Tips and Tricks

On this page I've published solutions to problems I encountered myself. Perhaps you'll be helped too.


JPEG 2000   resolv.conf and uClibc   IRPStacksize   Nexus Personal  

JPEG-2000 (2006-05-09)

During the last years I've been shooting with digital cameras and scanning old pictures from positives and negatives. In the beginning most pictures were stored as ordinary JPEG-files (JFIF). After a while the need for 16-bit scanning became more and more obvious. First I tried 16-bit TIFF, but the file sizes made me hesitate. After a while I found JPEG-2000 better suited my needs. One problem though, Windows XP have no thumbnail support for JPEG-2000 images. That very handy thumbnail view wasn't available if I were to go the JPEG-2000 route.

Luckily there is a solution.

Take a look on Cytogenetics download page for their "Shell Extension for LIM images" which is a sub page, containing among others, a download URL for their LIM and JPEG-2000 shell extension.

Note however, the download URL is poorly encoded by the script serving the sub page, and therefore not working. Here is a working download link:

Cytogenetics LIM and JPEG-2000 shell extension

Also see Optimidata's JP2-ShellExtension which does the same and then some... Since I don't want to clutter my context menu, I prefer Cytogenetics extension.

For editing 16-bit images, Photoshop is highly recommended. Using fnord's j2k file format plugin is preferable, since it is simpler and faster to use, than Adobes own. Note that the JPEG-2000 file format plugin isn't installed by the Photoshop installer. You have to do that manually.

Photoshop Elements 4.0 also support 16-bit images and JPEG-2000. Not as advanced, but much more affordable, in comparision with Photoshop.

For viewing JPEG-2000 images, IrfanView is a very nice alternative.


resolv.conf and uClibc (2005-05-12)

I participate in Distributed Net's efforts. When upgrading to the latest client linked with uClibc, the client were no longer able to connect keyservers.

      Net::failed to resolve name "euro.v29.distributed.net"
      ENOENT: no entry for requested name
      Net::failed to resolve name "us.v29.distributed.net"
      ENOENT: no entry for requested name

Programs linked with uClibc can't resolv host names if the first nameserver configuration line in resolv.conf is set to "localhost". Based on my configuration and problem, uClib also seem to ignore further nameserver configuration lines.

      resolv.conf:

          nameserver   localhost
          nameserver   1.2.3.4

The man page for resolv.conf states that an host IP should be given on a nameserver configuration line. However GNU clib seem not to have any problem with this.

Note that resolv.conf might be overwritten if you use a DHCP client to get your server IP.


IRPStacksize (2005-04-19)

The other day I tried to mount the drives of my new XP box with Samba on the Debian Linux server.

To my surprise only the C: drive mounted and trying to mount D: gave the following smbmount error message:

  nnnnn: tree connect failed: ERRDOS - ERRnomem (Insufficient server memory to perform the requested function.)

smbclient gave the following error message:

  Domain=[xxxx] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
  tree connect failed: NT_STATUS_INSUFF_SERVER_RESOURCES

Some searching on the internet indicated changing a LAN Manager parameter would be the solution. Setting IRPStackSize to 17 (0x11) or larger solved my problem.

Use regedit to change the parameter. You probably need to create the parameter yourself. For windows XP default is 15(0xf), and range is 12-50(0xc-0x32).

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters\IRPStackSize
  DWORD
  0x11

To activate the change reboot, or give the following commands at a command prompt:

  net stop browser
  net stop lanmanserver
  net start lanmanserver
  net start browser

2008-02-02 Irony: Today I found this, my own tip, on google. I had the same problem again... Seems like IRPStackSize now needed to be raised to 18. The differens seems to be that the disk is fuller now... Btw, this time the error message was "mount error 12 = Cannot allocate memory". It can also be noted that this problem isn't a samba -> XP specific problem. Another XP-machine got the same error. The event log contains entries like this:

      Event Type:Error
      Event Source:Srv
      Event Category:None
      Event ID:2011
      Date:2008-02-02
      Time:00:49:02
      User:N/A
      Computer:XY
      Description:  The server's configuration parameter "irpstacksize" is too small
                    for the server to use a local device.  Please increase the value
                    of this parameter.
Refer to: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;177078

Nexus Personal (2004-09-10)

I wanted to do my banking with Mozilla Firefox. Unfortunatly my bank do not support Firefox.

Fortunatly there is a solution:

Note: Changes won't take effect until restarting Firefox.

Some notes in swedish for customers of the Swedish bank Handelsbanken:

Du som är kund hos Handelsbanken och vill göra dina bankaffärer med Mozilla Firefox.

För närvarande får du inte ladda ned säkerhetsprogrammet med Firefox. Ladda ned med Internet Explorer eller använd "User Agent Switcher"-tillägget för att komma runt spärren för Firefox.

Följ sedan de engelska instruktionerna ovan för att installera.


Stellan Klebom
Last modified: Wed May 10 01:56:53 CEST 2006