Webtop - an impressive remote access tool

 I've been looking for a while for something that allows me to remotely access my home systems. I can't use a VPN, or RDS to connect back to my systems, so it had to be something useful via a web interface. Finding an option that allows for a Remote Desktop in a web interface isn't easy. I tried a few different options and had very little success, which was annoying and required quite some time to get things to work. Until I stumbled on webtop! You can find it here: https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-webtop/ and it's worth having a look at.

I'm running it in docker, and I used this https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-webtop to set it up. The process is relatively straightforward and I'm running it in a Linux container. I've found with my server that 4vCPUs, 6GB of RAM and a 30GB disk have proven adequate for my daily computing needs via the webtop system.

It's an immutable file system, so any changes you make will be rolled back on restarting it. Instead, to add more software, you must use the Proot method - this makes the software stick. My needs are relatively simple, so I've installed Obsidian and a different browser. It wall works very acceptably, is fairly quick and usable. I also use the built in Office system LibreOffice for spreadsheets and files. The Documents/Downloads etc folders are not immutable and these retain your changes which is handy. I've had it manage some very sizeable spreadsheet files and it was fine to use. 

One of the great things about using Webtop is having a foothold outside of the office, so if I'm doing pen testing, or vulnerability scanning I can do it from outside the production network and see what I can find. It also allows me to access different websites than what I can see in the office. For example, if we have a class of websites blocked, like AI ones, but I'd like to read about Claude Mythos I can't at work, no matter how important it is for actual work. So I can use webtop to do that research without waiting until I get home. 

It's handy also, because you can drag stuff to the webtop page and upload it into your desktop or file system. As an exfiltration system it could be very good, so I made sure our DLP was up to the challenge - and it proved an interesting test system to verify that the DLP rules were working and firing when they were supposed to. 

I haven't go screenshots for you to see - instead go and check out the developer's site and spin it up in a docker container. It won't take long and the outcome is a great tool for work and play. 

Review: Lenovo Legion 5i Gaming Laptop

 I picked up a Legion 5i at Officeworks on special before the end of the financial year here in Australia, and now that I've messed around with it for three months, I wanted to write something nice. Yes, nice - it's been a really lovely laptop to use. First of all it looks like this:

And my model has the following specs:

• 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13650HX (2.60GHz) - 14 cores!
• 16GB of RAM
• 500GB SSD
• NVidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU

It cost me about $1300 AUD - it was marked down from $1800 and then had a further 5% reduction because it had been returned - the purchaser quote "didn't like the operating system", because there are a lot of preinstalled options to Windows 11 these days. At any rate, I picked it up for a song - potentially because it's a previous model - but who cares? It's got a 16" screen that supports 2560x1600 and it's really lovely to behold. The backlit keyboard with it's cascading light show is a nice touch too. 

From a use case perspective, I've been using this laptop for gaming, regular work stuff, a bit of Ollama AI work and movies. I've played Baldur's Gate 3 and Fortnite on it most extensively and mostly used the Mistral model when using local AI. The games have been snappy and great, with lots of effects on and no real slowness which has been nice, and the AI has worked fairly quickly. The limitations of what you can do on an RTX4050 with 6GB of RAM are well known. It's nice to have a machine that can actually drive the thing though and I've had some real fun. It's important to note that like most Lenovo laptops, the keyboard is great to use for extended typing - and with extra little bumps on important keys (not just your home keys, but also the home keys for gaming) it's been pleasant to use - far more so than the Dell I use for work, which has an overly soft key press and much poorer tactile response. 

The newer versions have i9 processors and a better GPU but appear to have much the same form and appearance. I'm very happy with it - the Windows 11 install doesn't have too much bloat so that's a good thing, and the Lenovo update system works pretty well as usual. Altogether I can recommend this laptop - it you want a nice mid-range gaming machine, or a big solid work laptop that can give you pretty much a desktop replacement with it's big monitor. Although I purchased it as a tax deduction and I've used it for a *lot* of work related activities (particularly stuffing around with locally hosted AI), I've been pleased with it's gaming capabilities too - perfect for the lad and I to get into a bit of FPS action. 

elementary OS 5.1 Hera - a review and a revisit

 It's been ages since I used a desktop Linux distribution - being up to my ears in the horror of implementing ISO 27001 doesn't leave you much time to play around with computers - too busy writing policies, auditing and generally trying to improve security to a formally acceptable and risk managed level. I need a quick, small OS though to do the occasional network scan, view the contents of a dodgy file on and for general, low impact activities. I remembered reviewing elementary OS ( elementary.io) some time ago ( see https://www.ryv.id.au/2015/01/elementary-os-review.html ) from 2015 so I thought it was worth a revisit. 

