that just do cool things around the place. They’re all useful, and most are ones I use on both sites I maintain. I would highly recommend them to anyone.

  • Akismet\

    Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.Matt Mullenweg

    Akismet keeps me spam free. I’m using it conjunction with Disqus for a double layer of protection. It’s pretty accurate - think Gmail spam filters for your site. Anyone who isn’t using this is asking for trouble.

  • [Author

    Exposed](http://colorlightstudio.com/2008/03/14/wordpress-plugin-author-exposed/ “Visit plugin homepage”)
    Simple and elegant way to get more information about author.Igor Penjivrag

    I used to have a plugin here that showed more details about myself using a third party service. When I started First Waves I felt like I wanted a similar tool to promote my guest authors a bit but didn’t want to have to ask them to create an account on the service. So this plugin does something similar based on the information they fill into their profile on this site. When you click the Author’s name a little hovercard shows you their gravatar and a link to their other websites.

  • AddQuicktag\

    Allows you to easily add custom Quicktags to the editor. You can also export and import your Quicktags.Roel Meurders, Frank Bultge

    I can’t stand WYSIWYG editors, so I choose to use the HTML editor to write my posts. It doesn’t mean however that I don’t want to use shortcuts occasionally. The AddQuicktag plugin lets you define custom tags to wrap around your HTML while editing. For example, I have a <code><cite></cite></code> tag in addition to the normal <code><blockquote></blockquote></code> tag and a “Caption” button that wraps my image caption text in <code><figcaption></figcaption></code> (to save me writing them out every time).

  • [Broken Link

    Checker](http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/08/05/broken-link-checker-for-wordpress/ “Visit plugin homepage”)
    Checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found.Janis Elsts

    This plugin creates an area on your dashboard that reports any broken links it finds - any sites that you’ve linked to that are no longer there, or resources that get 404 errors. Then you can go through and relink or ignore them as you like. Keeps your site tidy. You can also give it permission to cross out links that don’t work so your visitors know not to bother to click through.

  • [Clicky for

    WordPress](http://getclicky.com/goodies/#wordpress “Visit plugin homepage”)
    Integrates Clicky on your blog!Joost de Valk

    Ultimate Google Analytics
    Enable Google Analytics on your blog. Has options to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site. Check http://www.oratransplant.nl/uga/#versions for version updates*Wilfred van der Deijl*

    These two add the Clicky and Google Analytics tracking codes on my pages so I can be silly about the number of visitors my sites get. Clicky is particularly cool, as I can see people come and go in real-time and can feel a bit like Jack Bauer.

  • [Organize

    Series](http://www.unfoldingneurons.com/neurotic-plugins/organize-series-wordpress-plugin/ “Visit plugin homepage”)
    This plugin adds a number of features to wordpress that enable you to easily write and organize a series of posts and display the series dynamically in your blog. You can associate “icons” or “logos” with the various series. This version of Organize Series Plugin requires at least WordPress 2.8 to work.Darren Ethier</em><

    Wordpress doesn’t come configured out-of-the-box to incorporate posts into series. This plugin makes it feel like it does. This plugin post is an example.

  • [Page Links

    To](http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/page-links-to/ “Visit plugin homepage”)
    Allows you to point WordPress pages or posts to a URL of your choosing. Good for setting up navigational links to non-WP sections of your site or to off-site resources.Mark Jaquith

    A good plugin if you want pages in your menu that go to pages off-site (like First Waves and nunnone email in the menu above). Create a new “Page”, and in the new option at the bottom of the post tell WordPress where you want the item to link to.

  • [YOURLS: WordPress to

    Twitter](http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/yourls-wordpress-to-twitter-a-short-url-plugin/ “Visit plugin homepage”)
    Create short URLs for posts with YOURLS (or other services such as tr.im) and tweet them.Ozh

    This is the best plugin I’ve found that lets me use my Bit.ly pro account (using my own domain for shortened links) to display a short link on my site for each post. I was originally using YOURLS to shrink my links, but when bit.ly offered theirs I switched over. Comes with a widget too, to display the link in the sidebar if you’d prefer.

