Recommended Authors – B.V. Larson

I have to admit something. I’m an organizing freak. I love putting stars and ratings on things i see/hear and do. I love ordering a bunch of files in the correct folders and I totally love all the tools for keeping track of those things.

One of those tools is the amazon website. When you create an account you have the ability to flag books as owned and rate them from 1 to 5 stars. I just love that! What’s even better is that rating those books has a consequence other than giving me a satisfied feeling. Recommendations are bases on these ratings. It’s because of those recommendations that I found the author B.V. Larson. An Indi writer publishing through Amazon.

I was surprised at how well his books were written. I started the Star Force series and the story is something fresh in the scifi genre to me. Swarm, the first book of Star Force series, I read in 24 hours. I could only lay it down to get some food and drinks, seldom has a story captivated me so much. I’m now reading extinction, book 2 of Star Force, and the author keeps adding new and fresh aspects to the story. I’m totally hooked.

I can’t wait to start on his fantasy novels. Check him out on amazon :

http://www.amazon.com/B.-V.-Larson/e/B003MESPVM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

And his personal webpage where he talks about online publishing as an indi writer.

http://bvlarson.com/

Don’t forget to leave feedback when you like a book on amazon, it’s the best way to support these indi writers so that they get noticed by a larger audience.

 

 

 

 

 

Experiences with ZOC replacing puttycm on MAC

ZOC is more powerfull than I thought. I never thought I would say this, But I think it’s even better than puttycm.

General

• The big advantage over puttycm is that SCP is built into the interface. You can upload and download files with ease without having to start filezilla or scp and open a new connection.

• The Directory that contains all the ssh sessions can be ordered by customer.

• autologin capability is there.
• Connections can be opened in new tab or new window. To get the same effect as puttycm we can open multiple windows next to eachother.
• exposé like display that shows all connections in 1 window to easily switch connections.
• You can scroll back in a connection in a seperate window. Big plus over putty ( no more jumping back down while output is streaming on the screen )
• You can search in the scroll back buffer !!
• Copy paste can be set the same as in putty ( select = copy, paste = right mouse button )
• Paste can automatically ignore the ending newline in the data so that commands aren’t accidentally executed immediately.
• Autoconnect allows you to start a conenction on a server that is rebooting. The program will auto reconenct every x seconds untill it is connected.

Profiles

• In each profile you can select colors, layout, X11 connections, keyboard setup, logging, Quickkeys, terminal setup ( cfr. putty )

• Each profile can get macros bound to a shortcut key or button.

The Negative

• Haven’t found a way yet to send a command to multiple windows or tabs at the same time

** UPDATE 17-06-2011 **

The nice people of emtec have explained me that sending commands to multiple tabs is possible. The tabs don’t even have to be visible ( in contrast to puttycm ). Just enable local typing. You’ll get a command line where you can select the option to send the command to multiple tabs :

 

 

 

Finding a replacement for PuttyCM on mac

 

I’m having some issues with puttycm in my vm, especially integration between mac en vm.

• puttycm window doesn’t jump to foreground when clicked, my desktop also doesn’t go to correct viewspace.
• Copy pasting from mac to puttycm fails suddenly, have to reboot to make it work again ( could be a Parallel tools problem )

On top of this, I’m still trying to get to a machine without windows vm running in the background. So the search for a replacement started. The keyfeatures i wanted in a replacement are :

• tabbed connections
• easily adjusted profiles for colors, layout, X11 options. ( cfr to putty profiles )
• Some kind of Connection library with folders for each customer.
• Able to send a command to all tabs or visible windows
• Able to logon automatically ( login macro in puttycm )

After a long search I finally found a program that atleast fits a lot of the requirements. Zoc. ( http://www.emtec.com/zoc/ ). 30 days evaluation and 80$ to buy. Not a cheap product but worth it if it does what i need. And it does. Try it out, you’ll see 😉

I’ll post my further experiences with it in this blogpost.