I downloaded the ISO from their website, forgoing to donation for the moment while I review it. If it turns out I'm going to keep using it, I'll send them some love. The ISO is 1.38GB in size and I booted it in a VMware Player instance. From go to whoa (I won't include the install photos here) it took about 10 minutes with a dual vCPU and 4GB of RAM instance on my HP ProBook. It's really a lovely looking distribution, and within a few minutes of being logged in, it asked to install updates and identified the virtual OS package to be installed as well. After this, the screen re-size worked nicely and the thing picked up some speed as the virtualisation became more optimised. So what does it look like?

A nice clean desktop experience to begin with. Status bar up the top, menu down the bottom. The icons and images are rendered beautifully and the whole thing has a polished finished to the graphics. It reminds me of the Apple's attention to detail.

The Application menu expanded out. Not much in there yet, just the basics so far.

System settings are neatly laid out and everything is easy to find.

This is a nice touch - I'm very used to have fl.ux running on my machines and having a built in night light is great. Note the icons - neat and elegant.

Finally, the browser on the desktop. elementary OS uses grouped apps - curated and non-curated. Curated apps have: "Each has been reviewed and curated by elementary to ensure a native, privacy-respecting, and secure experience."

I have yet to ascertain the veracity of these claims, however, so stay tuned while I play with this thing a bit more. That being said, the AppCentre looks really good:

Pretty! When you install non-curated apps it throws up some warnings thusly:

Good to know these things going forward. There is quite a breadth of curated applications so generally I'll stick with them. 

There are dollar amounts next to some of the apps in the AppCentre - some of them are pay-what-you-want which is a great concept. I like to try stuff out before I invest and this works for me. Once I like a product I tend to spend on it - particularly to help people continue development.

From a performance perspective I'm pretty happy so far. Everything goes quickly, apps launch in a timely manner and it puts very little strain on the system. The Chrome tab I'm typing this in now is using more RAM and CPU than the Elementary OS virtual machine is, and I have the AppCentre, web browser and applications tabs all open while I take screenshots and mess about. It's billed as a system to re-invigorate old hardware (something I enjoy doing) and it's clear that the demand on resources has been managed well. Unlike Windows 10 for example.

The final word is this: download it and try it out. You've got nothing to lose and it really is a lovely looking OS that is quick and fully functional. I take my hat off to the team there and look forward to their future work.

A month with the 2017 MacBook Pro

I reviewed the new MacBooks awhile ago and I wasn't all that impressed by them, in particular I was critical of the keyboard and the trackpad. Over the last month, however, I've been using one full time and I've come to accept the keyboard and even enjoy using the big, super sensitive and useful trackpad. So here's what we're talking about:

Latest version of macOS, and a pretty solid machine spec to boot. I have to say the Retina display is really nice. I can happily look at it all day without any eye strain issues or headaches as a result. The machine itself is a silver 13" MacBook, no touch bar or any of that silliness and was around $2000, plus accessories. I managed to get a USB-C adaptor with HDMI, USB3 and USB-C charging and access ports for this laptop. It's pretty cool actually but I do have to plug it into the computer and then reboot it to get the HDMI to work. This gives me essentially a dock to use, with my Time Machine backup drive, USB to ethernet adaptor (our Wi-Fi can be sketchy) and a USB-3 hub to give me some extra ports. Having 2 USB-C and the headphone port only has been a challenge to work with. I have so many adaptors that aren't compatible anymore! AAARGH!

All the specs can be found here: https://www.apple.com/au/macbook-pro/specs/ as well as details of the machine itself.

Currently I'm using several laptops for various purposes - my beloved Lenovo T430, a Lenovo E560 (for development purposes) and a HP "Sleekbook". They are running Windows 7, Windows 10 and Linux Mint respectively and give me a pretty good comparison across all devices. The MacBook Pro is better than all of them.

