Untimely meditations

One man's thoughts, observations and rants

Category: IT

  • Installing the VMWare View client on openSUSE 13.1

    Installing the VMWare View client on openSUSE 13.1

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in ,

    If, like me, you like to use the openSUSE Linux distribution, both personally and professionally and you need to connect to a VMWare View environment, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised: there’s no supported client for openSUSE or other RPM based distributions. There is however, an Ubuntu package..

  • PDF file print protected?

    PDF file print protected?

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    Having a PDF file that is print protected is annoying. If you run into this nonsense and you happen to use Linux, the following command will save you, provided you have Ghostscript installed. Note though, that this command can not strip the password out of documents that are password protected against opening!

  • How dangerous is the ITU?

    How dangerous is the ITU?

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in ,

    The ITU, the International Telecommunications Union is the UN agency for Information and Communication Technologies. The ITU is “committed to connecting all the world’s people – wherever they live and whatever their means”. Sounds like a very noble commitment, doesn’t it? It’s odd then, that the potentially biggest threat to the free and open Internet…

  • CleanIT opens doors

    CleanIT opens doors

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    Last month, I blogged about the Clean IT Project. The aim of this project is to examine the question “if we can reduce the impact of the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes, without affecting our online freedom”, however a look at a leaked document revealed that the project got somewhat derailed. The leaked…

  • EFF takes up call of Bits of Freedom

    EFF takes up call of Bits of Freedom

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in ,

    I linked to an article by Bits of Freedom last week, calling for international opposition against the latest plan by minister Ivo Opstelten. The plan can be summed up in brief as “Dutch police should be allowed to hack local and foreign computers and destroy data on them”. A very dangerous proposition with lots legal…

  • Dutch police to get access to DNA stored in medical facilities?

    Dutch police to get access to DNA stored in medical facilities?

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    For an outgoing cabinet, our current ministers are certainly busy. Busy looking for ways to endanger our privacy, it seems. Just days after two letters from Ivo Opstelten reached the news, Dutch investigative reports for the TV program KRO Reporter have discovered documents that suggest that outgoing minister for Health, Welfare and Sports, Edith Schippers…