Martin McDowell's Pro Corner

iPhone 3.0 firmware installation info

2009-06-17T20:30:00.003+01:00

Many sites have commented on the current release of the 3.0 firmaware. I definitely could not call myself competent to give a proper analysis on it, but I am pasting the installation information that you are informed about upon upgrading to this version of the firmware.

iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update

This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

Cut, Copy & Paste with shake to undo
• Landscape keyboard in key applications
• Enhanced Messages application
- Send and receive photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS*
- Forward and delete single or multiple messages
• Added search feature in Mail, Calendar, Notes and iPod
• Spotlight search across iPhone
• Support for CalDAV and subscriptions in Calendar
• Improvements to Safari
- Performance
- HTML 5 support
- HTTP Streaming audio and video
- Auto-fill usernames and passwords
• New Voice Memos application
• Sync Notes with a Mac or PC via iTunes
• Internet Tethering over USB and Bluetooth*
• Browse and download movies, TV shows, and audiobooks from the iTunes Store**
• Stereo Bluetooth***
• Wi-Fi auto login
• Enhanced Stocks application
• More Parental Control options for Apps, Music, Movies and TV Shows
• iTunes account creation and login**
• YouTube account login and access to subscriptions, ratings and favorites**
• Shake to shuffle
• New languages, dictionaries, and keyboards
• Find my iPhone and Remote Wipe via MobileMe (subscription required)**
• Support for more Exchange policies
• Create and send Exchange meeting invitations
• Search mail on server (Exchange Server 2007 and supported IMAP servers)
• Search LDAP company directory
• VPN on demand and VPN proxy support
• Encrypted configuration profiles
• Encrypted iTunes backups
• 1,000 new developer APIs, including:
- In App Purchases
- Apple Push Notification Service
- Accessories support
- Peer to Peer Connectivity
- Embedded Maps
- iPod Library Access
• Bug fixes

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3G S

* Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S and requires support from your wireless provider.
** Not available in all regions or in all languages.
*** Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S.

For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guide for your iPhone at:

For more information about iPhone, go to:

To troubleshoot your iPhone, or to view additional support information go to:

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:

Running Premvet on an old PC

2009-05-08T16:10:00.006+01:00

You have probably been in the same situation, you would like to use another terminal to access Premvet but find it difficult to buy another PC,e specially when considering you might have one or two old machines laying around gathering dust. This was a case with an old Dell Inspiron laptop. It had Windows XP installed but you had to take a holiday before being able to do anything on it. Considering the laptop was useless and could be just as good if it only ran Premvet then it would be better to have a more lean fast operating system installed.

I looked around the Linux distros and found ArchLinux. The fact that it was very technical and not for noobs scared me. I have dabbed into Linux a little bit and have even installed Ubuntu on my personal laptop (and kept it) - I gave it a try.

The download was relatively quite small and once I burned the .iso image on a CD-ROM I had a viable install CD. The system will first ask you to install a Live CD. I thought this was wrong and that I perhaps downloaded the wrong iso image. Don't worry, this is just an instance that helps you do the actall install on your hard-drive. The installation went smoothly and recognized my network card so I could install the FTP way.

First thing I remember doing was to create a user with non-admin privileges - I was consistent with the Network Solutions system and created vet. I had some problems logging into this user so I found the best was is to use the verbose method by just entering the useradd command. Also make sure you have inetutils installed. Also it makes it easier if you automatically log in to the "vet" user. This can be found here.

If everything works fine and you can login to a user automatically then all you have to do is to automatically call the telnet command from the bash:

telnet [premvet-server-ip-address] [port-number]

Some information is available here: http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/fofc00/telnet.html

To automate this you should add this line in the /etc/rc.local file.
I also made an alias for the user to shut down the machine at the end of the day. I made an alias called end for the command sudo poweroff
Sudo is to tell Linux to execute unser root privileges as Linux wouldn't be Linux if verything wasn't very secure. A normal user cannot even power off the system without special privileges. There is probably another way of doing this but I gave the user "vet" some priviliges in /etc/sudoers - you can edit this in an editor like nano or you can call it up directly in vi with "visudo" (http://www.go2linux.org/sudoers-how-to).