Firstly, macOS is great. I love it - all the power of the *nix operating systems, with a polished desktop well supported by quality apps. Mint is great, and the polish gets better and better, but macOS still has a solid lead on it. Especially with Time Machine - I love this for backups. It's really tremendous in that respect. Windows 7 and 10 are just... well Windows operating systems. I've come to appreciate Windows 10 for some of its features, but it's still able to piss me off with it's restarts at inopportune times and various other behaviours that shits me. Additionally, I hate not having a native terminal to manage my Linux servers with. You may not experience this, but I surely do.

The keyboard, while not the best in class, does have backlit illumination that just works. Neither of the Lenovo's does this (the T430 has the top mounted light which has been handy) and the Sleekbook works most of the time... but the Mac works every time. As soon as I touch the keyboard, on come the lights. I love it. Just perfect. Not as good to type on as the Lenovo's though. When it comes time to write a million word thesis, I'll be reaching for those machines that's for sure, but for day to day work (including writing the occasional several thousand word report) the MacBook will do the job.

Monitor is clearly the best on the MacBook. Second is the Sleekbook, then the E560 and finally the T430. The Retina display is lovely to behold and has such rich colours... ah it's very nice indeed.

Specs are good, but really - an i7 or an i5 is going to give me the same results for the stuff I'm doing. No hardcore processing work, no games (I have an Xbox for that) and relatively few heavy work loads on any machine. 8GB of RAM is a minimum spec for me now - that's a requirement for operation I think. The E560 has 16GB and I managed to get an extra 500GB SSD into it too, but it's a much bigger beastie than these other little machines.

I've adapted to using Outlook 2019 for Mac and flit between that, Apple Mail and Calendar. I like having the separate app for Calendar open on another screen to keep abreast of what's coming up.

Overall it's been a positive experience - especially with the integration between my MacBook, iPad and iPhone. Everything ties together so neatly and I'm now trapped.... doomed to be stuck in the Apple ecosphere. I don't really hate it though - there is a lot to like and I can always use another laptop if I feel the need to bust out of my comfort zone. Traveling with the MacBook has been good to - it's light and easy to maneuver with tonnes of battery life and good sound (for movies in the hotel room). Well worth a purchase if you like Mac and can drive macOS with some degree of confidence. Make sure you buy the adaptor (I think mentioned in a previous post) to really get the most of this great little machine.

Review: Linux Mint 19 "Tara"

Since I changed jobs and no longer use my big Linux box day to day, it's been harder to find the time to work with Linux, and in particular Mint. I love Mint and I've been delighted to use it for many years now. When I took my work PC home, and fired it up I was poignantly reminded how much I enjoyed working in the Linux desktop world and how I'd missed it. Windows 10 just doesn't compare and even Mac OS X (while very good) still lacked a certain something.

I've been using Mint 18 for some time and enjoyed it, so when I finally caught up to checking out "Tara" I was very interested to see what the go is. Here is the link to the release blog post about it: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3597 It's a Long Term release (LTS) so it'll be good until 2023. I've found Mint to be updated and looked after for the full term of their LTS releases - something to commend the team on. Now, what to run the test install on?

I managed to get my hands on a 4 year old HP ENVY TouchSmart Ultrabook (or "Sleekbook" 14-k124tx is the model) for this review. It's stats are fairly impressive for an older machine: Intel Core i7-4500U, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD drive. It has a touch screen, and dual video adaptors (low power Intel and nVidia for the good times), and multi touch mouse pad. This one had a dodgy Windows 7 install on it that kept blue screening, even with a fresh install of Windows 7. I've been running Mint as my primary workstation on it for several days now with nary a worry.

Into the review then:

I booted into the LiveUSB version of Mint for a quick poke around. Everything looked the goods so I chose "Install".

The installation of Mint was flawless - it identified the UEFI nature of the boot system, and asked if I wanted to change it around, or was I happy to blow away the previous install and just go with Mint. I let it get rid of Windows and move through the familiar installation process taking the default options for everything. I like how it is specific about the encryption option for the disk leading to a more secure install.

First boot was not long after and very fast - particularly on this rather lean little machine.

The initial impression was that the presentation of the desktop environment was polished and had the usual, rather plain theme applied. I'm more than happy with this though as I find too much flash gets in the way of doing what I need to. The new crop of desktop backgrounds are lovely - lots of colour and sharp imagery to enjoy. It was very fast too - launching Firefox took mere moments and everything was quick.

