The CMS that I am using for the website is Joomla, and i am using the K2 extension. With K2 comes a module called K2 Tools (mod_k2_tools) and you can use it to make a list of categories or a drop-down menu for choosing the category among other things.

The category listing has a setting in the control panel to decide how to sort it. But if you choose category drop-down, you do not get any options for sorting at all.

After searching a lot, it appears that nobody knows how to do this, but at least I got a suggestion from Simon aka. k2joom to see if it would be possible to use the code from the listing option.

As I am not a programmer, this would not be an easy thing to do, but I started to look at the code. In mod_k2_tools.php there was nothing that looked like sorting, but it called another file, helper.php, so I opened this one and found this piece of code in a section that looked like it could belong to the category listing:

switch ($params->get('categoriesListOrdering')) {

case 'alpha':
$orderby = 'name';
break;

case 'ralpha':
$orderby = 'name DESC';
break;

case 'order':
$orderby = 'ordering';
break;

case 'reversedefault':
$orderby = 'id DESC';
break;

default:
$orderby = 'id ASC';
break;
}

As the category drop-down menu is the next in the settings I looked a bit further and found this code:

function treeselectbox(&$params, $id = 0, $level = 0) {

$root_id = (int) $params->get('root_id2');
$option = JRequest::getCmd('option');
$view = JRequest::getCmd('view');
$category = JRequest::getInt('id');
$id = (int) $id;
$user = &JFactory::getUser();
$aid = (int) $user->get('aid');
$db = &JFactory::getDBO();
if (($root_id != 0) && ($level == 0)) {
$query = "SELECT * FROM #__k2_categories WHERE parent={$root_id} AND published=1 AND trash=0 AND access< ={$aid} ORDER BY ordering ";
} else {
$query = "SELECT * FROM #__k2_categories WHERE parent={$id} AND published=1 AND trash=0 AND access<={$aid} ORDER BY ordering ";
}

Comparing the last couple of lines to the first block seemed to indicate that there indeed was some ordering going on in there. So I tried changing the order in the categories, and the drop-down menu immediately reflected the change!

As I needed reverse sort by ID, I would rather not sit and redo the order by hand every time something got added. So I looked at the first block of code and decided to try to replace “ordering” with “id DESC” in the last couple of lines. They would then look like this:

if (($root_id != 0) && ($level == 0)) {
$query = "SELECT * FROM #__k2_categories WHERE parent={$root_id} AND published=1 AND trash=0 AND access< ={$aid} ORDER BY id DESC ";
} else {
$query = "SELECT * FROM #__k2_categories WHERE parent={$id} AND published=1 AND trash=0 AND access<={$aid} ORDER BY id DESC ";
}

And the miracle happened! The drop-down menu is now prefectly sorted by ID in descending order!

Of course, this change will be overwritten in the next upgrade, which is part of the reason why I document it here. But I also hope that someone that knows a little bit about programming could add sort order as a setting in this module. It would certainly be welcome by me!

Joomla: http://www.joomla.org/
K2: http://getk2.org/

After a bit of research, I found a post about this that helped me get things right on the first try. Here is what I did:

First I needed to install the DHCP package:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dhcp3-server

After that is well and done, I needed to edit the configuration for it:

sudo nano /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf

Here is what my dhcp.conf file look like now:

# DHCP configuration file for Argoz
#
# Attention: If /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf exists, that will be used as
# configuration file instead of this file.
#
# $Id: dhcpd.conf,v 1.1.1.1 2002/05/21 00:07:44 peloy Exp $
#

# The ddns-updates-style parameter controls whether or not the server will
# attempt to do a DNS update when a lease is confirmed. We default to the
# behavior of the version 2 packages ('none', since DHCP v2 didn't
# have support for DDNS.)
ddns-update-style none;

# option definitions common to all supported networks...
option domain-name "lan1.domainname.com";
option domain-name-servers 10.11.12.100, 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220;

default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;

# If this DHCP server is the official DHCP server for the local
# network, the authoritative directive should be uncommented.
authoritative;

# Use this to send dhcp log messages to a different log file (you also
# have to hack syslog.conf to complete the redirection).
# log-facility local7;

# The rest of the network info

option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 10.11.12.255;
option routers 10.11.12.1;

# The subnet

subnet 10.11.12.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 10.11.12.150 10.11.12.170;
}

I chose to keep the comments in there as I am not working with these things on a daily basis and thought it might be a good thing to have some reminders if I needed to edit it again.