To make it even easier for my colleagues I even found a way of automating the login once the Premvet server was contacted. This is by using Expect. It successfuly logged in and entered the username and rendered the extra carriage return needed to get to the Premvet user login screen. The only problem I could not solve and I presume is a bug in Expect is, that it messes-up the rendering of characters in Premvet. The characters used to format the boxes is all wrong. This shouldn't have happened and I found no workaround.

So now the user must still enter the unix username and hit enter twice.

don't forget to change the terminal settings for Premvet for that machine: http://www.premvet.co.uk/premvet/manual/pv5/ch29b.html#29b2

There has just been one other snag besides Expect not working - colours. Premvet doesn't load a clolour scheme for this type of terminal so everything is in black&white. you can change the colours manually in Premvet for that machine but there is probably a workaround for that.

Running the Premvet client on Ubuntu Linux

2009-04-03T22:56:00.004+01:00

PremVet is a veterinary practice management and clinical records computer system based on Unix, made by a Scottish company VetSolutions.

Running the Premvet client on Ubuntu is actually very simple and worked very well. I was using Ubuntu 8.10 with the Gnome desktop. All you have to do is:

start the Terminal and enter
run the following command telnet [ip-address] (where the ip-address is the IP address of the Premvet server)
voila

It managed to draw the characters, including the lines that are used for graphics, right out of the box. There was only a couple of glitches. The bacspace did not work. To fix this it might be better to use a dedicated profile in terminal and change the setting for this profile by going to Edit - Profile Preferences. Click on the Compatibility tab and change the value for Backspace key generates from whatever it is (in my case it was ASCII DEL) to Control-H.

If you want to save yourself from extra typing you can create a launcher, but would somehow have to be able to set the profile for that launch. This is how you do i t.

The only thing I could not get to work is the colours of the user interface.

Accessing Premvet on the iPhone

2009-02-26T20:46:00.026Z

I got tired of keep having to go and see the waiting list on a PC that could have been away from the tea-room, making you get up and walking to the other side of the surgery only to find out there is nobody waiting for you or, worse still, someone has been on your waiting list for 15 minutes and nobody has told you about them.

So after getting my iPhone I wandered if there could be a way of seeing the waiting list on it. To give you the short version - YOU CAN. But there are a few pre-requisites. First of all you need a relatively secure Wi-Fi connection and that connection has to be open to the internal practice's network and the Premvet server must be visible from it. you can try calling the server's website or you can use other iPhone apps to ping it.

Please be aware that WiFi networks are a potential open back-door to your system and should be set-up by a pro or someone who knows what he is doing. Don't complain to me if the system gets hacked so consider yourself warned!

If you have successfully established a connection to the internal network you can follow this by installing the appropriate terminal emulator app on your iPhone.

Many of the settings that need to be entered can be found in the configuration of you Anita terminal emulator. If you don't have an Anita installed on any PCs you might have a wee problem.

I have tried several apps for this:

pTerm (from Instant Cocoa), cost: £2.99
which is based on the popular terminal emulator called PuTTy. Was the first one I tried and worked relatively fine.
- You set-up a new host, enter a nickname - something that will distinguish this connection from possible others.
- Enter the username - this s the username which you enter in the Unix system before you get to Premvet.
- Port - this is the port number that is open on the Unix server. On our system it was 23 but check with an Anita connection to see what is yours.
- Protocol - must be set to Telnet

Advanced settings can help with some in-depth configuration. I set-up the Terminal (3rd one down). Set Rows to 25 and Columns to 80. Type strings to »ansi«. I left the variables as is.
The emulator worked relatively fine but the age-old problem of drawing lines was repeated on this app. Instead of showing lines it is returning some weird characters. Also I could not make the delete button to work, if you use it it seems to freeze the emulator :-(

