CSV files and IE

Today I spent about three hours to play with “extremely practical and user friendly” interface of WinXP. The problem was that Windows is too smart (at least for me). It tries to foresee your desires. But as result you wast your time to switch off next “intelligent” feature. In my case I heed to download CSV file from site supported IE only. But IE opens that file in browser window with Excel, corrupted its data. Finally I found solution:

  • Open Control Panel
  • Open Folder Options
  • Click File Types
  • Locate “CSV” and click the Advanced button
  • Check the box that says “Confirm open after download”
  • Do the same for “XLS Microsoft Excel Worksheet” as well
  • Click Ok

It was amazing. I checked Alan Simpson’s Windows XP Bible and O’Reilly – Fixing Windows XP Annoyances but without luck. Maybe that issue so trivial that everybody knows how to solve it. Anyway, once again I saw that Windows is not my choice!

Print from Linux via Samba

Recently I faced with problem of printing from the Linux server to the printer connected to the Windows PC via USB. So, here is a brief how to do it using CUPS.
1. Type http://localhost:631/ in your browser to open CUPS web interface and go to “Add new printer” page.
2. For device choose “Windows Printer via SAMBA”. If this options isn’t presented in the drop down list run following command as root:
ln -s `which smbspool` /usr/lib/cups/backend/smb
3. Device URI type in following format:
smb://win_user:win_pass@win_domen/win_PC/printer_name
4. Choose appropriate driver for your printer. I didn’t find my model in the list. So, I chose one from Generic:
Generic -> Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlmono
For more information, please refer to OpenPrinting database.

See also:

Perl with taste of Strawberry

Perl developers who work under Windows didn’t have possibility to install XS CPAN modules directly from CPAN. I used a command nmake from MS Visual Studio to do it. The project Strawberry Perl which is a part of Vanilla Perl Project changed this situation:

The purpose of the Strawberry Perl series is to provide a practical Win32 Perl environment for experienced Perl developers to experiment with and test the installation of various CPAN modules under Win32 conditions, and to provide a useful platform for doing real work.

In my mind Strawberry Perl appreciably lightens the life of Perl developers under Windows who don’t want to move to Linux.