Notice that all lines starting with # is just a comment and will not influence the DHCP server. This is a pretty common way of doing things in Ubuntu.

I chose to set the range for IP addresses from 10.11.12.150 to 10.11.12.170 as this should give me more than enough addresses for the little use I have. Your need might vary here.

After saving the configuration, the only thing left to do is starting the DHCP server:

sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server start

You should now have a reliable DHCP service on your network and if you had one running in a wireless router or ADSL router, you can log on there and turn it off. Have you considered setting up your own server yet?

The photograph of the computer classrom is by Extra Ketchup and has a Creative Commons license.

The place for bind9 configuration files can differ a little between Linux distributions. On Ubuntu servers they are located in /etc/bind with the zonefiles placed under /etc/bind/zones .

The standard install of bind9 on Ubuntu server is to act as a caching DNS. But for this to work, you need to tell it where to look for an adress that it can not resolve locally. So you need to edit a file called named.conf.options .

sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

Here you have to add at least two DNS’es. I added the two from OpenDNS first, and then the two from my ISP just to be sure:

options {
        directory "/var/cache/bind";

        // If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
        // to talk to, you may need to fix the firewall to allow multiple
        // ports to talk.  See http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/800113

        // If your ISP provided one or more IP addresses for stable
        // nameservers, you probably want to use them as forwarders.
        // Uncomment the following block, and insert the addresses replacing
        // the all-0's placeholder.

        forwarders {
             208.67.222.222;
             208.67.220.220;
             200.251.161.2;
             200.251.161.7;
         };

        auth-nxdomain no;    # conform to RFC1035
        listen-on-v6 { any; };

};

The zone files

Before we can start editing the zonefiles, we need to let bind9 know where they are. This is as easy as editing a file called named.conf.local .

sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.local

Here you need to add the names for the zone definitions of your forward and reverse DNS lookups. The first one will be the name of your domain plus .db . The other will be rev. plus the IP address of your server in reverse minus the last number plus .in-addr.arpa . It is not as difficult as it sounds, but maybe easier to show you how mine looks:

//
// Do any local configuration here
//

// Consider adding the 1918 zones here, if they are not used in your
// organization
//include "/etc/bind/zones.rfc1918";

# This is the zone definition. replace example.com with your domain name
zone "lan1.domainname.com" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/zones/lan1.domainname.com.db";
        };

# This is the zone definition for reverse DNS. replace 0.168.192 with your network address in $
zone "12.11.10.in-addr.arpa" {
     type master;
     file "/etc/bind/zones/rev.12.11.10.in-addr.arpa";
};

As the domain I wanted to use for my network is lan1.domainname.com, the zonefile will be called lan1.domainname.com.db .

And as my IP address for the server is 10.11.12.100, the reverse zone name will be rev.12.11.10.in-addr.arpa .

