For a long time, Linux and Unix have had the fantastic ability to allow user created links on their file systems. These links are file and folder pointers that are sorted and registered by the operating system file partition. But unlike the more common Microsoft Windows shortcut, programs that encounter user-created links will treat them as the source file or folder.

Recently I was forced to format my QNAP TS-109 and reinstall the firmware. For some reason the file partition holding all the data became so corrupt that the QNAP firmware would refuse to even mount the drive. No amount of partition fixing or recovering would enable it to mount. Eventually I gave up and restarted from scratch.

Since Windows 7 beta was released and then later updated to the recent RC1 release I have always encountered a serious hardware problem. Once installed, slowly but surely my Windows 7 partition and any other NTFS partitions associated with the operating system self-corrupt. After some complex searching I discovered there was a link between Windows 7 and well regarded Acronis Partition Manager in the Disk Director Suite.

One familiar problem with using Eclipse for web development is that it expects developers to run or compile sources on their local machines. Now this expectation is not really appropriate for many situations including HTML development where you develop on remote or virtual test servers. So we are going to customise Eclipse so it will automatically upload a file to a test server whenever it is saved, after editing.

I recently installed Ubuntu 9.4 onto my fairly new Dell XPS laptop. Everything has been fine until I encountered one of the more annoying things I find about Linux, its sound and audio set-up. The operating system depends on multiple sound interfaces that essentially compete to do the same functions. It reminded me of PC audio back in my youth under MS-DOS.