  • [Smart

    404](http://michael.tyson.id.au/smart-404 “Visit plugin homepage”)
    Rescue your viewers from site errors! When content cannot be found, Smart 404 will use the current URL to attempt to find matching content, and redirect to it automatically. Smart 404 also supplies template tags which provide a list of suggestions, for use on a 404.php template page if matching content can’t be immediately discovered.Michael Tyson

    This is such a simple plugin, but it can make such a difference to your site. When visitors try to visit pages that don’t exist, normally your site will give them a 404 Error (telling the browser that the page doesn’t exist). What this plugin does instead is tries to match up some content with the URL they entered, so for example when you try “//the.geekorium.au/batman” (a page that does not exist) you will be automatically redirected to the page for my Batman tag (of which there are quite a number). Or if you tried //the.geekorium.au/disqus, you’d be taken to a post with “Disqus” in the title. There are a lot of queries that it won’t work with, but it’s neat when it works.

There are a few more extra-special plugins that I want to share, but they’re the sort of plugins that you dedicate whole posts to, so I’ll share them soon. In the meantime, if you like the sound of any of these features give them a whirl. The great thing about Wordpress is just how easy it is to install and try out new plugins.

Should I Buy a Mac?

A teacher is after a new laptop, and asked if they should “just buy a Mac”.

A few years ago the answer would have been “absolutely”. Not because I was a Mac fan-boy (I was) but because compared to XP or even Vista, the Apple operating system and overall computer experience was just much better. Nowadays my answer is not so clear cut. I told him that of course “it depends”. What’s changed?

Microsoft released Windows 7, and slowly pushed itself back to it’s feet to fight another round with Apple.

  1. Win 7 is faster, easier to use and lighter on resources than XP/Vista and is just a joy to use.
  2. A standard Dell Vostro1 with an i5 processor, 4Gb memory, 500 Gb space and a 15“ screen will cost you $1500 (plus $250 for a three year warranty if you want). An equivalent Mac will cost $2570 (add $580 for a three year warranty). That’s an enormous difference.

Once upon a time, a Mac was harder to compare - they used completely different technology and the operating systems were chalk and cheese. Microsoft had effectively stalled for 10 years on the desktop, and Apple was releasing new features and innovations every couple of years. Now it’s different. I’m just as happy (happier?) on my PC than I was on my Mac - largely owing to the fact that I could get more power under my keyboard for the same money.

There are of course still a lot of arguments for the Mac operating system. Used in conjunction with an iPhone/iPod/AppleTV/Airport it can seem like magic. The idea that “Macs just work” is still very pervasive2. At the end of the day it’s about what works for you.

  1. Do you already have a Mac? Maybe get another - the things they can do together are sometimes pretty neat.
  2. Do you like top notch industrial design? Macs cannot be flawed for how well they’re designed and built.
  3. There is speciality software on the Mac that just have no competitors on the PC in the same price bracket - software like Delicious Library, Transmit, Coda, Rapidweaver. They’re all wonderfully crafted tools for doing their jobs in simple and intuitive ways. I’m yet to find anything that can match any of them in style on the PC. Of course, I’ve found functional alternatives (often free) that do the job just as well, but it’s personal preference.

For me the choice was a lot more simple with the introduction of Win 7 - I get all the pretty glossy stuff that appeals to the part of me that likes shiny new things, and the day-to-day management of my computer is now just as easy as it was on my Mac.

This “newbie friendly” post is the first in a new category of [Tech for Newbies]({{< ref “/categories/tech/” >}}). Got anything to add? Leave a comment below!


  1. I know a lot of geeks have problems with Dell, but after five years of deploying and maintaining Dells at work, I’ve got nothing but praise 

  2. although I hear horror stories about every computer manufacturer including Apple so make of that what you will 

Tech for Newbies!

I’m gonna try to get a new series going here on the Geekorium where I answer some of the questions I get asked in my job. I get asked for advice every day, and it’s often more interesting than the sorts of things I actually do to get paid. Ages ago I toyed with the idea of making a site where I would break down technical concepts for the less technically minded, but wasn’t sure it would have an audience. The advice I get asked for though already has an audience - the people that asked in the first place. So when I get asked a question I think warrants some fleshing out I’ll put it under the new category [Tech for Newbies]({{< ref “/categories/tech/” >}}).

A baby with a white onesie that has a stick figure holding a red semaphore flag, with the word n00b written underneath

omg n00b! by Kim Unertl

Keep in mind if you’re technically minded, that the people I give this advice to aren’t. My answers are simplified and often lacking some of the stuff us geeks find very important. Feel free to point this stuff out in the comments, but try not to be too harsh on my for leaving it out! Also sometimes I don’t actually have an answer - it doesn’t mean I won’t try to put them on the right track.