Creating these two files are as easy as editing them the usual ways:

sudo nano /etc/bind/zones/lan1.domainname.com.db

Mine looks like this – I’ll do the explanation later:

$TTL 1h
lan1.domainname.com.      IN      SOA     argoz.lan1.domainname.com.   post.otherdomain.net. (

                                                        2009072804
                                                        28800
                                                        3600
                                                        604800
                                                        38400
 )

lan1.domainname.com.      IN      NS      argoz.lan1.domainname.com.

www             IN      CNAME   argoz.lan1.domainname.com.

localhost       IN      A       10.11.12.100

argoz           IN      A       10.11.12.100
aslan           IN      A       10.11.12.30
phoenix         IN      A       10.11.12.40
alambil         IN      A       10.11.12.50

As I am not an expert in DNS, I will stick to explaining the things you need to change to make it work. The rest, you can copy as it is here.

lan1.domainname.com. is the domain. Take extra care not to forget the last period!
argoz.lan1.domainname.com. is the full name of the server.
post.otherdomain.net. is the mail address to the administrator with a period instead of the @ sign on a different server.
2009072804 is a serial number that should change every time you change this zonefile. A very common way to do this number is to use the date in reverse order and a two digit number at the end. In most cases, you will not need more than 99 changes during a 24 hour period.

I added a few special names to the list and I also added some of the other PC’s in the house just to be able to address them by name, not only by IP. Also note – I do not have an in-house mail server (yet) so there is no MX record.

The last thing you need to do is to set up the reverse zone file:

sudo nano /etc/bind/zones/rev.12.11.10.in-addr.arpa

Again, here is what this looks like on my server:

$TTL 1h
@ IN SOA argoz.lan1.domainname.com. post.otherdomain.net. (
                        2009072803;
                        28800;
                        604800;
                        604800;
                        86400
)

                IN      NS      argoz.lan1.domainname.com.
100              IN      PTR     argoz.lan1.domainname.com.
30              IN      PTR     aslan.lan1.domainname.com.
40              IN      PTR     phoenix.lan1.domainname.com.
50              IN      PTR     alambil.lan1.wdomainname.com.

After setting up the previous file, this one becomes a bit more clear. As with the other file, remember the trailing periods. And also remember to change the serial number if you open and change this file again later.

The last thing you need to do is to restart bind9 to get the whole thing to work:

sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 restart

And then you can test your DNS with this command (substitute the domainname with your own):

dig lan1.domainname.com

I am sure there are still errors in this setup, but it is working for me. I can do a dig and get a respons that seems to be ok. Was this helpful? Any tips on how to improve things?

A big thank you to the following websites and people for help and knowledge:
Ubuntu forum -  Howto: Setup a DNS server with bind
Ubuntu DNS Server Guide – BIND Caching Name Server Setup
The admins at Domenetorget.no for excellent support!

The photograph of the rack and network cables is by Cloned Milkmen and has a Creative Commons license.

Editing configuration files in Linux can be a daunting task for a person that is new to the whole concept. I do it when I have to and have done it a lot over the years. But unlike some people that almost fall in love with the command line interface (CLI), I like it less and less as the time passes. I prefer to use my time on other things than administrating and configuring the server. Once it is done, it should just work. And this makes CLI very difficult because I never remember the commands when I need them. So I have to search the internet every time.

When I have to do it, my editor of choice is nano. So to edit a file, I type

sudo nano filename.txt

The reason for the sudo is that most of the files that needs to be edited will be outside of the home directory and because of this, not possible to edit with normal user privileges. Adding sudo and giving your password takes care of that.

Checking basic server configuration

First of all, it is a good idea to check that the standard stuff of the server has been configured correct after bind9 has been installed. The first file to check would be the basic networking configuration on your server:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Mine looks like this:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 10.11.12.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 10.11.12.0
broadcast 10.11.12.255
gateway 10.11.12.1

Yours might differ, but this one should get you what you need.

Your server needs to know a DNS in order to look up requests. Of course, as you will have a DNS running locally, you just have to point it to itself.

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

My server only has two lines here. One for the DNS, the other for the domain.

search lan1.domainname.com

nameserver 127.0.0.1

The hosts file could do the job as a simple “DNS”, but as we are setting up a complete DNS, it is better to keep it clean:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Something similar to this is ok, nothing else should be needed:

127.0.0.1       localhost

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

In the last post I will cover the bind9 specific configuration.

