Ubuntu 13.10 connect to MS VPN Server

I was not able to make a VPN connection to a MS site. I tried Cisco Anyconnect (openconnect), Cisco Compaitble VPN (vpnc ), OpenVPN or PPTP (the default)

This was a real source of frustration and the "IT guy" kept telling me that I should just install Windows and have done with it.

Turns out that this is SIMPLE to fix.

Setup a new PPTP Connection Type.

Click the "Advanced" button.  I disabled EAP but when I clicked Use Point-to-Point encryption(MPPE) under "Security and Compression" the window above for "Allow the following authentication methods:" changed and EAP was greyed out.

I then selected "128-bit (most secure)" from the "Security:" drop down menu and clicked OK

I was then able to successfully connect to a MS VPN Server.

Hope this helps... I know in the future it will definitely save me time and effort when setting this up again.

So there Mr. MS "IT guy" ... 

Netbeans 7.4 bold menus in Ubuntu

I have suffered with this problem many times when using Netbeans in Ubuntu and I finally decided not get to the bottom of it.

The problem started only after I installed Wine.  Wine install a whole load of fonts so this was definitely where to look for the problem.

I found out that if I remove the fonts-unfonts-core package my menus go back to normal.  to remove the package run the following

sudo apt-get remove fonts-unfonts-core

I still had a smaller problem in that the menus don't have a border and when they are drawn over a busy development screen it takes me longer to find the item I am looking for.

I found the following tip when trying to fix the bold menu issue and have now made all my netbeans installations look the same.  I think this is a much cleaner theme for netbeans.  It makes it far easier for me to use netbeans at least.

You need to run netbeans with the following switch "

--laf Nimbus

So your command to launch will look as follows

"/home/whatever/netbeans-7.4/bin/netbeans" --laf Nimbus