And if you’re not a geek maybe I can help you out. Leave a suggestion (there’s a suggestion tab just over there to the right) if you have a question you think I could answer. Make sure to read what the geeks have to add though!

The first topic I’m tackling is the age old dilemma - [Should I Buy a Mac?]({{< ref “should-i-buy-a-mac” >}})

Bye Bye, Disqus

Tonight I disabled Disqus and tried to implement some of the same features manually. Rubenerd has been pushing his anti-disqus agenda for some time, and it ramped up when Taryn proclaimed it’s virtues and Zombie_Plan bleated and caved too1.

The word BYE spelled out in big bold letters on a window

by `See ya! BYE` by Taz etc.

So as an experiment (and due to my underlying desire to stop handing stuff over to third parties), I turned it off. Here’s what I installed in its place:

  • CommentLuv - puts a link to the commenter’s most recent post under their comment.
  • Gravatar Signup - if a user doesn’t have a Gravatar associated with their email, offers to sign them up for one.
  • Simple Facebook Connect - lets a commenter register using their Facebook account.
  • Simple Twitter Connect - lets a commenter register using their Twitter account.
  • OpenID - lets a commenter register using their OpenID account.
  • Subscribe to Comments - Adds a check-box so a commenter can have follow-up comments emailed to them.
  • Live Comment Preview - Shows a mockup of the comment being left as it’s written. Kinda neat.

So that’s seven plugins, plus an hour or two mucking around with site templates and CSS to get them looking vaguely acceptable (so many themes have very ugly comments). I had to style my comments separately, fix the threading, and alter the layout of the comment form. And I still have less functional comments than I did with Disqus. The only benefit I have is… I… don’t know. I can say I don’t use Disqus?

That’s not including the plugins I decided not to turn on - Backtype to pull mentions from Twitter etc., and Ozh’ Absolute Comments to enable reply by email (for me at least). I’ll miss reply by email the most.

Maybe those of you who can’t see the point of Disqus don’t care if your commenters can’t log in with Facebook. And I’m yet to see anyone but Techcrunch with an attractive and functional comment area using a vanilla Wordpress setup. Disqus isn’t gorgeous, but it’s a lot better than what Wordpress out of the box can do.

So now I’ve done it I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. As an added bonus, none of the comments that were in Disqus are threaded any more, and if I go back to Disqus it might screw up the comments people have left since disabling it. And none of my comments before today are associated with me as administrator any more. All in all, I probably should have left it alone. But at least I can maybe help some one make up their mind about their comments - use Disqus and get a whole bunch of features, or install some of the plug-ins listed above.

Just so you know, although I’m a fan of the software, I’m not such a fan of Disqus the company. Trying to get assistance for a problem is like pulling teeth, and there’s at least one feature they promise when you set it up that just doesn’t work. When I tried to ask them why my comments weren’t “real-time” they told me they were and that they were disabled for maintenance - which seems odd, since it’s been at least a few months now… So take from that what you will - if you don’t think you’ll need support, Disqus might be perfect.


  1. he know’s I’m just kidding right? 

What Would Get Me Back to Social Media

I used Twitter for a while there and got quite into it. Then I got annoyed with it and stopped using it a bit, then came back, then left, then… you get the idea. Eventually I officially left. I’ve also been trying out pretty much every other social site out there and other than Facebook (which I use primarily because most of my family do), I haven’t found one I like.

by The Cat of Apathy by KateMonkey

Here are the things that would get me back into it1. Pretty much only one of these things need to happen for it to get me moving back.

  • Twitter becomes more open. Twitter has become this huge behemoth of information and vital updates. People rely on it now, which is a mistake as it’s prone to dying horribly. I want to know that the whole thing isn’t reliant on one company for keeping it up. Imagine if email was totally run by one company? You’d be completely at their mercy if they died or they changed the product. Email is decentralised and open, and it’s more robust. Twitter might not seem as important a platform as email, but it has the potential to be a major part of communication on the web.

  • Buzz gives me more control. Google Buzz was the latest and greatest for about three days there, until everyone realised that it pretty much spews everything at you indiscriminately, and you have almost no control over it. If Buzz adds better filtering controls so I can filter out everyone’s twitter feeds, or just Louis Grey’s Google Reader shares, I’d be all over that. I think my friends might be too.

