Tag Archives: windows

Windows firewall adventures

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At work, I needed to block outgoing IP connections in order to inspect the behavior of our product.

I thought: why not use the native, Windows Firewall for that? Oh. Controlling outgoing connections is not supported by windows firewall (w2k3, at least). lame.

So I went on and searched the net for free windows firewalls. And.. I couldn't find anything good which is really free. So I've started looking for less-free firewalls, and found the Kerio firewall which is a trial version which expires if you don't pay them $$s.

It was pretty good actually, and satisfied my needs.

[30 days later]

Why is this VM so slow?? Remote desktop doesn't work.. After chasing the wrong error message problem, I've tried logging in through the vmware console. Then I've noticed this little balloon on the systray saying something like "Kerio firewall trial has expired; limiting bandwidth to 4kb/sec". OHHH that's just a great attitude!

How HP & Microsoft donate to world pollution (and Ink business)

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Or: "how to set draft printing quality as default"

[warning: non Linux post]

I've had two pretty modern (year 2006+) HP InkJet printers. Their driver adds a new tab to the Windows "Printing Preferences" dialog (I really enjoy those vendor-specific dialogs!), through which  one can change the printing quality.

For 90% of my home needs, black-only draft quality is enough, so upon printing, from the "Printing Dialog", I click "Printing Preferences" and change the quality to black-only + fast/economical printing:

However, the GUI designer forgot (or the MS API doesn't allow) a "make this the default" button, which is a MUST in my opinion.

A quick digging revealed the forbidden truth, though.

So, how can we really set the default printing quality?

Control Panel -> Printers -> right click on your printer -> Properties -> "Advanced" Tab (Cuz it's only for really advanced users! are you sure you are one?) -> Printing Defaults button:

Microsoft (and Apple), as the biggest OS vendors, have the [almost] ultimate power: they set the rules for most of the world computers, and they set the defaults. By making power-saving options very straightforward, and even making the defaults environment-friendly, they can decrease the world power saving by very large numbers. Same should go with Ink saving.