Purple/pink screen with HDMI-out on ASUS1215B with AMD E-350 APU

Yesterday I decided to hook up my ASUS 1215B Eee PC to my LED TV through HDMI to watch some videos. I’ve used my netbook a lot for this task and thus far without any issues (aside from not being able to play 1080p video properly, even though the AMD E-350 APU shouldn’t have too much trouble with this…). But last night the screen had a purple/pink tint to it. I noticed this earlier this week as well but it didn’t seem to be as bad as it was this time.

To be sure it wasn’t my HDMI cable that was causing it I swapped it with another one, but it still gave me a purple picture. After some digging around I found the advice to download new video card drivers from the AMD website, instead of using those provided by ASUS. So after downloading these and installing them I was able to watch my videos in their normal colors.

Solution: download latest drivers from the AMD website.

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Posted on March 21, 2013 by , Reply

Favorite programming font on Windows: Consolas 10pt bold

For years I’ve used Courier New in my programming editors and terminal (PuTTY). But there’s a much better font available for that kind of stuff. For the last couple of years I’ve been using Consolas, which is shipped with Windows. I’ve configured my editors and PuTTY to use Consolas 10pt bold as I find it by far the best readable font to use for programming. This font is just the right size at 10pt and setting it to bold gives it a very smooth look.

Here’s how Consolas 10pt bold looks in GVim on Windows 8:

consolas

Recently I’ve given some other fonts a try as well because in the showed examples it appears they make a nice programming font. Not too long ago the Adobe Source Code Pro font was released and looking at the screenshot at that page it looks really nice. So I decided to download and install it. But trying it in GVim didn’t gave a satisfying result. It doesn’t look too bad, but it isn’t as compact as Consolas is:

source code pro

When using Linux (Ubuntu) I always use Droid Sans Mono. But for some reason it looks really bad on Windows:

droid sans mono

As you can see Droid Sans Mono is even bigger and just doesn’t look right. I wonder why this is though I suspect it has to do with the font rendering on Windows. I’ve found font rendering on Linux a lot better and for what I’ve seen on Mac OSX as well, though I’ve recently heard a Mac user saying he found the font rendering on Linux even better.

And OK, the fonts don’t look that bad but imagine having to look at it all day when programming. All these examples have been set at 10pt bold and the extra space taken by both Adobe Source Code Pro and Droid Sans Mono is just bad in my opinion.

So far I haven’t found anything better than Consolas when it comes to a programming font on Windows. I’m not looking for a replacement of it but I’m always willing to try something new or different. My main disappointment I think comes with how bad Windows renders these fonts, because I know Droid Sans Mono looks good on Linux. If there’s any programming font that renders really well on Windows I’d really like to hear about it.

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Posted on March 3, 2013 by , 4 comments

Why more people aren’t using Ubuntu

If you’ve ever wondered why you’re the only Ubuntu user in your office, or in your group of friends, then you’re not alone. The free, powerful operating system, built on the Linux framework, is not only available to everyone for the sum total of zero anything, but is also adaptable, fast, and capable of satisfying even the most demanding user.

However, there are a number of issues which may put people off, or are why they simply don’t even know about Linux, let alone Ubuntu.

1) Market visibility

The problem with open source is that not only are you not Microsoft, and therefore the default operating system for almost every pre-built computer in the world whether the user is a handset engineer for o2 or a novelist, but you’re also not able to put out advertising or push Ubuntu into people’s awareness.

2) Linux’s “complex” reputation

Linux is known for being the least simple and straight-forward operating system out of Windows, Mac OSX and itself. Whether or not this is actually true is highly debatable. However, its reputation isn’t being changed by the legions who use it, and as it is rarely introduced into office environments for use by staff who aren’t working in the IT department, it seems like it could do with a bit of a jumpstart in the “it’s actually quite easy” department, given that it is no more complex than any other OS.