This app is quite nice to manouver in, if you tapp the emulator window it will bring up the keyboard. Tapping it again will remove it. Premvet keyboard shortcuts worked fine - the ever popular w-s for the waiting list summary. However the emulator froze on many occasions when I wanted to leave that page to get back to the main menu. Closing the app did not help.
MTelnet (from Mocha Telnet Lite), cost: FREE
looks like absolute winner, you set up the Server IP address, port (23), I left the Termtype to vt220 and it worked fine, using the username in this app actually worked and was able to auto-login to Unix, however pressing the return button is still needed. It worked like a charm and also drew the lines in Premvet - nothing garbled. Did I mention the Lite version of the app is free! The app is much different to pTerm and has a shortcut on the screen to the keyboard and has a permanent Return/Enter command button on top.
Keyboard shortcuts worked nicely and the emulator seemed more stable than in pTerm. There is a more extensive payable edition (for £3.49) of this app but I'm not sure if you will need it. The Lite version just rocks.
Telnet (from ThroughPut Inc), cost £1.19
This app fared the least. The setup seemed to simplified and the output was not impressing the whole Premvet login page was a complete mess.
iSSH (from Zinger-Soft), cost £2.39
This app I have tested the least. Might give more info on it later.

Zemanta - the great resource add-on

2009-02-23T16:29:00.004Z

I first heard of Zemanta a few months ago when it was , I think, mentioned on the TV Slovenia's IT program called »Resnična Resničnost« as an upcoming and innovative Slovenian company. It has founded a London office which it seems to use as the head office. Well, Zemanta has now been selected as one of the 20 companies that will be going to Webmission09 in San Francisco.

What the 20 companies will be doing there? Read here...

Read more here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/02/23/20-startups-selected-for-webmission09-next-stop-san-francisco/

Blogger to Wordpress.org import discrepancy (bug) regarding tags, categories and labels

2008-07-13T14:40:00.004+01:00

You can follow the discussion here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/188535?replies=1#post-802194

or by RSS here:
http://wordpress.org/support/rss/topic/188535

or through Zemanta community support:
http://tinyurl.com/5p2hbm

I posted this on the Zemanta support site:
http://tinyurl.com/5p2hbm

There is definately a problem with the import of blog from Google's Blogger (Blogspot) to Wordpress.org.

Problem:
- Google -> labels
- Wordpress -> categories, tags

The import puts labels into categories and I am sure this is wrong, especially after reading what tags v. categories really is. Labels are really tags and not categories and this is where the Zemanta addon shows the discrepancy. In Blogger it will help you add labels and in Wordpress it will, in my opinion correctly, help you add tags.
Then you suddenly see there is a problem, your old imported posts have lots of categories, while your new ones have tags.

The added problem was that I could not uncategorise in my post edit but had to remove all categories through the Manage - Categories menu.
I was about to report this as a bug but wanted to put it to the Forum.

What do you guys think?

Firefox 3 is finally here!!

2008-06-17T20:04:00.003+01:00

After a long wait and an apparent server crash we finally have the much anticipated new browser from Mozilla. You can get a detailed how-to on the product here.

The "big download" should have commenced at 10 am PDT but was delayed at least an hour an a half. I managed to get it at 19.30 GMT (20.30 CET). I encourage you to get you own here:

http://www.mozilla.com/

Get the new Firefox 3 from 17-Jun-2008

2008-06-12T20:44:00.006+01:00

Update:
Firefox available from 10am PDT. That is 19 pm CET (18 pm GMT).
Just FYI :-)

Finally, the new and improved best browser on the net will go public next Tuesday 17. June 2008 after a 34 month development period.

Plenty of improvements in this version. See Mozilla.org/Firefox for more information.

Adding Skype to Ubuntu

2008-05-17T14:20:00.004+01:00

Unfortunately there are programs that we like to use but do not fit in the Linux way of doing things - in this I meen the licensing. One of these programs is Skype. It cannot be installed and updated through the software repositories - well, at least not the default ones.