The photograph of the web is copyright Svein Wisnæs.

I have had a server in the house on and off over the years, but after moving to Brazil, it became a real need. The server is used for developing websites, testing different installations, caching updates for the workstations in the house, sharing files and sharing our laser printer as well as a number of other small things. It is also a way for me to learn more about networking, Linux servers etc.

Learning is also one of the reasons why I would like to set up a small caching DNS that also resolves the stuff I have on my local network. This task has been a challenge, but with the help of a lot of different online documentation, friends that have given me tips about this and that, I have managed to get it to a point where I can truly say it is working. So I thought I would try to gather the information here, both to help others and for me to remember what I actually have done.

One thing has to be said loud and clear: This server is not exposed on the internet. It sits behind a firewall and is only used by us locally. No ports have been opened up for access from the outside and there is no need to update the rest of the world with the stuff running on our local network.

Before I started, I had to make a few decisions. One of them was that I wanted to use a real domain for this, so I chose to use a subdomain off my wisnaes.com domain – lan1.wisnaes.com . This way, if I ever need to set up a lan at another site, I can simply name it lan2.wisnaes.com and avoid any conflicts. But for the examples, I have substituted this with lan1.domainname.com so that nobody by accident uses my domain.

Other things I decided on either at the installation of Ubuntu server or before the configuration of the DNS:

Name of server: argoz
IP of server: 10.11.12.100
IP of gateway: 10.11.12.1
DNS1: 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS)
DNS2: 208.67.220.220 (OpenDNS)

There are a few DNS packages to choose from, but I chose to go for bind9 as this seems to be the most common one and it can do everything from small stuff to really big stuff.

Installing it is as easy as typing

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bind9

on the command line. Follow the prompts, and you have the basic install with a standard configuration. Note that the install has to be done with sodu/root privileges. Either use sudo or become root temporarily.

I will get into the configurations in the other two parts:
Part 2 : Basic configuration
Part 3 : Configuring bind9

The photograph of the phonebook is copyright Egil Sundal and used by permission.

I got myself a new harddisk for my laptop. A 320GB WesternDigital with 16MB cache spinning at 7200 rpm. Great. But how do I move from the old 100GB harddisk to the new one?

So I decided to do a bit of research before doing it. And while I was doing that, I started moving all data off the old one over to a USB disk.

The first thing I quickly decided on was that I wanted a dual boot system. I have been using Linux on and off for a long time and I finally wanted to use as much time using it as possible. The next I had to decide was what distro to go for. Linux comes in many flavours, and it can be a nightmare to choose. But I had always liked the Ubuntu family and on a different computer I have Linux Mint installed. This is one of the many offsprings of Ubuntu.

My old harddisk and the necessary CD's.

But for my laptop I decided to use Kubuntu. I had heard a lot of good stuff about it and the new KDE looked great. There was also this thing of getting as close to the source as possible. Mint is great looking and has some extra features I would have loved. But as it is an offspring of Ubuntu, their releases are always behind and I wanted to be able to use all updates as they were released from the Ubuntu team. After communicating with people in the Kubuntu forum, I did what I consider to be a little bold move: I went for the Kubuntu 9.04 aplha6 release. This is a test version of Kubuntu that will be released in April this year. For Ubuntu and Kubuntu the first digit signifies the year. So for 2009 the first digit becomes 9. The two digits after the period is the month. So April is 04. The Ubuntu family has two major releases every year. One in April and one in October. As someone in the forum pointed out, we are very close to the release for April and the other people testing it reported that it was already very stable.

Partitioning the harddisk

When you want to have two operating systems on your harddisk you have a few considerations to make. Do you want them to just live side by side with no interaction, or do you want to be able to use some data in both systems? How much space do you have to give to each? And how do you want to organize each one of them?

