Migrate (Import) Nickname File for Address Auto-complete to Outlook 2010

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I’ve had to help people through a decent number of computer or profile migrations at work and one of the items that often gets overlooked is the Outlook nickname file. This file is referenced by Outlook when offering auto-complete suggestions as you type in the To, Cc, or Bcc fields, based on who you’ve sent emails to in the past.

Since Outlook 2010, Microsoft changed from using an separate nickname (nk2) file to having the entries be in a hidden message in your default message store. I haven’t confirmed this, but documentation suggests that if you have a nickname file in place when you launch Outlook 2010 for the first time, it will import the entries, automatically. After that, you will need to do it manually. Here are the steps that need to be taken to do so, as provided by Microsoft support (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980542):

To import .nk2 files into Outlook 2010, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure that the .nk2 file is in the following folder:
    %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook

    Note The .nk2 file must have the same name as your current Outlook 2010 profile. By default, the profile name is “Outlook.” To check the profile name, follow these steps:

    1. Click Start, and then click   Control Panel.
    2. Double-click Mail.
    3. In the Mail Setup dialog box, click   Show Profiles.
  2. Click Start, and then click Run.
  3. In the Open box, type outlook.exe /importnk2, and then click OK. This should import the .nk2 file into the Outlook 2010 profile.Note After you import the .nk2 file, the contents of the file are merged into the existing nickname cache that is currently stored in your mailbox.

Note The .nk2 file is renamed with a .old file name extension on the first start of Outlook 2010. Therefore, if you try to re-import the .nk2 file, remove the .old file name extension.

I think the nk2 file location has moved around a little in the past, but you should be able to locate it in the same place (%appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook) that you would need to have it placed on the new computer or profile.

Install Handbrake on Ubuntu from a PPA

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Handbrake is a great tool used for encoding video, and it can easily be installed on Ubuntu.

  1. Add the Stebbins PPA to your list of repositories*:
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-snapshots
  2. Resynchronize the package index files from their sources:
    sudo apt-get update
  3. Install handbrake with the GUI:
    sudo apt-get install handbrake-gtk

You may want to install a more stable version than the most recent snapshot. If this is the case, execute the following for step 1 instead of what is shown above:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases

If run into issues when trying to encode, make sure you have DVD playback enabled and try opening it in VLC Media Player, first. You can also install just the CLI using the package name handbrake-cli.

*If you aren’t able to use add-apt-repository, install the python-software-properties package.

Migrate or Copy a Subversion (SVN) Repository to a New Computer

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One of the tasks I find myself doing every now and then is migrating subversion repositories to new hardware, or at least having to set it up after reinstalling the OS on the machine hosting subversion. You could easily setup a new repository and add the files from a checkout of the old repository, but then you would lose comments and revision history.

Here are the steps I take when migrating a SVN repository which is currently hosted on my machine running 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04.1 Server.

  1. Navigate to where your repository is stored and use svnadmin to dump the repository.
    svnadmin dump old_repo > repo_dump
  2. Move the resulting repo_dump file to the computer on which you will be hosting SVN.
  3. Create a new SVN repository using svnadmin.
    svnadmin create new_repo
  4. Load the dump file into the newly created SVN repository using svnadmin.
    svnadmin load new_repo < repo_dump

Besides having to actually install subversion and configure it, the only other thing left will be to point old checkouts to the new server. Use the following svn command, changing the protocol to whatever you have SVN using:

svn switch --relocate svn://old_server/old_repo svn://new_server/new_repo

I will be writing on how to install and setup subversion from the beginning, soon.

Allow net rpc shutdown on Windows 7

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Since the introduction of UAC in Windows Vista, the ability to remotely execute commands that require elevated privileges has been blocked. This is even the case when you use credentials of an administrator account on the target computer. This, while an inconvenience, is intentional. Microsoft reports that people should interactively log on to the computer as an administrator using Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance.

Well, I don’t want to have to always do this, nor am I able to from certain machines. The way to get around it is to disable the UAC remote restrictions in the registry by doing the following:

  1. In the registry editor, navigate to HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem.
  2. If needed, create the DWORD value LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy.
  3. Modify the value of LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy by changing the Value data to 1.

I can’t recall whether the change required a reboot or restart of some service before the desired effects could been seen, but you should now be able to visit administrative shares and issue commands like net rpc shutdown (which was what I was after) remotely.