I was delighted to see the operating system ask me if I wanted to set up backups when I first tried to run Mint Update. This is a very clever idea and uses a built in wizard to run the flamboyantly named "Backup Tool". Not only will this use rsync to back up one's files, but it will also backup your software selection (and restore both groups of files as required). Given this computer is a test bed and I expect to mess around with it a fair bit, I didn't bother setting it up. The initial update was smooth and a quick reboot got me back into a fully patched machine.

Uh oh though - no wireless! Aargh! This machine has some fairly specialised hardware and requires some third party apps. I've found this to be hit and miss at times in the past, but found it to be no real issue here:

In the background you can see one of the superb "Tara" backgrounds. Everything works now - WiFi and the nVidia drivers as well. I'm not sure if there really is a boost in the graphics as I'm only doing desktop stuff on it (and even then mostly web based activities) so check out a gamer's review for that sort of thing.

Another quick reboot (now up to 3) and good to go. Installed Chromium, nmap and a few other bits and bobs and all good. Mint is effortless to manage apps with - much like Debian and Ubuntu and this is a big part of the reason I like it.

The install base wasn't huge either. On a laptop like this, where a Windows 10 install can smash a 128GB disk in no time, the disk usage looks like this:

You can see that it's only 11GB for the whole install, and applications (and also my imaginative naming scheme for computers!).

With regards to usability and stability - Mint offers the usual round of suspects for desktop productivity - LibreOffice, VLC, Transmission, Firefox and the like. In the last few days of using Mint on this machine, there have been zero issues, no failures, no stoppages. This is on a machine recently removed from our fleet for stability problems! It wouldn't make a day without a BSOD on a fresh Windows install. Pretty good!

Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm not big on fancy pictures and stuff, just the meat of my thoughts and for what its worth - Mint is great. I was very happy with 18 and it's variants, and thus far, I'm very pleased with 19. For older computers, for computers kids will touch or for people willing to try something new, it is my choice for a Windows or Apple alternative. In fact, even if you're a power Windows user, it might be worth putting the ISO onto a USB and Live booting it for fun and seeing what it can do. Over a USB3 connection and a USB3 thumb drive it's very usable. The install from there is fast and simple.

*** Update to this post:

I've since upgraded my home PC to Mint 19. The desktop PC experience is every bit as good as the laptop experience and the straightforward in place upgrade from 18 to 19 was easy. There is a lot to love about this install from a user perspective. Get around it!

osTicket - updated review

Some time ago I published a comparison of OTRS and osTicket. I've now had the chance to use osTicket as a daily task management tool, so I thought it might be worth updating my initial impressions.

It has taken a bit to get used to osTicket coming out of a CRM and OTRS as my task management platforms. Specifically, understanding how tickets and tasks relate to one another. The way I've been thinking of it is this:

A ticket is almost like a mini-project - it can be used standalone, with references back to a client creating the ticket and keeping it updated, with tasks (like a work breakdown structure) applied against the ticket. The ticket can't be closed until all the tasks are completed.

Tasks on the other hand, can be autonomous of a ticket and are quick and easy to start, fill in and then to close. There is no link back to a creating user though.

I've used both extensively - many of the tickets I have running have numerous tasks dependent on them (although it is a mutual dependency) and I can farm tasks out to different people to get the job done. In fact, within the work I'm doing now, I've been using OpenProject (which I'll make some notes on soon) to manage the top level project stuff, then breaking the project down into tickets and tasks within osTicket to keep on top of the whole process. It's working pretty well. The project review meetings look at both products and bring it together.

OpenProject isn't great at task management - rudimentary at best, but is great at the higher level project management activities. osTicket isn't good at bigger project work, but handles the lower level complexity very well.

It's important to note too that I have had to migrate osTicket from a XenServer VM to an Azure VM. I simply ran an SQLdump of the whole database and a backup of the install folder (/var/www/html/osticket), set up a brand new osTicket installation, then copied the data I'd backed up across. Restarted the webserver and away we went. I'd like to also point out that I love Let's Encrypt for providing SSL certificates to secure it all.

osTicket reporting is something to be investigated further - the dashboard isn't bad and satisfies my manager that work is getting done, but I'd like to extend it a bit further. Capturing time on tickets is another requirement I need to investigate. These are relatively minor in the current application of this software though and I'm quite pleased by it.