I also had the added problems of a couple of special partitions on my old harddisk. The old one looked like this:

1. fat16 86.26MB – a rescue partition set up by Dell
2. ntfs 88.66GB – the main system partition that contained WindowsXP Pro
3. fat32 3GB – the MediaDirect partition

MediaDirect has it’s own button on my laptop, and when I press it, the laptop boots a special OS that works like a media center wher I can play DVD’s, watch pictures or listen to music.

I researched several forums to try to figure out wether to bring the rescue partition and MediaDirect over to the new harddisk. But eventually decided to scrap both. If my operating system needs rescue, it is better done from the install CD. And I will have two OS’es on the harddisk, so I did not want to take the chance of anything like that messing up the systems.
The MediaDirect partition was actually a bigger concern. Basically what I am a little afraid of is what will happen if I press the button and there is no MediaDirect partition? One of the forums mentioned a talk with Dell support where they said that the button would be dead without this partition. So that is what I am hoping for. But have not dared to try yet…

Another choice I made was to separate data and the operating systems. And as some of my work will generate a lot of data (video editing) from WindowsXP, I decided that the biggest partition would be a data partition formatted with ntfs. Here is the formatting I finally went for:

1. Primary - ntfs - WindowsXP – 30GB
2. Primary - ntfs - Data – 230GB
3. Primary - ext3 - Kubuntu – 15GB
4. Extended
5. Logical - ext3 - /home – 20GB
6. Logical - linux-swap – swap – 4GB

For the actual partitioning I used a live CD version of gparted.

I wanted to put the whole Documents and Setting plus the Program Files folder on the Data partition. That got me into another big round of research.

Preparing a special WindowsXP boot CD

To get Documents and Settings and the Program Files folder onto the Data partition, it turned out I had to modify the WindowsXP setup CD. I could have done it by making a floppy disk with the setup in a textfile and boot off that one. But I do not have a floppy drive, so I had to go for the whole CD setup.

The first step was to copy all files from the CD that I got together with my laptop over too my harddisk. As I now had moved everything in My Documents on the old harddisk over to a USB disk, I had a lot of space to do this.

I also needed to copy the bootfile from the CD. To do this I used a small program called ISOBuster. It is recommended that you write down the name of the original CD and use the same for your new one.

To get things the way I wanted, I had to do what is called an Unattended install with the setup for it in a small textfile. This file had to be called winnt.sif and should be put in the i386 folder on the CD. On some webpages it says that you need to use a batch file to start the process, but in my case it was enough to just place the file in the right folder. There was a file like that already there, but the content was only two lines and just to be sure, I included them in my file.

Here is what I put in the file:

[Data]
AutoPartition=0
MsDosInitiated=0
UnattendedInstall=Yes

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=ProvideDefault
OemPreinstall=No
TargetPath=\WINDOWS
FileSystem=*
Hibernation = No
OemSkipEula=Yes
Repartition=No
UnattendSwitch=”yes”
WaitForReboot=”No”
ProgramFilesDir=”D:\Program Files”
CommonProgramFilesDir=”D:\Program Files\Common Files”

[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword=secret
EncryptedAdminPassword=No
OEMSkipRegional=1
TimeZone=65
ProfilesDir=”D:\Documents and Settings\”

[Components]
Msnexplr=Off
Zonegames=Off
msmsgs=Off
Fax=On

[Shell]
DefaultStartPanelOff = Yes
DefaultThemesOff = Yes

[UserData]
ProductKey=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
FullName=”Svein Wisnaes”
OrgName=”My org”
ComputerName=Trainer

[Display]
BitsPerPel=32
Xresolution=1280
YResolution=800
Vrefresh=60

[TapiLocation]
Dialing=Tone

[RegionalSettings]
LanguageGroup=1
SystemLocale=00000409
UserLocale=00000414
InputLocale=0414:00000414

[Identification]
JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

If you want to do this yourself, you can use this as a starting point. There were a couple of things that did not work as expected. First of all, I had one character in the license wrong. But as I used the mode UnattendMode=ProvideDefault, the settings in this file are only used as default answers and I am allowed to correct them during install.

