stotti.blog()

by the way, the odf plugin for ms office i referred to a few days ago is available for download. quoting the mentioned site:

The StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology Preview, a plug-in for Microsoft Word 2003 that allows users of Microsoft Word 2003 to read, edit and save import to the OpenDocument Format (ODF) is now available.

[..]
This initial plug-in application will support the conversion of text documents (.doc/.odt) only and full support of spreadsheet and presentation documents will be available in the final version, expected in April. The converter is easy to setup and use, the conversion happens transparently and the additional memory footprint is minimal. Microsoft Word users now can have seamless two-way conversion of Microsoft Word’s documents to and from ODF.

download the plugin for free and smash the office monopoly! (hey, that rhimes)

hah, how great is that?! according to a press release sun just announced the release of an opendocument (odf) plugin for microsoft word based on staroffice or openoffice respectively in a few days. odf-plugins for all other microsoft office programs are expected to be released in april 2007.

thanks to erwin for pointing this out.

hey ya, fellow sysadmins.

i started playing around with the open-source network backup software bacula on a sun fire v240 and a sun storedge lto 2v tape drive, which is actually a hp ultrium 448 drive rebranded by sun. i haven’t seen the application in action yet, because i’m currently lost in configuration. what really stunnes me is the huge amount of well-written documentation - quite unusual for open-source products. huge kudos to the bacula-crew for that!

i’ll keep you updated if the app itself turns out to be as good as its documentation.

people new to networking under solaris seem to wonder how to change the ip-address or hostname of a machine regularly. so here you go, this is the list of files to change when updating your network information.

for ip changes edit the following files:

• /etc/hosts
• /etc/defaultrouter
• /etc/netmasks
• /etc/inet/ipnodes (if it contains the accordant entry for your hostname)

to change the hostname of a solaris system edit these files:

• /etc/hosts
• /etc/nodename
• /etc/hostname.xyz (xyz stands for the corresponding network interface, such as bge0)
• /etc/net/ticlts/hosts (obsolete in Solaris 10)
• /etc/net/ticots/hosts (obsolete in Solaris 10)
• /etc/net/ticotsord/hosts (obsolete in Solaris 10)
• /etc/inet/ipnodes (if it contains the accordant entry for your old hostname)

you do not need to reboot your machine to apply this new information (this is unix, remember? ;)) - all you need is to restart the adequate service using the service management facility (smf):

svcadm restart svc:/milestone/network:default

short post again, just a quick note for you admins unwilling to stuck with init.d…

there are a few repositories of solaris service management facility (smf) manifests on the net. jamesd maintains the repository on blastwave.org, which has grown quite well. the opensolaris guys have their own repository. last but not least thorleif has collected some links to various smf manifests as well.

sun gives away free dvds containing sun solaris 10 (6/06) and sun studio 11. it includes sparc and x86 versions. you better be quick as this is a time-limited offer. i like this because not all people have broadband to leech a full dvd image. decreasing the barriers for people to get in touch with solaris makes sense to me. personally i have no use for the media kit because i’ve just leeched solaris 10 x86 the week before.

so click this link to get your free copy of solaris 10!

hey folks! sorry to say, i’ve been to busy to blog for the last week. so this might come a bit late, as this news is already some days old (woah, this is decades in internet time!): the official release of firefox 2.0 is available for solaris. you can find the pre-compiled packages for solaris sparc and x86 at releases.mozilla.org. the nice folks around masaki katakai provided this one again. katakai san has also blogged on how to set up a multi-user and multi-language environment for firefox on solaris. now go out and equip your solaris desktops with the brand-new firefox!

by the way there are many ways you can get involved in the development of this fine piece of code poetry. for instance i file bugs on a regular basis.

masaki katakai has blogged that the contributed version of firefox rc2 for solaris is out. check out some exiting new features!

download firefox rc2 for solaris here!

firefox release notes:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/

alfred peng has written down some of his personal opinions on firefox rc2. mostly i agree with him, but i don’t like the idea of having an internal spellchecker which corrects all of my entries to web forms, this blog etc. it is most likely that i’ll switch it off as soon as i’ve changed to firefox v2 stable. which means that you’ll likely see all the typical errors that you’re used to while reading this blog.

according to katakai san the new precompiled binaries of mozilla firefox and thunderbird are out.

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.5.0.7/contrib/

Firefox Release Notes:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/releases/1.5.0.7.html

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/1.5.0.7/contrib/

Thunderbird Release Notes:

http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/releases/1.5.0.7.html

have fun!

alfred peng has written a short list of substitutions for common windows applications on the solaris platform. here we go (list abbreviated):

• Internet Explorer —- Firefox
• Microsoft Outlook —- Thunderbird / Evolution
• Microsoft Office —- StarOffice
• Winamp —- Rhythmbox Music Player / Realplayer
• Adobe Photoshop —- The Gimp
• Word Pad/notepad —- Gedit
• Instant messaging —- Gaim
• Windows Explorer —- Nautilus
• Windows Picture —- Eye of GNOME
• mIRC —- Gaim (gaim)
• Media Player —- Totem / Realplayer
• Acrobat Reader —- Evince / xpdf
• Adobe Flash Player —- Adobe Flash Player

quite nice collection, isn’t it? unfortunately i’m curios when adobe will support it’s acrobat reader under solaris again (version 5 for solaris sparc, version 4 for solaris x86!). come on adobe, let’s give it a shot and compile!