Windows Vista and IPv6

Well, after much investigating and after hours searching the HP webpage I´ve found the solution for my wireless weird problems. It seems that the internet protocol Ipv6 is not very well supported by Microsoft Windows Vista although it comes enabled by default. What a shame!!!. Many people are having weird problems with their wireless and internet connections. The nasty thing is that all seems perfectly ok, and well configured and figuring out that the cause is the Ipv6 protocol is not an easy task. Well, in the following link explains how to disable Ipv6 from your Windows Vista box. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg1005.mspx#ENAAC You can either disable it from your network connections or by editing the registry. I have had just one problem in a whole week by disabling the ipv6 from the network properties, so I decided to disable Ipv6 interely from my box by editing the registry. Hope I am not going to have problems anymore. This is in my opinion something to be taking into account.

I don’t know why Windows ships with Ipv6 enabled by default when this protocol is not yet very well implemented and not all the network devices support this protocol. If a wireless router, switch or whatever does not support this protocol and you have it enabled by default it can cause problems, such as lock ups, and the only solution is rebooting your box.

Before buying a new laptop, a Mac or a PC?

Before buying my new laptop, I had a nagging doubt. What should I buy, a Mac or a PC with Windows preinstalled?. Although being an horrifying doubt, I had something clear. I love coding in C Sharp (C#) and I love the tools provided to help you in your coding (IDEs). So, there was only one solution, buying a PC with Windows preinstalled. The developer tools in Windows are awesome and of very high quality. I’m not talking about the OS, I’m just talking about applications that run in one platform. C Sharp is provided in Linux by means of Mono, but it is not the same at the moment. I love Macs, their hardware and client applications are impressive and of very high quality as well, but if you are a developer you are better off with a Windows Os. I’m not a developer though, but I love coding for fun. It’s just a hobbby. I would buy a Mac if my only work with a PC was surfing the net, reading and writing emails, and doing some design stuff. Well, that’s my opinion and I hope it helps you to decide what kind of computer you need. Mac is superior to Windows, but think about the applications you need to enjoy your computer to the most.

My first SourceForge Project

My first software project has been accepted in SourceForge. Made with C# and Windows Forms, it is a world class file renamer under the Windows Operating System. It is very fast, and very easy to use with some interesting features. It can find and rename files under a folder matching a specific ending string very fast. Suitable for renaming digital photos. When you import your digital photos from your camera, your photos most probably will have random names. What about giving your photos some interesting name, such as london2005 when you first visited London in 2005 or anniversary2006 or whatever. You’ll have a clear idea of what those photos are about.

It is, obviously, OpenSource and Free Software released under the terms of the GPL license. The project website is hosted in SourceForge in http://justrename.sourceforge.net/ or in http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/justrename

Internet Explorer 7 vs Firefox 2.0

Again Firefox wins the battle against Internet Explorer. The main advantage of Internet explorer is that it is included as an update in the windows operating system and people who don’t care, will go on using this browser. Firefox wins, in my opinion, for being more customizable, and more advanced in terms of options and security. There are great add-ons for Firefox, and they make Firefox an unbeatable browser. People who didn’t know about Firefox are very happy that Internet Explorer has tabs, while we, Firefox users have been using them for ages. The battle will go on, for sure, but Firefox is and will be my preferred browser in both Linux and Windows.

Developing Applications in Microsoft and Linux

I am learning the c sharp programming language. It was invented by Microsoft and is included in the .net framework. Linux, by means of Miguel de Icaza, followed the trend and developed the Mono framework, a .net framework for Linux. Mono is available for all major platforms and in consequence is cross platform. You can develop mono apps in windows and they will run on Linux. That was the main reason why Ximian at the very beginning, and now Novell, developed the mono platform. I’m a big fan of Linux, but as time goes on and I learn the .net framework, I see that developing GUI apps for Linux is quite difficult, more than Windows. There are several reasons why a beginner like me think that way. There are plenty of books that talk about .Net and Windows Forms, and very few that talk about Mono and GTK# (the c sharp GUI Toolkit). Developing Windows Forms is very easy mainly because you have tons of documentation and GTK# is very, very hard, although very powerful, perhaps more than Windows Forms. Documentation is crucial when you are learning a new language, and Mono is behind .NET. Another crucial tool to learn a new language is having a debugger. There are no debuggers in Linux, and MonoDevelop does not provide one at the moment, so learning a new language without a debugger is horrible as you can’t see what’s going on behind the scenes. In Windows, on the other hand, we have SharpDevelop and Visual Studio, and they provide debuggers. Again, I’m a big fan of Linux, but if you are a .net developer, there’s nothing like developing apps for windows. GTK# should be easier to learn than Windows Forms.