Remmina connection problem

After the latest update on my Ubuntu 14.04 Remmina would not connect to one of my Windows computers. I remembered having had this problem before, but was not able to remember the solution. (Even though I knew the solution was a very simple one.)

So I started googling and after a while I found the very simple solution to this problem.

SUM filtered rows in LibreOffice using SUBTOTAL

In Libre Office Calc you sometimes need to filter data using the Autofilter. And of course you would like to know the sum of the values filtered. This is where you'll want to use the SUBTOTAL() function. To get the subtotal of the filtered values you'll need to tell the subtotal function which function you would like to use on the filtered rows.

LibreOffice - using INDIRECT() for cell referencing

At times I need to summarize values from another sheet in Libre Office, and get an output that will group some values together. In my example I have a small table that could contain from 10 to 1000 rows. The table I want is to be grouped by date, and I want to know how much I have spent on a specific day.

Personal emails - Mail Merge add-on

 About a year ago I added some info about this little add-on for thunderbird calle Merge Email. I then described how-to use the address-book to make merged emails. Since I am a bit of a fan of this add-on I'll describe using it with a csv-file.

Making or burning ISO images

I was given a burned CD from a friend and decided to make an ISO image of that particular CD. Currently I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 and decided to use the Linux-command: dd

But to my surprise; IT WOULDN'T WORK!!! I have always used that command to make an ISO image, so now I had to figure out why this is not working, and how I could make it work.

LibreOffice 4.1 Solver example

While going through my accounting I found some discrepancies. So I needed to go through a long list of numbers and check whether they have been included in the totals I was checking.
Of course I would like not having to spend hours doing this, so I decided to find out how I could do this using LibreOffice Calc an save myself a lot of time. The time spent making the calculation is now about 1 second. (The time spent figuring this out... Let's just say hours....)

Formatting phone numbers in LibreOffice

Every now and then I need to setup a list containing phone numbers in Libre Office Calc. When the phone numbers are listed I need to have them formatted in 3+2+3 digits. (Or else I'm unable to separate the digits when I am going to make the call.)

Here's the trick how to do this:
In the phone number column I'll select the entire column or the cells I need the formatting on.
Right click the selected area and click Format Cells
In the Numbers tab, I insert the following as Format Code:

###" "##" "###

Make sure to add the space between the " and ".

Correctly inserted phone numbers should now look like: 123 45 789
(A lot better for my ageing eyes.)


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LibreOffice 4.1 password protected document

Another release of LibreOfice have been announced and I was quick to download

and install version 4.1. I must admit I have been a big fan of LibreOffice from their first release, but there are still a few bugs that I find annoying. Unfortunately I found a new bug in v.4.1, or at least I thought so...

Backup your images on JottaCloud

On JottaCloud you can easily backup your images or files. I use JottaCloud to save a backup of the images I take on my Android phone.

Encrypted storage

In case you have documents and files you don't want anyone to be able to see there is always the possibility to use truecrypt. Truecrypt will let you use a file or partition as an encrypted storage. It is easy to use and not at all hard to understand. It also supports Linux, Windows and Mac so you can use it on whatever platform you wish.

Truecrypt is no longer safe.
Check their website before using it.

You can even encrypt part of an USB-pendrive and include the files for running the truecrypt program on the USB-drive. This way you will be able to use you USB-device on other computers without needing to install the package on the computer you are working on. (But you will need admin privileges.)

To download TrueCrypt head over to their web-site. Go to the download page and download the package for your platform. After downloading the Linux gzipped tarball you simply extract it and run the truecrypt installation-file.

Step 1:
Run truecrypt to open the GUI for the program and create a new encrypted volume. Using a file is as it can be. Click on Create Volume, select the folder to put the file in, and give it a filename. Follow the instructions to set the encryption, password and any other option.

Step 2:
In the TrueCrypt main window select the slot you want to put your encrypted volume in, click on Select File and navigate to the file you created in the previous step. Click on Mount and type your password for the encrypted filesystem when prompted.

Step 3:
Add files or folders to your encrypted filesystem as you do to any filesystem.

That's all there is to it.
Easy and well functioning way of keeping some documents private.
To use a portable USB-drive check the documentation on TrueCrypt web-site.

Merging pdf-files

Merging and splitting pdf-files is very easy if you have pdftk installed. Using it is as simple as you could ever want it. But I usually end up having to check the man-page if I want to do more complex stuff. I use it everytime I need to do something with a pdf-file. Although there are GUI options my preferred program for working with pdf-files are pdftk.

Thunderbird and MailMerge

Mozilla Thunderbird have quite a few good extensions. One of them is MailMerge. This extension allows for using Thunderbird to send personalized emails. Of course there are some rules you need to obey to for this to work. But here is a quick how-to for sending personalized emails to a group of friends or colleagues.