One question I had before installing was what letter my Data partition would get. As you have to include it in the path where you want Documents and Settings and the Program Files folder, it was important to know. I could not find this anywhere on the internet, so I took a chance on the first available letter, D, and hoped the DVD drive would stay out of the way

This turned out to be correct, so that part of the winnt.sif was correct. But I got some of the timezone wrong. And the screen resolution did not matter, as the driver for my graphics card was not included on the CD. But again – I could correct anything that needed correction during the installation.

I also used the opportunity to avoid installing some programs as well as setting the theme to the classic Windows 2000 look. I prefer this when working with video editing.

WindowsXP Installation

The installation itself was pretty straightforward. After installing Windows XP, I added the drivers from the Dell driver CD. Windows XP actually occupies very little of the 30GB space as the folders that tend to grow are located on the Data partition. So I might eventually be able to decrease the WindowsXP partition and increase the Data partition. But time will show.

Since this, I have now transferred all the files from my old Documents and Settings to the new Data partition. I still have to sort things, and this time I will go through everything. The previous times I have changed computers or harddisks, I have usually copied the whole thing over and I now have files from a long time back that could have been deleted. Time to clean!

I also made another decision. The new WindowsXP installation will not have any chat programs installed at all. And my mailprogram here is Thunderbird Portable. As far as possible, I will use portable version of programs to avoid littering the filesystem too much.

Kubuntu installation

Then the time had come to install Kubuntu. As I had already done the partitioning, I chose manual partition. I then had to choose what to put where, and go on with the install. Just before the installation really starts, I was given a summary page with an Advanced button on the bottom, right side. I clicked it because I was thinking of putting the bootloader on the Kubuntu partition instead of the MBR. But as far as I could see, I did not have that choice. I could only choose sda (the whole disk). So this presumably meant that it went on the MBR. The reason why I wanted this was that I was hoping it would mean that the MediaDirect button would then boot Kubuntu if pressed when the laptop is off.

The new KDE 4.2.1 based Kubuntu desktop

The Kubuntu installation was a lot smoother than WindowsXP. Nicer graphics and no drivers to install after. I did try to activate the special nVidia drivers, but for some reason it did not work. As it is, the laptop works very well. It was easy to connect to the wireless network and the Data partition comes right up. As well as my connected USB disk. It even has detected the built-in webcam, but that part needs a little bit more finetuning to be ok.

I am slowly finding my way around Kubuntu. The Kubuntu forum is a great help with a lot of friendly people. You can ask any question and get a lot of helpful answers. I am really impressed by the positive tone in that forum.

What is next?

I have already installed Avid MediaComposer and Adobe Photoshop CS2 in WindowsXP. I might try to install Photoshop in Kubuntu under Wine, but not yet.

Kubuntu comes with OpenOffice installed and this has been my choice of office software for some time now. Some of the applications that come with Kubuntu are worth a special mention. Kopete is something like a nicer, Kubuntu version of Pidgin. I am already using it as I need it to stay in touch with customers, friends and family. Konqueror, the webbrowser in Kubuntu, looks nice. But I prefer using Firerfox so I have already installed this. I have also added the Foxmarks plugin as I do on all computers I use. This let me synchronize my bookmarks in all computers and OS’es. Works like a charm! Amarok is so far the best music player I have seen on Linux. I warned me the first time I used it that it needed some extra codecs to be able to play the music I had. The MP3 codec is not included as default in Kubuntu, but that is easily fixed. Just let Amarok take care of it!

In Kubuntu, the program that takes care of updating your system and install new software is called KpackageKit in version 9.04 . It seems this program still has some bugs, but in general it does it’s job. One of the first things to do after the installation of 9.04 alpha6 was to download updated files. There were already over 300 files that needed to be updated so I let it run over night because of the slow line here. Before the update I had some program crashes, and it seems the update has taken care of most of that. No crashes so far today.