3) Accessibility

PC companies, I’m sure, would love nothing more than to lose money by offering Linux installs instead of Windows. Sarcasm aside, Ubuntu is something you’d search for, but not something you’d be presented with. The tech press needs to do a better job of opening people’s eyes to the potential of open source platforms, and users helping out can never be a bad thing either. After all, it’s free, easier on your hardware, and extremely capable, scaling with your IT skill level. What’s not to like?

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Posted on July 6, 2012 by , Comments off

Sharing my mouse and keyboard on multiple machines

Whenever I want to do some paid work I have to do this on my laptop. I have a nice (well, sometimes we argue) 17″ laptop with a screen resolution of 1440*900 which is fast enough to run all the software I need (although Vim does play up at times…). The reason I have to use my laptop for this is because it has a VPN client configured, network drive mappings and some other stuff related to my job.

I unfortunately only have 1 decent workplace at home to comfortably work at and it’s occupied by my desktop PC, its keyboard, mouse and a Full-HD 24″ monitor. Sure, I can get work done from the couch and there’s also a small table in the living room, but both aren’t really comfortable spots to work for a longer time. Besides, working at a Full-HD resolution gives me more space to work with than when I’m on a 1440*900 resolution. So my aim was to find a solution on how to share my mouse and keyboard on multiple machines.

Since my 24″ monitor had a spare HDMI input and my laptop has a HDMI output I wanted to connect my laptop to the 24″ monitor through HDMI. VGA and DVI weren’t an option for me since those were already occupied (VGA by my Xbox 360, DVI by my desktop PC). The added benefit from using HDMI would be having the sound from my laptop through the speakers of my 24″ monitor.

After searching for a couple of hours I couldn’t find any nice hardware solution. Sure, KVM cables with 2 USB connectors for your mouse and keyboard are available, but also come with VGA connections which, as far as I’ve been told, have to be used for it to function. Other dedicated hardware for sharing 1 USB device with 2 or 4 computers also exist, but meant I had to buy 2 of them.

Having wasted a couple of hours I finally gave up on it. A couple of days later I remembered a software solution existed as well. Within a couple of minutes on Google I found what I was searching for: a project called Synergy. Synergy is a very nice piece of software, which you can get for free, is open-source (GPL) and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

Basically you’ll install Synergy on all systems you want to use your keyboard and mouse on (yes, systems, it supports multiple systems!). You run a server instance on the system which has the keyboard and mouse connected you want to use. The other systems simply run a client instance. When connected you can move from one computer to the other by simply moving the mouse to the other computer. Added benefit is that if you copy something to your clipboard on PC 1 and move the mouse to PC 2 the clipboard its content is available on that system as well!

My only complaint with it is that the initial setup was a bit confusing. It does have a graphical user interface but if you’re not used to the software it’s hard to figure out how to configure it. Another more annoying issue I’ve run into was that at some time Synergy (or my OS) switched keyboard language which couldn’t be changed. Only solution for that was to reconnect the client.

Aside from that I’m very happy with this solution. I can now do my paid work behind my 24″ monitor using the keyboard and mouse that are connected to my desktop PC. So all I have to do now is connect my laptop to my monitor through HDMI, start the Synergy server and client and change the display input on my monitor to see my laptop’s desktop.

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Posted on July 30, 2011 by , Comments off

Console2

One feature of Windows 7 I like is the new taskbar. At work I’ve configured it to only show the icons and this works surprisingly well. I can easily have multiple command line shells open. However, that is work. At home I’m using Windows Vista and the grouping feature in Windows XP and Vista at the toolbar is something I always turn off, as it annoys me to no end.

But when I’m working on some Perl related stuff I usually have multiple consoles open. One for my Catalyst test server, one for Gearman and another one for my Gearman worker. As mentioned earlier having multiple consoles open is a major pain in the ass on Windows Vista (or XP). So I’ve taken a quick look on the internet and found this lovely open source project called Console2.

Console2 is a simple but powerful tool. It allows me to have multiple consoles open with tabular navigation. Which results in only 1 window open. Yay!

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Posted on November 27, 2010 by , Comments off
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