As nice as NetworkManager is, if it doesn't work you might have some fun. This time I had the problem that my hostname was constantly set to localhost.localdomain. As my laptops name is tom, I wanted to have it this way. Adding the parameters to the /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf did not help. The solution to this problem is presented here: Just downgrade dbus from 1.2.3 to 1.2.1, restart dbus, upgrade dbus 1.2.3 again, restart dbus. done. Don't ask me why it works. I didn't have the time to dig into the problem. But this solves the problem. At least it did for me.

At my work everything is running on Microsoft. We are also using Exchange as an email server. At work, I could use Outlook and connect it to Exchange, if somebody would be able to fix my computer. But since I don't expect this to happen very soon, I got used to using the web interface. It is possible to use it in case you use the Internet Exploder as a webbrowser. Using any other browser is somehow a not so good idea. I use linux for my private computers, and thus have no IE. The webinterface does not even provide something like a search function. Or I did not find it. But since it is not that crowed the interface, I think I looked at every button. In case somebody knows how to search in the web interface, just leave my a comment.

One of the things you can try is running emerge --sync and emerge -uDavN world on the train. But i suggest to do this if you either take a long train ride or take the train on a regular basis. In any other case, you will probably never finish your 12mb download at an average speed of 3kb/s. At least if too many people share the gprs in the train. In the morning it works quite nicely with 15-20kb/s download. If case you take regular train rides in to morning, this is a good time to update your system.

Since I live around 140km away from were I work and travel that distance every day by train, I'm used to sit on the train one and half hours a day. But the last couple of days where just a bit too much of sitting on the train. From Sunday til now(Thursday) I've been spending 30h on the train (Kassel -> Ronneby, Ronneby -> Karlskrona, Karlskrona -> Ronneby, Ronneby -> Leinefelde, Leinefelde -> Kassel, Kassel -> Neubrandenburg)and I still have 30min to go until I reach Neubrandenburg. 6h on a avarage is just too much. Ok, I could have taken a different way to Ronneby from Kassel, but taking the train is just the easiest. For the rest of week, I guess it won't gett any better.

But next week I have to work again. So I won't have time to spend that much time on the train ;-)

After installing stuff for some time, I finally put my new thinkpad w500 into use. Still running vista buisness 64bit, but its ok. The hardware is pretty decent for the price of 1.5k€ (core2duo 2,26Ghz, 15.3" display at 1920x1200, a switchable graphics system(ati and onboard intel), 4gb ram, 160gb disc, an intel 5300 abgn wireless network card, ericson umts mobile card and a 9 cell battery).

The umts card also contains a gps system, but somehow I did not get it to work yet. But I hope I will. Currentyl I'm somewhere between Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Berlin Südkreuz on a IC to Stralsund. In comparison to the umts card that I got with my t-mobile contract, this card really works quite well. The real test will come later between Berlin and Stralsund. You partically get no connect with my old card. Lets see how well this one work.

Today I was in Würzburg to meet some old friends. To get from the restaurant to the station I decided to take the tram. When I started studing the Voice announcing the next station was a bit strange. It then got a lot better. Until this time. A small child voice is now announcing the next station. I don't know what the people drank WVV before taking that decision, but I guess it must have been something really good ;-) Sometimes you should try to save money at a different point.

But anyway. Sitting in a tram with awful announcement is still a lot better then walking to the train station when its raining and cold outside.

The little command line was the way to resolve a bug which just needed 1h to debug. The windows zip file explorer extension causes the JFileChooser dialog to get really slow. It just needs like 30sec just too call the constructor. Running the command line will unregister the zipfile extension. Afterward, your java application will run smooth as you expect it to be.

This bug is know for a long time, as u can see here: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=5050516

I played around with Networkmanager again today. It's doing is job very nice in its everyday task like connecting me to the university network. It doesn't require and unmasking anymore, which is very nice.

Today I decided I want to use the openvpn-plugin for NetworkManager so don't have to get get a root shell every time I want to send a mail. I need to connect to the vpn to reach my smtp port. Using the correct settings allows me to send mails. The only remaining problem is that it always replace my dns-servers, so once I connect to my vpn I have no dns anymore. But i haven't checked why that happens. Maybe I will figure out sooner or later. Or I will just install a dns server on my box.

Since I sometimes get bored because I should write my thesis, I proofread other peoples assignments. I know my English is far from being perfect and will probably never be, I still can figure out logic errors. One of them is

carefully estimated exact time required

I can just estimate that this assignment will be handed exactly 5 minutes before deadline ;-) Even if it should have been originally finished on sunday at 3pm

Yesterday I finially managed to move the rest of my stuff (4 vans full) to my parents. Somehow its strange that I don't miss Wü at all. I will shurely miss some people there, but thats all. The university just was to bad even if I managed to finish my thesis, so I don't want to think back about that time. Maybe it was just bad luck with the people responsible for me, but if the person responsible for you tells you that he is not interesseted in what you do, then you can image the amount of support u can expect. I think that during the time I worked at one of the chairs the research there got really bad, but that is just my opionon. So now I will continue my studies in Ronneby/Sweden, hoping that its better then in Wü, but I think everything is better then there. Going to sleep now, ferry leaves at 15.30.