FAQs and Tips

Software Site Licenses

Do we have a site license for software package XYZ?

The answer is (almost) always: No!
Neither STAR nor BNL have site licences for any Microsoft product, Hummingbird Exceed, WinZIP, ssh.com's software or much of anything intended to run on individual users' desktops. Furthermore, for most purposes BNL-owned computers do not qualify for academic software licenses, though exceptions do exist.

FAQ: PDF creation

How can I create a file in pdf format?

Without Adobe Acrobat (an expensive bit of software), this can be a daunting question. I am researching answers, some of which are available in my Windows software tips. Here is the gist of it in a nutshell as I write this -- there are online conversion services and OpenOffice is capable of exporting PDF documents.

FAQ: X Servers

What X server software should I use in Windows?

I recommend trying the X Server that is available freely with Cygwin, for which I have created some documentation here: Cygwin Tips. If you can't make that work for you, then I next recommend a commercial product called Xmanager, available from http://www.netsarang.com. Last time I checked, you could still download a fully functional version for a time-limited evaluation period.

TIP: Windows Hibernation trick

Hibernate or Standby -- There is a difference which you might find handy: 
  • "Standby" puts the machine in a low power state from which it can be woken up nearly instantly with some stimulus, such as a keystroke or mouse movement (much like a screensaver) but the state requires a continuous power source.  The power required is quite small compared to normal running, but it can eventually deplete the battery (or crash hard if the power is lost in the case of a desktop).
  • "Hibernate" actually dumps everything in memory to disk and turns off the computer, then upon restarting it reloads the saved memory and basically is back to where it was.  While hibernating, no power source is required.  It can't wake up quickly (it takes about as long as a normal bootup), but when it does wake up, (almost) everything is just the way you left it.  One caveat about networking is in order here:  Stateful connections (eg. ssh logins) are not likely to survive a hibernation mode (though you may be able to enable such a feature if you control both the client and server configurations), but most web browsing activity and email clients, which don't maintain an active connection, can happily resume where they left off.

Imagine:  the lightning is starting, and you've got 50 windows open on your desktop that would take an hour to restore from scratch.  You want to hibernate now!  Here's how to enable hibernating if it isn't showing up in the shutdown box: 
Open the Control Panels and open "Power Options".  Go to the "Hibernate" tab and make sure the the box to enable Hibernation is checked.  When you hit "Turn Off Computer" in the Start menu, if you still only see a Standby button, then try holding down a Shift key -- the Standby button should change to a Hibernate button.  Obvious, huh?

For the curious:
There are actually six (or seven depending on what you call "official") ACPI power states, but most motherboards/BIOSes only support a subset of these.  To learn more, try Googling "acpi power state", or you can start here as long as this link works.  (Note there is an error in the main post -- the S5 state is actually "Shutdown" in Microsoft's terminology). 
From the command line, you can play around with these things with such straightforward commands as: 

%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 1

Even more obvious, right?  If you like that, then try this on for size.

TIP: My new computer is broken!:

It's almost certainly true - your new computer is faulty and the manufacturer knows it!  Unfortunately, that's just a fact of life.  Straight out of the box, or after acquiring a used PC, you might just want to have a peek at the vendor's website for various updates that have been released.  BIOS updates for the motherboard are a good place to start, as they tend to fix all sorts of niggling problems.  Firmware updates for other components are common as are driver updates and software patches for pre-installed software.  I've solved a number of problems applying these types of updates, though it can take hours to go through them thoroughly and most of the updates have no noticeable effect.  And it is dangerous at times.  One anecdote to share here -- we had a common wireless PC Card adapter that was well supported in both Windows and Linux.  The vendor provided an updated firmware for the card, installed under Windows.  But it turned out that the Linux drivers wouldn't work with the updated firmware.  So back we went to reinstall a less new firmware.  You'll want to try to be intelligent and discerning in your choices.  Dell for instance does a decent job with this (your Dell Service Tag is one very useful key here), but still requires a lot from the updater to help ensure things go smoothly.  This of course is in addition to OS updates that are so vital to security and discussed elsewhere.