I installed and configured osTicket based on the walk through here:
http://idroot.net/linux/install-osticket-ubuntu-16-04-lts/

It's well worth a look through and I used Digital Ocean's method of applying Let's Encrypt to make it all work as advertised. You can find that link here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-apache-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-16-04 

Viva la Open Source! A huge shout out to the devs behind these wonderful products and these wonderful walk through pages. We're looking at getting enterprise support for both osTicket and OpenProject to support both. Check them out as alternatives to a paid ticket system and Microsoft Project (and save yourself some real coin!)

Find osTicket here: http://osticket.com/
Find OpenProject here: https://www.openproject.org/

Lenovo T430 - a dynamite laptop with an attractive price tag

My go to laptop of the last 6 months has been this little beauty. I picked it up cheap and while she ain't much to look at:

The T430 - image from: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t430/

it's a ripper of a machine. Now I paid under $250AUD for this off a friend. The Windows install was stuffed and needed a full rebuild. Pretty easy right - 2 hours for install and then wait for patches - but she wasn't having a bar of it and bought a shiny, but shite new laptop. And I ended up with a terrific spare laptop that quickly became my number one machine.

The specs of this beast:

• 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3520M (2.90 GHz, 4MB L3, 1600MHz FSB)
• 256 GB OPAL SSD
• 8GB RAM
• 14.0” HD (1366 x 768) (200 NITS) - look at those NITS!
• 2.166kg

  I get about 6 hours out of the battery - and this is mostly running the machine flat out. It has a nice bright screen, isn't very heavy and is very robust. The shining feature of this laptop is the keyboard.

The keyboard in all it's awesomeness. Image from: https://kelsusit.com/lenovo-thinkpad-t430s-core-i7-refurbished-laptop/

Lenovo have really done a great job keeping such nice keyboards on their laptops. This one in particular is great to use - a joy in fact. I recently typed a 3000+ word essay on it for Uni and appreciated how good the keyboard was consistently during the process. Compared to the brand new Apple laptop I've written about previously - laptops that are now having huge complaints about the keyboards - this one is great. And Lenovo have kept this quality with other laptops of theirs I've had the opportunity to play with - for example, the E570 and the X1 Carbon. I've actually got a review on the brand new Gen6 X1 to write up - keep an eye out for it.

The reason I write this is to promote the idea that older technology need not be obsolescent. A machine like the T430 is honestly a powerhouse - it smashes desktop work, has a nice sit-in dock available for it, USB3 ports, SSD disk as a standard option and has a very readable and usable screen. I managed to watch 3 episodes of Altered Carbon on it without the battery dying on me. Even better it has an Ethernet port, DVD writer and a top lit keyboard - there is a little LED light in the top of the monitor. Very handy for night work, or working in a roof - which I have done. As a rugged laptop it's great - apparently it's been tested to Milspec, but has shown to me to be resistant to falls (oops!), dust, heat and cold - 40C to 0.5C.

These laptops are available on eBay in price ranges between $100 and $400. Keep an eye out and you might grab a bargain!

Samsung Gear Fit vs Apple Watch 2 - a review and comparison

Recently I was given an Apple Watch 2 - it's very nice and I've replaced my Samsung Gear Fit with it. After wearing the Watch for a week, there have been a few tangible differences between the two I thought it might be worth noting. If you're unfamiliar with the devices they look like this:

These images are the same as the devices that I have. The physical differences are obvious - the Apple Watch is significantly bigger, with the more square face. Both have OLED displays which make for bright, colourful GUIs. Both are touch screen and both share a variety of internal sensors like heart rate and accelerometer. The Gear Fit is lighter, narrower and for what I've used it for - holds a longer charge than the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch has many more sensors - including GPS/GLONASS and WiFi, checks your heart rate with great frequency daily and keeps telling me to "Breathe"! (this gets a bit annoying after a while)

Here are a few of the summary differences I've found in the last week (and please bear in mind I wore the Gear Fit for 2 years before replacing it).