First open the sources.list file using Gedit as an example. Any other text editor will do. Run the following command:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then go to the end of the file and add the following line:

deb http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/ stable non-free

Update the packages by running the following command:

sudo apt-get update

Then install Skype:

sudo apt-get install skype

If like me, you already had an older version installed through medibuntu, then just add the line to sources.list as described above and run the update.

Brother HL-2170W on Linux and Windows

2008-05-02T17:13:00.007+01:00

I was looking for a printer that would enable me remote printing via Wi-Fi from my Windows XP PC and a laptop installed with Ubuntu Linux 8.04.
The first solution was to use the HP LaserJet 1022NW but that seemed to be discontinued very soon after I sterted looking for it and have to give it up. The price tag was just over 200 GBP and it had proprietary Windows print drivers, however the for the Linux drivers you had to go to the HPLIP - HP Linux and Imaging Printing. But as I didn't manage to buy this printer I cannot tell you how the installation went so...

The next one I found was the Brother HL-2170W. It cost much less (140 GBP) and it also only had proprietary Windows drivers. These were installed first and I would recommend installing the network option with the printer connected to the router via a LAN (UTP) cable. This makes the installation easy, the wireless setup requires some automatic recognition protocols on the router and even though I have a pretty good router (Netgear DG834G) the wireless setup did not work.
You will get the Linux LPR drivers here, although if possible, use the CUPS system (Common Unix Printing System). After that the other big decision you have to make is whether to give the printer a fixed IP address or connect it via DHCP. I tried the latter but had problems with the Linux laptop as it did not recognize the printer's hostname on the router - use a fixed IP address and it worked like a charm (for me). I especially liked the CUPS printing console which is views through a browser calling localhost with the port 631.

I made the mistake of setting up the printer's TCP settings through DHCP. You can change it by calling the printer's IP address. I found it through my router and going to Attached Devices.
If you look through the printer settings you can get the printer to print out its settings by pressing and holding the power button. That should also tell you the IP address.

In the printer's console (don't forget to change the default password "access" to something else. Go to Network configuration - Configure TCP/IP. Then change the IP address to something that is outside the DHCP range and change boot method to "STATIC".
Go to your Linux machine (if you were not on it in the first place - and why the hell weren't you? Linux rocks) and call up http://localhost:631/ (or whatever port you use) and got to "Manage printers". Go to the printer in question and click "Modify printer", then "Continue" twice and then correct the device URI to the printer's new static IP address. Click "Continue" again, select the PPD file and that should be it.

Heronov Hardy je tu

2008-04-26T11:31:00.005+01:00

Sicer se je že dolgo časa vedelo, da bo aprila 2008 izšla nova različica Linuxove distribucije Ubuntu. Še dolgo predno je različica izšla, se je vedelo, da bo imela oznako 8.04 LTS, kar pomeni, da izzide 2008, 4. meseca v letu.

Več informacij o novi različici dobite na naslovu http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/804features/

Izboljšav naj bi bilo kar nekaj, sam bom preveril, če so morda odpravili napake, ki niso delale v 7.10. Zagotovo še vedno niso izboljšali upravljalca omrežnih povezav. Še vedno namreč si sistem nezapomne gesla za wifi omrežje.

Še nekaj povezav do drugih, bolj podrobnih kritik nove različice:

What your pet shouldn’t eat

2008-03-27T21:51:00.003Z

There is a lot of discussion among dog owners regarding certain foods that are supposedly poisonous or not. When talking about potentially poisonous substances we should keep in mind the (in)famous father of toxicology, one Mr. Paracelsus of Switzerland and his famous saying “the dose makes the poison” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus). Put another way, whichever substance you consider, it may be a poison in a large enough quantities. To turn it around, not every poison is poisonous if taken at a low enough dose. Here are just some of the more “controversial” foods our vets have been asked about in their professional careers.