  • Status.Net gets more developers. One of the things that pushed Twitter’s growth were the extra services that developers made to fill in the holes. iPhone apps, image services, link shorteners - none of them work with Status.Net, the open source, open protocol competitor. I want to own my own updates thank you very much, but I don’t want to miss out on the cool stuff that everyone else gets to play with either. But Status.Net doesn’t have a lot of those cool things, like a decent iPhone client. Although they are trying to fix it.

  • Any of the others get users. There are a whole bunch of other services that are as good, if not better than the above three services, but no one uses them - well no one I know anyway. If any one of these services got some more of my favourite people on them, I’d be there in a shot.

Currently all of these services annoy me too much for me to use them. Blogging is the only outlet I have that gives me satisfaction and full control over my experience. It also has all the cool people I know2.


  1. Please don’t think I think anyone cares if I come back or not, I’m only posting this because people have asked. 

  2. I’ve forgotten someone, I guarantee - I’m sorry if it’s you! 

iPhone Competitors, You Have 4 Months

This might be my next phone…

In about June or July my iPhone contract expires. Looking at the new 4.0 software that won’t run on my 3G phone, and knowing that the next model will be out about then with (hopefully) the newer faster processor and better battery life, I’ll probably be looking to upgrade. The problem is despite loving my iPhone, and what is to come, I abhor that what my iPhone can run is subject to the whims of Apple, and I hate that I’m tied to iTunes in any way.

So this is my wish for all the makers of Android handsets and iPhone/iPad competitors:

Get your shit together by July. Get a decent range of Android competitors out here to Australia by then. Bring your Dell Pads and Smartphones, provide me with some choice! Everyone will get a fair viewing - I’m prepared to sacrifice the money I’ve invested in my iPhone apps if you’ll provide something compelling! The Dell Tablet sounds great - I’d like a bigger screen, but I want only one device to make calls from - so make a bluetooth headset standard kit and I might get one. Or I’ll get a Nexus One, or one of the HTC range. I’m not fussy so much on brands, but I am fussy that the experience be as fun and intuitive as the iPhone. I’m fussy that it not lock me in to software that makes me fume. I’m fussy that it not be a step backwards - that I can surf the net, that I can get some great apps, and that it remains the hub of my communication.

Please think of Australia. You have 4 months max to make this decision difficult for me. If the next iPhone gets here before you get it together, you’ll have blown it for at least another two years. The next iPhone promises to be a cracker. Make yours a cracker too!

Folder Redirection for Unusual Paths [Group Policy]

As part of my Group Policy Rewrite I’m attempting to make use of Folder Redirection which lets you specify where common important Windows folders reside on the network.

Normally when you first log on, Windows makes a few folders under your user document folder for things such as Music, Favourites1 , Downloads etc. On a standalone machine these are usually stored under your user profile folder (C:\Users\{username}\Downloads in Win 7 for example) but they can be moved when you’re on a network2.

In Group Policy, expand User Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection. Right click on one of the folders listed and select “Properties”. Documents is a good place to start, as I’ll show you how all the others can hang off that.

If you’ve worked with group policy before I won’t insult your intelligence more by explaining everything in here, suffice to say that in our environment, I’ve chosen to use the settings as shown below:

folderredirectionsettings.png

Settings for redirecting My Documents to a shared network location.

For all the other folders I redirect, I use the same settings on the right there, and only change the Target folder location property on the left.

What this does is specify that you want all the users folders redirected to what you’ve specified in the Home folder property for the user in Active Directory (usually H: somewhere on your network). This is I suspect how most admins configure their document folders. The issue comes with the other folders later on. Lets work with the Desktop folder for example.

To redirect the Desktop, you again access the properties of that folder. This time, you’ll notice you lose the option to “Redirect to the user’s home folder”. This is fair enough, as we don’t want every folder type pointing to the same location. Unfortunately though, Microsoft don’t offer a simple way to redirect to a subfolder of the new Documents location, although they do suggest this:

The USERNAME variable may be used as part of the redirection path, > thus allowing the system to dynamically create a newly redirected > folder for each user to whom the policy object applies.

Folder Redirection feature in Windows KB Article.