• The sleep function on the Gear Fit is much better than the Apple Watch - you have to get a 3rd party app for the Watch which I found annoying. It's built into the Gear Fit, mutes and blocks the device and gives you some nice reporting via the Samsung Health app. Also, access to the sleep function I found is better - put the Fit into sleep mode and it's ready to track your sleep, then give you a report in the morning when you turn it off. The Apple Watch - using the AutoSleep app, alleges that it can work out when you go to sleep and then when you get up via some sort of magic I assume. I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of the sleep reporting (which is irritating in and of itself).
• The Watch hasn't locked up yet but the Gear Fit has twice in the last week. This is a full reboot, and lose all of your sleep data - something that happens with semi frequency on the Fit and is quite annoying.
• Notifications are roughly the same through both - configurable and fairly useful. The ability to send detailed replies with the "Scribe" function (you use your finger to write each letter) on the Apple Watch is pretty neat - I've used that several times.
• Both watches can answer the phone, or more likely - divert to message or voicemail. The Apple Watch you can actually talk into the watch and I've been on the receiving end of that a couple of times. It wasn't bad really, but I think you'd feel like a dill talking into your watch like Get Smart rather than use the phone.
• the summary from the Samsung Fitness software is much better than what Apple Health provides (at least for me). I find the sleep data and the way its presented to be significantly better than the Apple information. The Samsung software tells you how often you got to bed on time, and how often you got up on time. I like that. It provides a small sense of accomplishment just for getting my lazy backside out of bed in time.

As a bit of an update to this review - it's been an extra week of using the Apple Watch and I'm still unimpressed by the sleep thing. I have set aside some time to look into this in greater depth because I feel it's so lacking. Keep an eye here for some more info. The alarm feature on the Apple Watch has been pretty good. The vibration on the wrist isn't startling to wake up to, and it doesn't disturb my wife (which she is happy about). 

In summary both of them are really quite good devices. They lock you into their respective ecosystems (Samsung vs Apple) and this is to be expected, potentially not loved though. For purpose, I think the Gear Fit was better for tracking sleep, better battery life and a robust device. The Apple Watch's aesthetics are lovely, it has a tonne of functionality and I've barely scratched the surface of it. I'll go into it more as I play with this thing a bit. It's easy to see where the extra value in the Apple Watch is.

Mint 18.2 Review

Linux Mint 18.2 in the wild!

I’ve just upgraded to Mint 18.2 from 18.1 being the (sort of) early adopter that I am. Realistically there was no good reason to do this - 18.1 was running well and doing everything I need, except to get any new bits and pieces that come with .2. There are some nice new desktop pics (quite beautiful ones actually), but not much I can see that is really different. It's still running Cinnamon, so there haven't been any gigantic changes in the UI in a while. I’m running it on a Lenovo M series desktop that I’ve had for some years and it’s a beast of a machine so any performance upticks in the new version aren’t really noticeable. Here are the release notes : http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3289 and they're worth a quick perusal.

I did find that my desktop icons all disappeared. As a result I experienced sadness :-(

Fortunately I found the solution. The nemo-desktop application is no longer running. I found it (/usr/bin/nemo.desktop), ran it and voila - icons are back! I’ve added it to the startup applications and that fixes that.

I really enjoy the ease of the upgrade process - it’s fast and straightforward using the excellent Mint Update Manager. The download was around 400MB but the mirrors are all quick and it was quite painless. A fast reboot and I was back in business. I also took the opportunity to upgrade the Nvidia drivers I have (for my whiz bang graphics adaptor) and after another restart I was done. As a result, my primary work computer was fully upgraded and operational in about 20 minutes - much better than the Windows 10 computers I've just got that need a 4GB upgrade out of the box (!)

Mint 18.2 “Sonya” new stuff:

• LTS release so supported until 2021
• Cinnamon 3.4 apparently has many new icon management features (I’ll have to try this out now I’ve got icons back!)
• Plugins for Cinnamon run in their own process
• Add-ons called “spices” have been added - check them out on the Cinnamon Spices website here: https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/
• Various app upgrades including xed, update manager, xviewer, xreader and LightDM - the new login manager.
• Ships with Linux Kernel 4.8.0-53

Get it via Update Manager or from the Linux Mint website: https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Netgear D6300 Review

After my poor little TPlink Router bit the dust with a recent power fluctuation I was keen to get something with a solid WiFi capability. The TPlink router I was using didn't have the greatest coverage around the house, and certainly not outside the house, and with the recent installation of a Chromecast I was keen to find something with a bit more zing. Also, due to my dodgy cabling set up, I have half my machines on one side of the house, and the other half on the other side. The cabling between the two goes through the router and I wanted a gigabit link between the two halves.