Chocolate

This is the most asked about food in relation to its toxicity. The compound in chocolate that causes serious concern is called 'theobromine'. It is also known as 'xantheose' and is part of the methylxanthine group of chemicals, which includes the very well known caffeine (found in your morning coffee) and theophylline (found in your afternoon cup of tea). It is present in all kinds of chocolate, but in very different concentrations. The basic rule to follow is the more cocoa in the chocolate, the higher the levels of theobromine. Plain or dark chocolates contain more cocoa than milk chocolates and have 4.5-10x more theobromine in them. The amount of theobromine in chocolate varies from one manufacturer to another, but a toxic dose (the dose, where your pet may show signs of poisoning) for a 20kg dog would be about 600-900g of milk chocolate and about 130-200g of dark chocolate.

So giving your average collie a small piece of chocolate shouldn’t harm him, but you shouldn't give him a whole bar.

Theobromine/chocolate can cause problems in humans as well as dogs, but it takes higher doses to cause more than a bit of guilty conscience! This is because animals metabolize theobromine much more slowly than humans. Clinical signs of theobromine poisoning appear within 10 hours of ingestion and include vomiting, diarrhoea, excitability, irregular heart rhythms, and a slow heart rate. The vomiting and diarrhoea can cause a severe loss of body fluids (dehydration). Later stages of poisoning include epileptic-like seizures and even death. The term death by chocolate should not be taken lightly!

Dogs in particular may eat dangerous amounts of chocolate, especially around Christmas and Easter. However cats (especially kittens), horses and parrots are known to be very susceptible.

If you suspect that your dog has eaten a large quantity of chocolate (particularly dark/plain varieties), consider contacting your vet as soon as possible. Treatment can potentially save your dog’s life! This may include inducing your dog to vomit, limiting the absorption of the toxin by administering activated charcoal as an absorbent, and intravenous fluid therapy to prevent dehydration.

Grapes (including raisins and sultanas)

This may be becoming a bigger problem in recent years with more reported cases every year. There is a lot of potential danger with grape ingestion. Even small quantities (9g - 18g) of grapes or raisins have been associated with acute kidney failure in dogs and even death. The toxicity relates to all products of the woody climbing vine (latin: Vitis vinifera).
Clinical signs occur between 6 and 48 hours after ingestion. They include loss of appetite, vomiting, lethargy, shivering and increased water intake. The danger of grape toxicity is great, with high mortality rates. In many cases the owner will not even know their dog has eaten grapes.

What actually causes the poisoning is currently unknown and there are many trials under way to try to shine light on the problem. One of the possible culprits could be a toxin from a fungus called a Mycotoxin, but so far nothing has been confirmed yet.

As with chocolate poisoning you should contact your vet if you suspect your dog has eaten grapes or raisins. The therapy is supportive and quite similar to the one for chocolate poisoning.

Onions (including garlic, shallots, leeks and chives)

The toxicity relates to all plants from the latin named Allium species but the most common plant that causes problem is the onion (latin: Allium cepa). All parts of the plant, whether raw or cooked, should be considered poisonous. The plant actually contains several toxins but only one of them is the biggest cause of problems as it causes a condition called a haemolytic anaemia.
Clinical signs take one to five days to develop and include vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal tenderness, loss of appetite and change in urine colour.
Treatment is, again, supportive, but in severe cases a transfusion might even be required. This poisoning is rarely fatal and dogs usually recover without any complications.

Macademia nuts

The exact cause of this toxicity is, similar to grapes, unknown but the fungus toxin Mycotoxin is a real suspect. These probably get onto the nuts during processing.
Clinical signs include weakness, especially in the back legs, vomiting and elevated body temperature and start within 12 hours after intake. They recover after a day or two and the positioning is considered non-fatal.

Bread dough

Due to the indiscriminate feeding habits of dogs they are most susceptible to bread dough related problems although other animals can also be affected. Bread dough is a two-fold problem: the warm and moist environment of the stomach acts like a great incubator for the yeasts in the dough and causes the dough to produce a lot of CO2 (carbon hydroxide) that makes the dough rise. This can cause stomach distension and in severe cases gastric dilatation and torsion, which some of you will know is a very serious and often fatal condition.
The other side-product to a rising dough is ethanol (also known as the alcohol found in alcoholic drinks). Its results cause various degrees of alcohol intoxication and a condition called a "metabolic acidosis".
Bread dough poisoning can be fatal and is mostly because of the alcohol effects rather than the gastric torsion.

