Category Archives: Software

Mark Shuttleworth nominated to the new SABC Board

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I just read that Mark has been nominated to the SABC board.  Although I think that the SABC needs somebody like Mark on their board and that he would do a stirling job, I doubt whether Mark would accept a nomination like this with all the things he is involved in.  Being on the SABC board is probably almost a full time job these days with the mess that the SABC is in and I cannot see Mark leaving some of his duties at Canonical and Ubuntu to join the SABC board.

I might be totally wrong here and who knows, maybe Mark has allready agreed to this.  Would love to hear his comments about it.

Other notable names is Max du Preez, Mimi Coertze, Cliff Saunders and World Cup CEO Danny Jordaan.

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WordPress upgrade to version 2.8

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I have 3 blogs and upgrading them was a mixed bag this time around.  On my blog at http://www.mariusb.net/blog/, I used the automatic WordPress upgrade and that went flawless.  With my second blog at http://www.marius.za.net/blog/, I used the upgrade with the CPANEL of the hosting company and again the upgrade went as expected. I use both these blogs as testing ground and not my main blog.  So having upgraded both those, I ventured into upgrading this one. 

It was problems from the start.  The first problem I ran into was:
Download failed.: name lookup timed out
This was something to do with curl and following http://wordpress.org/support/topic/225535 (at the bottom) and installing the Core Control Plugin and following the directions, I managed to get the ZIP file downloaded. 

The next problem I ran into was something about the ZIP file that cannot be UNZIPed.  I could not find a resolution for this so went the route of manually upgrading my blog.  This went as expected and my blog seem to be working.  If you do find things that does not work as it should be then please let me know.  With all the issues, I do not know whether I trust the upgrade.

On the outside everything looks good but in the admin part I get the following when it tries to retrieve feeds for the DASHBOARD:
Fatal error: Please call SimplePie_Cache::create() instead of the constructor in /home/mariusb/public_html/blog/wp-includes/class-feed.php on line 13
I have not managed to find a solution for this.  Suggestion will be appreciated.

Having done lots of WP installs and upgrades, I must say that this one is the most problematic and error prone. I am sure an update will come out soon, so my suggestion is that you do not upgrade just yet.

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Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty – muted sound on login solved.

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I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty on a Lenovo T60 and since the beginning sound was muted after login.  The drum roll happen at the GDM login screen but no login sound.  Yesterday I eventually found a solution for it.

The solution was comment out line 372 in /etc/init.d/alsa-utils.  The line in question was ‘mute_and_zero_levels “$TARGET_CARD” || EXITSTATUS=1’. Just this small change has solved the issue for me. 

Now to be honest, I have no idea what the purpose of this line is and whether any other issues might crop up by commenting out this line.  Well, sofar I have found no regressions by commenting out the line.

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Why UbuntuOne if I have Dropbox?

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There is a lot of talk going on about UbuntuOne.  All I have to say is that the Ubuntu trademark belongs to Canonical and they can do with it what they want to.  Also they are a business and surely they have the right to make money, and if that is by using their own trademark, why not.

However today I want to ask why I should use UbuntuOne instead of DropBox.  I have not used UbuntuOne yet, still waiting on my invite, so this is based on what I have read.  UbuntuOne only support Linux and to be more specific Ubuntu.  Also I could not gather how seamless it is integrated into Nautiuls.  I have been using Dropbox now for a while and has just worked perfectly.  I can share files with Windows and/or Mac users.  When I run out of my free space on Dropbox I can upgrade and it seems to be cheaper than what UbuntuOne offers.

Dropbox is not perfect.  I would like to see better KDE support .. yes one can get it working but it is not nicely integrated.  Also I would like to see the possibility to sync more than one folder.

So for the time being I am a happy Dropbox user.