 

 

 

Moving from windows PC to mac

After 2 years of iPod, iPhone & iPad experience. I was ready for the MacBook experience when my employer decided I needed a new laptop. I selected a MacBook pro with

• 17” screen
• Anti-glare option
• 120GB SSD disk

A beautifull device, but can i work with it as Oracle DBA. Collegues in my team were sceptical about being able to find the right tools and predicted I’ll be using my Virtual machine more than the mac OSx. So for the naysayers, a small list of windows Programs with an alternate ( sometimes much better ) application in Mac OSx that I use in my day to day mac usage for work.

• Syncing documents with our main document library
  • win : viceversa pro
  • mac : goodsync

Not much difference between them. Both are doing their job.

• SQLplus 
  • win : Oracle client
  • mac : Oracle client

Yes, Oracle has a mac OSx client, althouth it’s only version 10.2.0.4

• GUI for SQlplus 
  • win : sqltools++
  • mac : sqldeveloper

Sqldeveloper is good, but it isn’ t sqltools++. I often grip back to my sqltools++ in my VM.

• Mails
  • win : outlook 2007
  • max : outlook 2011

Outlook 2011 is the first release on mac OSx and a succesfull one I must say. I must admit that I didn’t try out the standard Mail app.

• ssh management
  • win : putty connection manager
  • mac : putty connection manager in VM

One of the few tools I don’t find an alternative for. It’s true, you can ssh from the terminal in Mac OSx and even save sessions but the splitting of screens, sending 1 command to multiple windows, usage of colors, usage of login macro’s is either not possible or hard to do.

• ftp 
  • win : flashfxp + putty scp
  • mac : filezilla

Easy Switch. Filezilla even support sftp.

• remote desktop connection 
  
  • win : built in RDC
  • mac : CoRD

Taking over windows desktops is possible with the RDC installed with office. STAY away from that program. IT causes crashes f your mac OSx and sometimes just hangs. If you quit when its hnging, you’ll have to reboot your mac. RDC also has problems with language and special keys ( f.e. \ and @ ). While CoRD is working as it should 🙂

• Word, Excel, … 
  
  • win : office 2007
  • mac : office 2011

One of the big questions, in a windows work team, how is the document exchange done between win and mac. Can it open word docs, can windows open the mac docs?… With office 2011 this question is easily solved.

• VPN 
  • win : all work
  • mac : most of the vpn’s work surprisingly well.

This surprised me. About 80% of all my customers have a vpn that is either supported on mac OSx or they have a workaround to allow macusers to connect to their network. The mac awareness is growing alot in the work place it seems. For the few where it not works, I use my VM to conenct to their network. For these customers I have sqltools++ & Puttycm on my VM. ( although i often use them for other customers aswell as the network is shared between my main machine and my VM. )

• SVN
  
  • win: forgot name.
  • mac : SCplugin + SCtoolbarbutton

Nice expansion to finder, not much difference between win/mac.

List of new Applications

The following is a list of application I discovered on mac OSx and really make my work life much simpler. Although some exist on windows, I only found them on my search for apps.

• Quicksilver : Application Launcher. Really simplifies the delay of having to search the app and click it with a mouse.
• Dropbox : Syncs files between devices ( ipad, iphone, windows, … )
• Evernote : Note taking application that syncs between devices ( ipod, iphone, windows, … )
• Adium : MSN alternative
• Little Snitch : Firewall / network monitoring
• Mars Edit : App to work with blogs ( using it now 😉 )
• 1password pro : Password management and syncs between devices ( iPad, Iphone, .. )
• MarcoPolo : Easy switches networks and performs mounts, start of applications, stop of applications when it detects a different workplace.
• Parallels Desktop : VM. In coherence mode really easy to use next to all the mac apps.
• Time Machine : Comes with the mac OSx. Awesome backup/restore tool.

In the end I must say that I’m very happy with my switch to mac. It’s a whole different way of thinking and working. More intuitive although it takes some time to adjust if you worked on windows you’re whole life.