Treatment is not straight forward as the dough cannot be removed from the stomach with usual methods and in many cases a surgical removal might be needed. The effects of the metabolic acidosis can be treated with various medications and intravenous fluids.

Antifreeze (ethylene glycol)

All animals are susceptible to this poisoning, but it is most common seen in dogs and cats. The most common way of poisoning is ingestion of radiator or car antifreeze, solar panel coolant, some break and transmission fluids but here have been cases in cats where the animal was poisoned through skin absorption. The poisoning is unfortunately quite common, especially if there is no access to drinking water. An added problem is the quite sweet taste of the antifreeze and thus its inherent high palatability amongst dogs.

The minimum lethal dose of undiluted ethylene glycol is 1.4 ml/kg body weight in cats and 4.4 ml/kg in dogs. Please beware that younger animals may be more susceptible!

The clinical signs of intoxication vomiting, increased drinking and increased urination, decreased body temperature, seizures and even coma.

In case of ingestion you should contact your vet as medication needs to be started straight away, preferably within 12h of intake.

ClamTK 3.07 antivirus in Slovene

2008-01-19T20:49:00.001Z

As I am slowly becoming a big fan of Linux and Ubuntu, I decided I would also contribute my time and effort to the projects. I recently started using ClamTK as a virus scanner on my Ubuntu machine and found it was not localized to Slovenia. The localization data was not that huge and I managed to localize it in just a few days, including the translation and testing.

ClamTK is a front-end GUI for the ClamAV antivirus machine.
I had a few problems setting the correct locale as I wasn't sure if it should be sl or sl_SI. Any feedback on this problem would be welcome.

The ClamTK application including the Slovene localization was issued today in edition 3.07

Watch TV Slovenija over Octoshape in Ubuntu Linux

2008-01-12T12:35:00.005Z

Update 14-Apr-2009

I have heard from RTV Slovenija that the Octoshape now only works in combination with high quality Flash transmission. The Windows Media player (including the transmission type described below) is not supported anymore.

----------------------------------------------

Update 04-Mar-2009

Due to possible changes in the way RTV Slovenija is broadcasting their programs over the internet it is possible that this might not work anymore, it certainly hasn't been working for quite a few weeks now.

----------------------------------------------

TV Slovenija is streaming live TV over the internet using the Octoshape system as a go-between RTV Slo servers and the video player on your PC. To learn more about Octoshape, click here.
The Ubuntu support site has put a lot of the instructions on this site:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Octoshape
but I found that you have to do some additional changes for it to work.
There is also help available on the Octoshape site that helped me solve a problem with additional settings: http://www.octoshape.com/plugin/linux.asp
The support page tells you to create the setup.cfg and put in the path to the java library
JavaExec=/path/to/libjvm.soI had a few problems trying to find the libjvm.so file but don't forget to look in the client folder. Mine was in "/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so".
Instead of using the search facility in Ubuntu, which I thinks sucks as I cannot search squat with it, I suggest using the good ol' Terminal and entering "locate libjvm.so". The output will list all locations where the file is located.

Don't forget to also fill in the path to the libjvm.so in the setup.xml file in the Octoshape folder:

This should now work. All you have to do is open the Terminal and got to the Octoshape folder and call the program with the URL of the stream as a parameter:
./OctoshapeClient -url:XYZ.xyz
The XYZ.xyz part is the URL and you can find different streams and their URLs on this Octoshape page. The actual URL is in the "Play" column.