What they are suggesting is using \\server\share\USERNAME\Desktop to specify the location, but what if your AD structure is more complicated than that? For instance, we have our year levels separated into folders to make it easy for teachers to locate a certain kid’s work. There just isn’t a variable to insert a specific folder into this path based on the user’s location or position in AD - ie. you can’t use \\server\share\groupfolder\username\Desktop as it just doesn’t exist.

The next logical step was to try inserting the mapped drive into this field: “H:\Desktop”. The problem here was that at the point that the logon process connects to the desktop, the H: has not yet been mapped, leaving a blank desktop and an error in the Application log. It was at this point a few years ago I gave up. Until this week.

Lucky for us!

When you view the GP report for Folder Redirection you’ll notice that MS includes the VARIABLES that it uses to fill in the user’s home folder path (as shown):

documentssettings.png

AH! Variables!

In my initial tests, I set the Target folder location to “Redirect to the following location”, and the Root Path: to “HOMESHAREHOMEPATH\Desktop”. This did NOT work. I can’t remember the error exactly, and I think it may not have even mapped at all.

My next test was to try with “HOMESHARE\Desktop” and lo-and-behold, it worked! Now when a user logs in they get a H Drive, and a desktop that routes to a folder in that drive, regardless of the path the user data is in. If they inadvertently save something to their desktop3 it will be securely tucked in their home drive where they can find it again later, or on their desktop the next time they log in.

Going through the rest of the folders in Folder Redirection I did the same (except for the Start Menu, although I suspect this will work exactly the same way). Now all my data is secure in my home drive, without using true roaming profiles (which can end up pulling a lot of data around the network in a school environment).

Some caveats

Even after multiple iterations and rewrites, Adobe software still cannot handle expanded network paths for saving application data. If you redirect AppData to “HOMESHARE\AppData” even something as new as Adobe Photoshop CS4 refuses to load. The only solution I have found for this is to use “H:\AppData” or nothing at all for that folder. This seems to work acceptably for the AppData folder, even though it doesn’t for the Desktop.

Wrong! H:\AppData has the same problem outlined above, that is, H is only mapped after folder redirection. Instead I followed the advice on this Adobe Getsatisfaction page by Ge3oR who suggested giving users permission to c:\users\USERXX\appdata\Locallow, which for some reason Adobe products need, but cannot create themselves. So in GP I added a Folder rule in GP Preferences to create a folder in C:\users\username\appdata\Locallow, and everything is working, and I have redirected AppData once more!

Also! I haven’t actually tested this extensively in a production environment (although it works day-to-day on a couple of test desktops), so test this with your apps and bits before making these changes wholesale to your network.

I’ve also found while writing this post4 that this information is included in part in Microsoft’s Managing Roaming User Data Deployment Guide.doc found here. As I wasn’t using roaming profiles I didn’t read it. Plus it’s unclear as to the best way to redirect and I still would have written this post to clear it up for you.

I hope this tip can help you get Folder Redirection working for you if your environment is a bit unusual. Let me know what you find!


  1. actually Favorites, but I’m not American 

  2. they can be moved on a standalone machine too, but that’s a different post 

  3. and come on, who doesn’t do this 

  4. thanks to this helpful gent 

A Standing Challenge

About 6 months ago I read a Lifehacker article that advocated standing at your office desk to stay healthier. I thought it was a neat idea at the time but didn’t try very hard to make it happen. Then Lifehacker again linked to an article in the NY Times about standing at work, and this time I decided to do something about it.

My New Desk

My New Desk

Introducing my standing desk

It’s two different size filing cabinets which turn out to be exactly the right heights for my keyboard and monitors. It’s surprisingly comfortable from about my shins up, but my feet are already killing.1

I find it difficult to fit much exercise into my day. Hopefully this might get me using even a little energy.

PS. Read that article. It’s an eye opener, and a very quick read.

PPS. Hey Lifehackers! Welcome to the Geekorium! Browse around and have a look if you like. I also run a small site about Google Wave called First Waves. If you’re into your geekery, there’s nothing more geeky than Google Wave…


  1. perhaps I need more WiiFit to improve my centre of gravity 

Deploy Printers with Group Policy without using Local Loopback

by `Stupid printer tricks` by tstadler

I’ve been sorting through our group policies and rewriting them ready for a switch over to Windows 7. During my thorough investigation it turns out our current policies overlap a fair bit, and it’s no wonder we have trouble tracking down why something we’re sure we’ve set in GP turns up unset on logon1 .

