• Mood: working
• Music: Travis Tritt - If I Lost You

Yes, my loyalties turned: the return to WinXP

Thanks to all who have helped with previous ones, which I posted on:

• March, 2005: Sat 05 Mar 2005, Sun 27 Mar 2005


• April, 2005: Sat 16 Apr 2005, Sat 29 Apr 2005


• May, 2005: Sun 15 May 2005, Sat 28 May 2005


• June, 2005: Sat 11 Jun 2005, Sat 25 Jun 2005


• July, 2005: Sat 09 Jul 2005


• August, 2005: Sat 13 Aug 2005, Sat 20 Aug 2005


• September, 2005: Sat 03 Sep 2005, Sat 17 Sep 2005


• October, 2005: Mon 03 Oct 2005, Sat 15 Oct 2005, Sat 29 Oct 2005


• November, 2005: Sat 12 Nov 2005, Sat 26 Nov 2005


• December, 2005: Sat 10 Dec 2005, Sat 24 Dec 2005


• January, 2006: Sat 07 Jan 2006, Sat 21 Jan 2006


• February, 2006: Sat 04 Feb 2006, Sat 18 Feb 2006


• March, 2006: Sat 04 Mar 2006, Sat 18 Mar 2006


• April, 2006: Sat 01 Apr 2006, Sat 15 Apr 2006, Sat 29 Apr 2006


• May, 2006: Sat 13 May 2006

Thanks to nikolasco for the Windows Vista version info last time.

Here's my fortnightly update:

• 1. Intel Core Duo: I got a brand new 2GHz Core Duo on eBay with 512Mb of RAM and a 40Gb HD, and upgraded the RAM with a spare 512Mb DIMM I had left over from the upgrade of Hirilonde, my Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook. I spent several days installing it and like it so much that I'm definitely getting another one for the lab.


• 2. Skype on an old Pocket PC: I have yet to try it on Sting, my iPAQ H3635, but I'm not counting on it.
  ETA, 02:55 CDT 05 Jun 2006 - I installed it on my Audiovox PPC6700, though, and it worked right away. Now I can make free VOIP-to-analog phone calls using SkypeOut to any landline in the USA, as long as I am in range of a WiFi (802.11b/g) base station.


• 3. New CTP Build of Windows Vista: Earl Harris, our hardware specialist, burned me a copy of CTP 5308, as did the CIS sysadmins. It's something of a moot point, though, as I decided to go back to Windows XP SP2 on Hirilonde, where I had installed Vista. It works like a charm, and I can now see and use my entire 2Gb of RAM and install a paltry few programs.

Now for the new questions:


After the Return: WinXP Issues on Dell Inspiron 6000

Since reverting to WinXP SP2, I have had a few problems.

• 1. Battery detection is off. I can't get hibernation at critical battery levels (1%) to kick in. When I unplug the power adapter and let it go on battery power, the icon in the system tray remains a power plug instead of a battery. If I plug it back in when the charge is less than 100%, Windows displays a fully-charged system with no lightning bolts (charging indicators) anywhere.


• 2. No USB mouse drivers. I've tried installing Microsoft Mouse, but when I plug in a USB IntelliMouse Explorer Optical or Optical Trackball, Hirilonde still fails to install the "new hardware". However, I had no trouble getting it to work on a system that is installed with a Volume License I was given by accident and was about to return. Go figure!


• 3. USB 2.0 warnings. When I plug USB storage devices, such as the 1Gb SanDisk Cruzer Mini I ordered from Amazon in December, 2004, I get a "this device can peform faster". Any idea why, and is it really true?

From A Distance: Remote Control Applications for Windows from CygWin to LapLink

I need your recommendation - I've been trying to get reliable remote control applications for three things, and nothing has worked well.

• 1. XWindows. For anyone who used to use DesqView X, WRQ Reflection X, or Hummingbird Exceed: what do you use these days? I have installed the latest builds of CygWin X, X-Deep/32, and X-Win 32, and I can't seem to get it to bring up XWindows. Furthermore, how do you window manager in your software of choice?


• 2. Remote control. Whatever happened to CarbonCopy and LapLink? I used to use LapLink, and the group I worked in at the Beckman Institute ran both LapLink and pcAnywhere, but I haven't been keeping up with versions. What is generally used for remote control under WinXP nowadays? I kept hearing about some built-in software in NT5 kernel operating systems, but I've never successfully found or configured it.


• 3. File sharing and synchronization. Besides Unison, I haven't even found anything! Whatever happened to being able to map a network drive, even a Samba share from Linux? It worked fine in NT 4.0, even Win98 - what changed?

IRC and Trillian Scripting

Does anyone know how to:

• 1. Keep Trillian from mis-detecting the presence of "IRC ghosts" in a chat room? I have my Trillian IRC perform buffer set to /msg nickserv ghost Banazir [mypassword] before it executes /nick Banazir and then attempts to join #teunc and authenticate using /msg nickserv identify [mypassword]. However, something causes it to register a name collision, and it often sets my nick to Banazir_. Worse, it remembers this nick as the default until I set it back to Banazir manually. I don't seem to have this problem with mIRC and its variants. Any ideas?


• 2. Set mIRC or Trillian to detect specific keywords in a chat room (IRC or AIM Exchange 5) and respond accordingly? For example, I'd like to detect "Test" by itself on a line and respond "Pass", or reply to "User: Hello" with "Hi, User". IIRC, there are many IRC and AIM bots already that do just ths; any idea where I can download such?


• 3. Make mIRC or Trillian automatically sign back in when a network connection restored after an outage of hours? Currently, mIRC has a timeout of 50 attempts: after trying once per minute for 50 minutes, it stops trying. I would like to make it switch to one attempt per hour after the first 50 instead.

--
Banazir