Thunderbird has for a long time been my mailprogram of choice and I have already installed it in Kubuntu. But how do you make sure you do not make a mess with the two operating systems? The solution was to keep the mailprofile on the Data partition and point Thunderbird under Kubuntu to this folder. To do that I had to edit a settings file that is found in the /home/.mozilla-thunderbird folder. To see this folder, I had to switch on Show hidden files in the filemanager. The file to edit is called profiles.ini and it is as simple as changing this section:

IsRelative=1
Path=t633sbdp.default

Here what I put:

IsRelative=0
Path=/media/Data/Portable Program Files/ThunderbirdPortable/Data/profile

Everything comes up as normal and I read that you can even point it to a network folder so you can keep all your mail on a server.

There are several programs I still need to install. Skype being one of them. Little by little, Kubuntu will become my main workplatform.

Does this sound interesting? Would you do the same? Let me know what you think of my experiment.

One of the things that got my attention in the new version is that it should load any EXIF info into special fields so that it can be used by templates to post caption, credits etc. I am really curious how to get this working and it seems more of this is coming in version 2.6 that is close to being released.

Of course, by using Windows Live Writer, one more step and possible error source is added between the original picture and the web page you see now. I added several IPTC fields to the picture just to see how it turned out and if it came up as useful data.

Do you have any experience in using these new data fields? Leave a comment and tell about how you did it. I will add to this article as I find out more.

Update: First of all, there is a bug in Windows Live Writer that strips out all EXIF/IPTC info. So it does not help using it if you want to have caption to the pictures. Version 2.5 of WordPress was supposed to add a better way to handle pictures, but for me the picture

The blue hour at Karmøy, Norway. (Photographer: Svein Wisnaes)

inserter/uploader never worked. But after upgrading to WordPress 2.6 things seem to work great. At least everything looks ok while I am in the editor. But for some reason the align tag does not work correct. So it ends up breaking the design.

There is also a nice and very tiny border around the picture that disappear on the way from the editor to the article that shows on the page, as well as some formatting I put on the caption. I wanted the Photographer to be in italics. It might be possible to fix this through the theme that is used. I will check if there is a more general fix for it.

I used it back in the days of Photoshop 5 and really loved the way you could lift out any object from the white background with a click. If any pixel was not completely black, it would be partially transparent. This meant that soft shadows could be lifted off as well, something I have not been able to do with any other method so far.

But this plug-in does not work with Photoshop CS2 and I have been trying to find a newer version for a long time. Until recently when I stumbled across a way to run older plugins on newer version of Photoshop.

First of all – the Remove White plugin is as far as I know, made by Mark McLaren and you can find it here (scroll down and click on Remove White under Mark McLaren). Unpack the filter and put it in your filter folder.

But since it is an older type filter, you need an extra file to make it work. You need to add msvcrt10.dll (click here to download it) to the same folder as the Photoshop program. Do not add it to the system32 folder or anywhere else in the main Windows folder as it might interfere with how other programs work.

Reboot Photoshop, and it should start with no problems. You should now have a new category of plug-ins at the bottom of your filter list called Mac’s with a single filter called Remove White.

To apply this filter to an image, you first have to either duplicate the background layer and do it on the copy, or double-click on the background layer and turn it into a regular layer. If you want to apply this to just a portion of your image, you have to make a selection first, otherwise just choose the Remove White filter and you are done. You should now see the checkered background through the parts of your image that is not completely black.

To verify that the extraction is ok, make a new layer and fill it with white. Then place this layer under the image layer. You image should now look like it was before you removed the white background.

Most people do not like to have a transparent main object, so you need to make a quick mask of your object, fill it with white and place it under your main image layer. But you now have the option to exclude shadows so that the shadow will fall on whatever background you choose for your picture.

This is an effect that is simply not possible by using a mask or doing a selection based on color.

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