Well since we have started to play around with Linux Terminal Server we have also discovered that they actually work quite well as Terminal Server Clients for that. All we needed to do was install a software update to the thin clients and there we go! They just worked, which was fantastic and totally unexpected.

The thin clients that we are using are NCD ThinSTAR 200s.  Although NCD went out of business a few years ago some of the employees are still running what looks like basically a consulting firm to support all the thin clients that are already out there.  On their site you can download the software and manuals that you need to upgrade the software on the thin client.  Because of the small amount of RAM in the ThinStar we had to only set it up with two clients, so we did the Windows Terminal Server client and the Linux X Connection client.  The upgrade was simple to the new configuration (It was actually so simple that I ended up accidentally upgrading ALL of our thin clients with it one day instead of just our two test ones when we had a power outage and they all reboot with the thin client manager PC running on the network.)

These thin clients are now configured to connect to our Windows Terminal Server as well as our Linux Terminal Server which is great.  We have still not started to use Linux Terminal Server as a production server since I don’t have the hardware to run it, but the potential is definately there.

I have seen more of these thin clients come up for sale on eBay and other used computer sites around the web.  I reckon that would be the way to go, especially if you can pick them up in pallet size orders as was one deal I saw in the UK.  With a dozen of these, a terminal server, a switch, a dozen LCD monitors and a satellite connection you would have a pretty neat little package to send to a remote location.  The LCDs and thin clients wouldn’t even use that much power so it wouldn’t be impossible to run the whole thing off of a portable generator.

Other Links:

• NCD
• Linux NCD mini-HOWTO

I came across a site that tells you all the telephone country codes that you need to make international phone calls from one nation to another. Since every nation is different, and every every nation has their own codes and numbers to dial, this is a very useful tool…

• Country Codes

It’s a great tool as it seems that every country has it’s own phone codes to call outside the country, and then of course you actually need to know the international country code for the nation that you are trying to dial.

At the time we were running a primarily Windows Terminal Server network, which has been working really well for us and has greatly assisted us in cutting back our maintenance because we only have to manage a few servers instead of a couple of dozen workstations. For most applications this works really well.

One of the challenges that we have being a non-profit organization is meeting our budgets, while still providing the tools that are needed to get our work done.  This is where the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) could greatly assist us in cutting costs.  We would be able to save about $300.00 per user by using LTSP with OpenOffice over the Microsoft Terminal Server and Microsoft Office alternative.  We have even been able to get LTSP to authenticate to our Windows Domain, which is a big step in moving over to this sort of archecture.

The official Linux Terminal Server Project site is here, http://www.ltsp.org/.

OverDrive Media will not transfer my audio books to the device.

I love getting audio books from our local library. For a very small yearly fee I have almost unlimited access to downloaded audio books and ebooks. Up until now the copy protection on the audiobooks has not been a problem. Unfortunately Apple’s update to their iOS has changed that.

The OverDrive Media Console software on my computer can not transfer audio books to my iOS device.

After updating my iOS device to version 5.0 of the software I have lost the ability to transfer audiobooks from my PC to my iOS device. It’s a real pain and has yet to be fixed. I have also updated iTunes to the latest version, also without success.

In it’s forums OverDrive has acknowledged the problem, but has yet to remedy it. They claim to be working on a new version of the application that will once again allow the transfer of copy protected audio books to Apple iOS devices, but so far I’m still waiting. The software version listed on their web-site is still the same version I have on my laptop.

Hopefully in the coming weeks they will come up with a fix, preferably before my current rental of “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuck expires and I go back in the queue waiting for it to become available again…

In rural Papua New Guinea one in seven women die in childbirth! Yep, that’s right, 1 in 7 women die in childbirth! That’s a shocking statistic to say the least. To give birth to a child a mother has a 15% chance of dying, can you imagine?

A friend of mine, Adriel Booker, in Australia works with YWAM Ships, a ministry that is currently working on delivering medical help into Papua New Guinea. She is a Mom, blogger and fellow YWAMer who has a strong passion for helping other mothers in need. To help expectant mothers in Papua New Guinea she has started a program called Bloggers for Birth Kits to help reduce maternal mortality in rural Papua New Guinea.

The way to help is so simple that anyone can do it…

For as little as a $2.00 donation you can purchase a Birth Kit. The Birth Kit is very simple, but according to the Birthing Kit Foundation can greatly help to reduce the incidence of infant and maternal mortality and morbidity. The kit includes:

• 1 plastic sheet to provide a clean birthing surface
• 1 bar of soap for clean hands during the birthing process and to clean the umbilical stump
• 1 pair of plastic gloves for clean hands
• 1 sterile scalpel blade to cut the umbilical cord
• 3 cords / pieces of strong string to tie the umbilical chord
• 5 gauze squares to clean the baby and mother

The kit is simple, yet effective. Adriel made up her own (which you can watch on the video at the bottom of this post), but I think the most effective way for us to help is to donate.

If you do want to help with this great project, and for only $2.00 who wouldn’t want to help, you can read more about it at Bloggers for Birth Kits.

This post was originally posted on my personal blog at Help Prospective Mothers in Papua New Guinea – Bill Hutchison

This will send an email to your email address with the security token that you can then copy and paste into Outlook Connect and it should work.

If you want to change the tabs that you can see when you login to salesforce you need to go to setup (a link on the very top of the page), then click on My personal Information and then you can customize your tabs and related lists. It is a simple proceedure – but as I have been finding with Salesforce – some of the simple things to do are buried under several layers.

Well this is how to do it…

Go to…
System Preferences
Date & Time
Open International (towards the bottom)
Choose Formats (middle option)
Go to Customise Dates
Choose how you want the date to look – like July 29 or Jul 29
Select all (CMD+A) and then copy (CMD+C), hit Ok
Choose Customise next to Times
Choose Medium format (this is the one OS X uses to display the clock in the menubar)
Paste (CMD+V) the date in next to the Time and click OK

You may have an additional Day of the week in the menubar – so it may read Mon, Mon – this is another setting… to change this go
System Preferences
Date & Time
untick “Show the day of the week”

Alternatively pay $4.95 per month for an unlimited backup service!

Its very quick and easy to setup and works on Mac and Windows.