Calling the stream this way is not very practical so I found a way of creating an icon and putting it on the desktop. Here are the instructions:

Create a link on the desktop to launch the program

Right-click on an empty space on the desktop and select "Create launcher" from the menu that opens:

Type: Application in Terminal
Name: RtvSlo 1
Command: /home/[username]/octoshape/OctoshapeClient -url:RTVSLO.tvslo1
You can give yourself a favour and prevent any typos by selecting the location of the Octoshape program by selecting the "Browse" button on the right.
Comment: RTV Slovenija 1

You can do the same for RTV Slovenija 2:
Type: Application in Terminal
Name: RtvSlo 2
Command: /home/[username]/octoshape/OctoshapeClient -url:RTVSLO.tvslo2
Comment: RTV Slovenija 2

------------------------------------------
UPDATE
If a windows user will accidentally wander on this page he or she can be comforted by the fact the the whole setup is dead easy and can be found here, albeit in Slovene. You basically install Octoshape and Java. When I say Java, I mean the JRE and you might already have it installed. If you are not sure you can check on the Java page here - the test supports different systems including Windows and Linux - well it worked on my machines.

UPDATE for Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)
The Octoshape plugin works, but you will have to either re-install Octoshape and Java and correct the path to the libjvm.so file. The Hardy Heron installed 1.6.0.06 and the new path was: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.06/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so
You must also re-edit the setup.cfg file if you re-installed Octoshape. Just check it anyway so you don't have to go through needless de-bugging.

Making Flash work in Firefox on Linux

2008-01-12T00:36:00.000Z

I saw a few articles about this when I first had the problem of running Flash within my Firefox browser on Linux (Ubuntu). The first time I installed an opensource player that turnes out not to work great. In fact it could NOT run the video content found on news channels and video websites. One source in fact mentioned, that Adobe does not have a Linux Flash player.

In fact IT DOES and you can find the sources and the instructions on how to install it all at this website.

It worked for me first time with no hitches.

Trash icon missing from Ubuntu (Gnome)

2008-01-08T18:23:00.000Z

There are 2 ways of correcting this apparently default problem with the desktop.

Adding the Trash icon to the desktop
- You can do it manually by adding ashortcut to the hidden .Trash folder hiding in your home folder. If you are in your home folder and want to make all the hidden files/directories visible, click CTRL+H.
- The better way of doing this is through Nautilus, the file explorer. First call up the configuration editor interface (GConf editor) by opening Terminal and entering
```
gconf-editor /apps/nautilus/desktop
```
  In the window on the right change the trash_icon_visible check value. You can also give it its own name. You can also add other icons to the desktop.
  Here is was it looks like on the desktop:
  
  By the way, I changed the name to a Slovene word for Trash: "Smeti".
Adding the Trash icon to the Panel

First, make sure the icon is not already there as it is not very visible but once you put your mouse pointer over it it reveals it purpose.

So if it not there or you want to add it to a different panel do the following. Right-click the Panel you whish to add the icon to and select Add to panel. In the Desktop & Windows section select "Deleted items"

Click the Add button on the bottom right. The Deleted items icon should appear immediately. Close the window you just worked with and that should be it.

Problems with WPA access in Ubuntu

2008-01-06T18:55:00.000Z

First of all I would like to stress that this instructions on this problem is not mine but because it was so good I decided to post it on my site in case the original would dissappear.

The problem I had that despite having setup Ubuntu 7.10 (a.k.a. Gutsy Gibbon)to access my wireless ADSL modem router Netgear DG834G the connection would go dead. System re-start did not help. I consider myself a Linux newbie so I will describe this as a begginner would.

About Linux and Ubuntu

First a little bit about Ubuntu. Ubuntu is one of the many Linux distributions like Red Hat, Debian, SuSe and many more. You will find many things made specific for each distribution so there commonly will not be a "linux" solution to your problem.
Then comes the desktop. That is the graphical environment you work in within a Linux distribution. One of the most popular are Gnome and KDE (K-desktop environment), but there are others available on the net. You will usually find desktop environment specific programs like web browsers, text editors and so on.

To complicate things even further there are different releases. I don't know about other distributions but Ubuntu has aliases for each release. The current release has the number 7.10, but its alias is Gutsy Gibbon. Here is a page concerning Ubuntu releases.