You can refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base article for some details and more in-depth instructions at the following:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951016#letmefixit

Also, there is a Wikipedia article that outlines this same process for administrative shares:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_share

Watch a DVD in Ubuntu

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dvd logoSome users may be surprised the first time they want to watch an encrypted DVD on Ubuntu and they receive a missing plugin error or it simply won’t play. Short story, this is due to licensing and because Ubuntu does not provide the support for proprietary media formats ‘out of the box’.

Enabling DVD playback isn’t very complicated, however, and can usually be done in two steps. First, you need to install the libdvdread4 package if it isn’t already. To do this, execute the following command in your terminal:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4

After the package is installed, you will need to execute a command to download and install libdvdcss.

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Once this completes, you should be ready to use your favorite media player that supports playback of DVDs to start watching! Personally, I use VLC media player for that.

I have noticed that some players still complain about a missing plugin and I have only been able to resolve this issue by installing the ubuntu-restricted-extras.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

I’m not sure what in this package resolves the playback issue, so if you happen to know please leave a comment. Even with the restricted extras, you will need to be sure to install libdvdcss, too.

Change the Hostname in Ubuntu

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Changing the hostname of a computer running Ubuntu is not as straightforward as you might expect if you’re a new user. While you could install something like GNOME network-admin to change the hostname using a GUI, the relatively easier method is to edit two different configuration files. The two files are /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname and you can edit them using gedit by executing the following:

gksudo gedit /etc/hosts /etc/hostname

After saving and closing the edited files, you will need to restart your current session, or possibly reboot your computer.

Alternatively, you can set a temporary hostname by executing the following in the terminal:

sudo hostname temporary_hostname

Executing the hostname command without providing any additional parameters will give you your current hostname.

CyanogenMod | Warning: Dragons Ahead!

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Once the initial excitement wore off after purchasing my HTC Hero CDMA, I was a little upset about all of the software from both HTC and Sprint that I couldn’t uninstall or keep from running. I took the bad with the good, until I discovered CyanogenMod. I first started using CyanogenMod when I saw that I could run Android 2.1 before Sprint released their official port of the OS, but I quickly realized many more reasons. I did try Sprint’s update when it went live, but it was only an hour or two before I reverted back to the CyanogenMod firmware.

Besides having more control and flexibility, using CyanogenMod also extends support of your device, potentially much further than what will be provided by your carrier. In my case, Sprint has stopped its updates for the HTC Hero CDMA at Android 2.1, however, I was running Android 2.2 for while and now have Android 2.3 installed using the CyanogenMod firmware.

There are currently two dozen supported devices, and more on the way. You should visit their Wiki to read more about what CyanogenMod is and is not.

Kinetic Typography

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I was looking through the UltraLinx blog and I came across something called kinetic typography (motion typography). I know that I have seen this form of communication or art before, but it is always nice to know how to refer to things properly.

Here is a really great example of what it’s all about. Note that it is not about the message, but the method in which it is conveyed.

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language

There are a lot of videos returned when you search YouTube for kinetic typography, ranging broadly in both topic and subjective quality.

Linking Directly to a HD YouTube Video

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There have been a few instances in the past where I have wanted to link to a HD YouTube video. I can’t think of any specific instances where you would really need or want to, but I’m sure people can come up with something since the option exists.

To link to the HD video, simply add &hd=1 to the end of the URL as shown in the example below.

Standard video link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzMnCv_lPxI

HD video link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzMnCv_lPxI&hd=1

PDFCreator – The free PDF Creator and Converter

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PDFCreator is an open source project of pdfforge.org that I use to create PDFs in Windows. Essentially, anything you can print you can turn into a PDF. A virtual printer is installed and you merely need to select it when wanting to create a PDF. Here are the features as listed on the project’s site:

  • Create PDFs from any program that is able to print
  • Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc
  • New: Digitally sign your PDFs to ensure that you are the author and the file has not been modified
  • New: Create PDF/A files for long term archives
  • Send generated files via eMail
  • Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
  • AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
  • Merge multiple files into one PDF
  • Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
  • Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
  • And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.
  • Supports Windows Vista and Windows 7

PDFCreator has been really nice to find after getting so used to the Print to File feature of Ubuntu and other Linux distributions I’ve been using. Download it now and give it a try!