So my big project has been going through our settings one by one, and deciding which of these categories they fall into:

  1. Common Computer settings - all the computers should get these as they are vital to the function of the network, or are likely to break something if they aren’t explicitly set for our staff and students.
  2. Common User settings - everything else that just can’t be set in the Computer policy.
  3. Staff Settings
  4. Student Settings
  5. Printers

The interesting trick I’ve learned about the printer GPs though is how to apply printers based on the computer’s OU without using local loopback!

The Problem

The problem with managing printers in a school environment is that unlike corporations (which GP is clearly geared towards) people move around all the time but want to be connected to both their printers in their offices on the other side of the school, but also the local printer in the classroom they’re in2. Microsoft decided that without any extra tricks they would let you set a default printer for a user, but not for a room because Betty from HR will only ever use the one computer in her office.

The Old Trick

Then they told people you could get around this by enabling local loopback, which applies both computer and user policies to a user, so you could set the printer as default in a computer policy using the “user” section, then make the computer read the computer section at logon and apply the printer. The problem with this3 is that it could slow down your logins, as it increases the number of policies it has to read and evaluate to prepare the desktop.

The New Way

In my quest to eliminate unnecessary policies, I wanted to kill local-loopback too. A bit of research turned up this page on using GP Preferences to assign default printers, which I already knew and was using, but it advocated using local-loopback.

But

Further down that page was a comment by Michael Moore who had this bit of advice:

Actually, if you Item Level target a group which has a computer in it, it will still install the printer even though these preferences are under the User Configuration Section of the GPO. Try it, saved on loopback. – Michael Moore

So I followed the directions on that site (it has helpful screenshots) to create a printer policy and target specific computer OUs, but then instead of turning on local-loopback, I simply ticked Run in logged-on user’s security context (user policy option).

Now my printers deploy and are set as default based on the current computer’s OU without using local-loopback at all.


  1. This is going to get more technical than usual. Regular readers can tune out… Now 

  2. they also want the computer to magically know which one they want to print to by default each time it changes, but that’s another story 

  3. anecdotally at least, I can’t find hard evidence 

Frustrated at the Tech-Ignorant Media.

by `SPAM! [don't buy]` by David Trattnig

Eager to dig up dirt on Julia Gillard (an alumna of Unley High School) the SMH visited the Unley High website1 and clicked on through to the Old Scholars page. HAHA! they yell, chuckling to themselves:

… it appears the website of the federal Education Minister’s former school, Unley High, has fallen victim to hackers. No doubt coincidentally, those curious to learn more about the Deputy PM’s school days in South Australia by clicking on the “old scholars” tab are confronted with an advertisement for “free black nude pictures” – via A big night for Barnaby Joyce

Of course, the site has not been “hacked” in any way. In setting the site up, I thought it a fun experiment to give the Old Scholars a way to re-connect, and create mini sites of their own within the pages of the Unley site. The hope was that they might create groups for the chess club of ’94, or the lazy boys of the class of ’67, or whatever. Then they could write messages on each other’s pages, write reminiscences of the times they had, and generally use the site in any way they saw fit to reconnect and share with one another. I installed the excellent open-source software Elgg, and enabled a feature called “blogs” (short for “web logs”) so people could fill the pages of the site with all their memories. I had hoped it would be a long-lasting record that would share some of Unley’s rich history.

‘Till the spammers got hold. Elgg is a well-known piece of software, so spammers have written scripts that scour the web for open installations of Elgg (such as ours is), automatically create user accounts, and start writing blog posts promoting their spammy sites. What they are doing is taking advantage of sites that are open to the public, and is so far from hacking it’s ludicrous. It’s no different from me creating a pretend Facebook account called Spammy McSpams and posting links to porn from there2.

The Old Scholars site has the ability for legit users to flag such stuff, and I’ve tried to make it as obvious as possible. My only problem was presuming people would make use of such features when given. To prevent such “hacking” in future, I’ve disabled the blog feature, as no one was using it except the spammers. I’ve also cleaned the site up, so horny journos will need to find some other source of black nudes3.

Just wanted to clear that up.


  1. designed by moi 

  2. Oh my god I hacked Facebook! Now lets see how long that account lasts 

  3. And I have to say, no one from the Sydney Morning Herald tried to contact us to make us aware of the problem, so screw them.