So a router with 5GHz wireless and gigabit networking? My local nerd supplier handed over the $399 Netgear D6300 and told me it was the best he had. He noted my sceptical look, but assured me that it was good to go. OK I'll have a crack at it and see how it goes.

It took about 45 minutes to configure it - I've got a fairly complex network with a lot of crap all over the place, all sorts of forwards and Dynamic DNS configured. I also have a large number of static DHCP entries - nightmare. Once I got it all across, plugged in and set up and away we went. I quite like the Netgear method of showing what's happening on the network. That's one of the very few things I do like about this router.

Here are the other things:

• the wireless is good
• throughput on the gigabit network is very high, so that's good
• Dynamic DNS works out of the box and has some nice reporting
• it's not a bad looking bit of gear:

OK so here are the things that suck about this router:

• the interface is slow. I tested it under:
• Safari
• Chrome
• IE
• and it was pish under all of them. Slow to refresh and slow to respond.
• update stopped part way through and I had to restart it - thought I'd bricked the thing
• updates to DHCP require a reboot of the damn router! What the hell?! All I'm doing is changing a MAC address or an IP and the whole thing has to reboot to update it. This makes me very unhappy and annoyed.
• it wouldn't initially talk to one side of the network - I ended up having to install a gigabit switch to get the thing to work properly. This isn't optimal, although it does take the network link between the network sides away from the router for when it restarts every time I perform a basic function. 

All in all, for the price, I'm a bit ambivalent towards the D6300. My dirty old TPlink, with no frills, worked pretty well and I wasn't hating on it too much when it died. Now that it is gone, this Netgear has a bit to do before I'm impressed. We will see how it goes over time, however I wouldn't rush out to buy this one.

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS First Impressions

Another polished release - Xenial Xerus (at least I hope it’s polished!)

I’m using it for a test WordPress system at the moment so I’ve been concerned mostly with that. PHP5 is gone, replaced by PHP7. The main issue with this is no more SSH2 PHP7 extension! It makes installing new themes or plugins, or updating them tricky in WordPress as it relies on this. I’ve had to default back to using vsftpd but even that is crashing at this time. To work around that, add:

define(‘FS_METHOD’, ‘direct’);

into wp-config.php

See https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-with-lemp-on-ubuntu-16-04 for a great walk through on this - in fact, check out Digital Ocean - they have some excellent stuff on there, including these tutorials. If you're like me and would love to delve into the intricacies of nginx or some other equally complex bit of software but don't have the time, Digital Ocean give you a way to get things up and going with very little in the way of issues. Nicely typeset and well laid out tutorials - thanks a million guys! (I am in no way affiliated, merely a fan).

I performed the install inside a VMware Player and it was as usual quite fast. Updated hostname and /etc/interfaces/network to sort out IP addresses and the like and off I went. Install of WordPress was straightforward and the set up was reasonably quick - a mite quicker I might say than the one on 14.04LTS that I performed last week. PHP7 seems more responsive and I played around with both my VMs to see if there was much difference - installing the same theme into both to see what the speed impact might be. PHP7 was marginally quicker, although I wouldn't suggest it was statistically significantly quicker.

I noticed that updates using apt-get had a much shorted list of archives being hit which was interesting. In the past it seems there was an ever increasing number of new archives being added until the sources.list ends up a mile long. So quicker updates, presumably more efficient is always a good thing. I have no idea what the desktop interface looks like - probably more of the same of that Ubuntu look (which I personally am not in love with - give me Mint's any day).

Much more of my time was spent using this VM to try and get a dirty website going - I am no webdev and I really don't like doing it. Sadly, sometimes you have to so I will continue plugging away at it tomorrow. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS though - looks like it's the goods. Get on it and see how if it does the job for you!

Lenovo L540 Review

The Lenovo L540 is a workhorse laptop for around the $1000 mark. These are i5 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, 15.6" machines. I purchased 4 for a client (as you can see) and in the back right of the picture you can see one is experiencing sadness. These are quite nice notebooks for a no-nonsense work machine. The screen is clear and readable, and I especially like the keyboard - the keys have a wonderful return and solid feel to them - far better than my Dell notebook. I find the touchpad to be clunky though - the movement of the click isn't refined and the travel seems quite large.