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Installing original (Gold) Windows XP on new PCI/PCI-e based motherboard

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I was asked to install Windows XP on a new PCI/PCI-e based machine.  I tried to convince the person to install Ubuntu but since this person is a photographer, she wanted Photoshop. Yes I did explain that GIMP can do everything Photoshop can do.

I only had an original (Gold) Windows XP and when trying to install this on a new PCI/PCI-e machine, the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) happens.

Here is how to solve:

  • Ideal solution – convince the person to install Linux (Ubuntu).
  • Easy solution – find a Windows XP install disk that includes either Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3.
  • If you do not have that then you will have to make your own Service Pack slipstreamed Windows XP install disk.  I had a copy of Service Pack 3 lying around and this is what I had to do:
    Follow the instructions at http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp3_cd.htm to create the install disk.  Be sure to follow the instructions to the T, particularly the one that say something about Emulating a Floppy in Nero when you burn the CD.  If you leave that default, the CD will not Boot.

This slipstreamed CD should boot fine and the Windows install should now go through without BSOD.  It still boggles my mind that the original Windows XP (even with SP 1) did not know anything about PCI interfaces.

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Will the IBM/SUN deal happen?

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I have not said anything about the said deal yet.  I have just read an InfoWorld article by Neil McAllister and must say that I agree with him.  This deal would be good for IBM and so more for us that work in the Application Development area within IBM. 

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From 2 Windows XP machines to 3 Ubuntu machines

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Around September last year I got a new work laptop – Lenovo T60.  IBM, for whom I work, gives one the choice of what OS to run on the desktop ie Windows or some Linux flavor. Oh and some people actually do run Macs also.  The Linux is either Red Hat, Fedora, OpenSuse or Ubuntu.  My choice was Ubuntu.

Getting Ubuntu installed and running with all I need to get my job done within IBM took about 40 minutes.  Inside IBM we have our own APT repositories with various layer packages that install the appropriate packages and applications to get everything up and going.

Now about 5 months later I have no regrets.  Having a working machine in about 30 seconds after boot is just great.  No more BSOD’s, viruses and/or trojans to really worry about and just a more stable and productive envirionment.

At home I also had Windows XP on some very old hardware that ran very slow.  Since my laptop experience was so good, I decided, what the hell, lets totally get rid of Windows.  Now my machine at home is also running Ubuntu and it is doing it so much faster than before.  In the mean time I got another desktop and this is runing Kubuntu. 

To be honest, I have not gotten used to Kubuntu so I do not know how long my second machine is going to run Kubuntu.  I just prefer Ubuntu and finding my way around it, is just so much easier.  And the fact that Dropbox does not work on Kubuntu is a real pain.  Oh and not being able to share my floders on Kubuntu with my Ubuntu machine is not great either.  To be honest I did not really try to find a solution for this yet so it is probaly only something stupid I did or did not do.

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Lotus Notes 8.5 sync with Google Calendar on Ubuntu

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I am looking for a solution to Sync Lotus Notes 8.5 on Ubuntu with Google Calendar.  It only needs to be an one way sync from Notes to Google Calendar.

I have searched the Interwebs but have not found a suitable solution.  Have found some stuff for Windows but not for Ubuntu or even Linux in general.

Advice will be much appreciated.

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Ubuntu: Add/Remove Programs listing is blank

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This is just for my reference since it happened a couple of times when I open Add/Remove Programs and find the listing to be blank. If you encounter this then here is the solution to fix it.

Do the following:

sudo apt-get remove gnome-app-install
sudo apt-get install gnome-app-install apturl ubufox ubuntu-desktop

You should now have a fully operational Add/Remove

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Ubuntu: Upgrading Eclipse+PDT to latest (Eclipse 3.4 + PDT 2.0)

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I am running Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) together with Eclipse 3.3.1 and PDT 1.0.3 and wanted to upgrade to the latest Eclipse and PDT — that is Eclipse 3.4 and PDT 2.0.  The easiest way I have found after lots of struggling is as follows:

That is it.  You should now have the latest Eclipse and PDT.

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