Interestingly, these machines all came with Windows 7 Pro pre-installed - a preferred option for our business clients unwilling to make the jump to Windows 10. We are certainly not foisting Windows 8 off onto people we like - ti's an awful operating system that needs to die as quickly and quietly as Vista did. These run Windows 7 quite happily and once Symantec and a lot of the other Lenovo bloatware is removed the operating system is quite happy - except for the machine there at the back. Something went wrong when installing patches and I ended up having to restore it from scratch. It was a bit of a head scratcher, but the recovery process was surprisingly quick and painless. The tendency for Windows 7 to take ages to first do patches was fixed with a Microsoft Hot Fix - and I think this is what splattered it last time. It only takes something small and the day goes south quickly.

I also purchased docking stations for these laptops, proper drop in docking stations. The mechanisms are easy to use and lock in quite happily. The end users seem to really like them, and they are not technical at all, so I call them a winner. 

All other activities - installing of Office etc were handled quite promptly and it all worked well. These are a solid, unassuming notebook and I recommend them for end users who are looking for a machine with a simple basic function required. That being said, I'd happily use one of these in my day to day work. Lots of capabilities there indeed. It should be noted that while I sell Lenovo stuff, they (sadly) don't pay me to advertise their gear. I've been a fan for a while - the solid construction, great keyboards and relatively functional software (apart from that little issue with spyware a while ago) is really worth considering.

This is ripped from the Lenovo website: Lenovo L540 Tech Specs

ThinkPad L540 LaptopTech Specs

DESCRIPTION	THINKPAD L540 LAPTOP
Processor	Intel® Core™ i3-4000M Processor (3M Cache, 2.40 GHz)1 Intel Core i5-4210M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.20 GHz) Intel Core i5-4300M Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz) Intel Core i7-4600M Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz)
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-bit Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Windows 7 Professional 64-bit preinstalled through downgrade rights in Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Display	15.6" HD (1366x768), anti-glare, 220 nits, 500:1 contrast ratio 15.6" FHD (1920x1080), anti-glare, 300 nits, 500:1 contrast ratio
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 4600 in processor, supports external analogue monitor via VGA and digital monitor via Mini DisplayPort; supports dual independent displays; max. resolution: 1920x1200@60Hz (VGA); 3840x2160@30Hz (DisplayPort via Mini DP cable)
Memory	16GB max (2 SO-DIMM slots), PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3, non-parity, dual-channel capable
Webcam	Integrated 720p HD Camera
Storage	500GB 7200 RPM 1TB 5400 RPM 128GB SSD SATA3
Optical Drive	DVD +/-RW MultiBurner
Dimensions (W X D X H)	HD: 377 x 247 x 28.8-34.05 mm  FHD: 377 x 247 x 31.0-36.25 mm
Weight	6-cell, HD: 2.54kg 6-cell, FHD: 2.60kg 9-cell, HD: 2.70kg 9-cell, FHD: 2.76kg
Battery	6-cell Li-Ion battery - 57+ (56Wh) 9-cell Li-Ion battery - 57++ (99.9Wh)
Battery life2	6-cell, Win7: up to 11 hours 6-cell, Win8: up to 7 hours 9-cell, Win7: up to 19 hours 9-cell, Win8: up to 12 hours
AC adaptor	65W
Keyboard	ThinkPad® Precision Keyboard with NumberPad
UltraNav™	TrackPoint® pointing device and 5-button Mylar surface touchpad
Fingerprint reader	Optional
Audio support	HD Audio, Realtek® ALC3232 codec, Dolby® Advanced Audio™ v2 / stereo speakers, 2W x 2 / dual array microphone, combo audio/mic jack
Wireless LAN	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 (2x2, 802.11ac/a/b/g/n) with Bluetooth® 4.0
Wireless WAN (optional)	Wireless WAN upgradable Ericsson N5321 Mobile Broadband HSPA+1 Sierra Wireless EM7355 (4G LTE/HSPA+/EVDO/GSM/GPRS/EDGE, GPS)
Ports	1 x USB 3.0 (AlwaysOn) 3 x USB 2.0 ExpressCard Smart Card reader (optional) Combo audio/microphone jack Ethernet (RJ45) 4-in-1 card reader (MMC, SD, SDHC, SDXC) Dock Connector VGA Mini DisplayPort Security keyhole