And now to complicate things even further there are different "variants" to each Ubuntu release:

Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome)
Edubuntu (Ubuntu focused on education)
Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE instead of Gnome)
Gobuntu (Ubuntu-base for other free software platforms)

So there, these are some of the basics. If you want to know more visit Ubuntu.com or Wikipedia. There are probably hundreds of sources to get the novice aquainted with using Linux.

And now to the problem of the wifi connection.

Open the Terminal (menu: Applications - Accessories - Terminal). This is similar to the MS-DOS program in Windows. You get a promps. The location the prompt will be will probably be /home/[username] so if your username is MPorter you will be at the location /home/mporter. Move the prompt to the root by entering "cd /" without the quotes, of course.

To update the source list run the following command, you must have access to the internet so cable your PC- up, meaning, connect it to the internet via a cable (USB modem or LAN cable to a router).

"sudo apt-get" then press enter, then type
"sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant" press enter, then type
"sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager" press enter, then type
"sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces" press enter.

This will open a simple Gnome text editor (like Notepad in Windows).

Comment out everything other than “lo” entries in that file and save the file.

Create a file called "/etc/default/wpasupplicant", add entry ENABLED=0 and save the file. You create the file in Gedit by clicking the New button, entering the text and then saving it. You save it by entering the full path with the filename: "/etc/default/wpasupplicant". Don't forget, the file does not have an extension so wpasupplicant is the file and the rest before it is the path "etc/default/".

Then go back into the Terminal and enter the following:
"sudo touch /etc/default/wpasupplicant" press enter, then reboot your system or use the following command in Terminal

"sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart"

Once you login back in to your machine you need to left-click the network manager icon in Gnome and select your wireless network It should prompt for password, type, etc and It will ask you to choose a password for your new “keyring”.

So now you have to setup the Network Manager and you can access it by clicking the little ikon next to the clock (it should be on the upper right, unles you fiddled with the default Gnome panel). Select the network you want to connect with, choose the WPA encryption.

I really suggest using at least the WPA encryption as WEP has been cracked on many occasions (link #1, link #2, link #3).

If you get the following error: The NetworkManager applet could not find some required resources. It cannot continue." just enter the following line in the terminal:
"sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f /usr/share/icons/hicolor/"

I, myself, did not get this error so I cannot say how useful it is for me.

The above example will be in case you want a dyniamically generate IP address through the DHCP system. If you want to configure static ip address in Ubuntu you need to follow this procedure:

In Terminal enter the following line "sudo /etc/network/interfaces".

Here is an example of the file. Once you edit the above file you need to enter the details in the following way

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.3.90
gateway 192.168.3.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.3.0

In the above details you can replace address as your ip address, gateway, netmask and network address and save your file.

Now you need to restart your networking services using the following command in Terminal

"sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart"

Just to be on the safe side, check your new IP address by using the following command in Terminal: "ifconfig". It does similar things like "ipconfig" in Windows CMD but the output is a bit different.

Laptop with Ubuntu Linux

2008-01-06T18:33:00.000Z

As I had to replace the hard disk on my laptop (IBM Thinkpad T43 1871-4AG) with a new 80GB Hitachi I also decided to have (another) go at installing Linux. I have tried it before on an older PC I had and had quite a few problems with getting the drivers. Also the Linux environment is pretty daunting and quite demanding, esp for someone used to Windows. Then I think I tried it again in 2006 using the Parallels virtual desktop app on my Windows XP. There were many issues with installing and I kept on getting some error messages that might have something to do with the CD-rom burning process. I was successful with Red Hat and Ubuntu but it expectedly all worked quite slow.

This time I had a fresh hard disk on a not-so-old computer and tried to install the ever more popular Ubuntu distribution of Linux. The version I used was 7.10 (latest at the time). I burn the ISO image from ubuntu.com with the tools they specified (InfraRecorder). I do suggest you test the MD5SUM values as the first download had a problem and I didn't check it. The ISO image burnt nicely, but there was an error message during install.
I tried a different mirror (Canonical UK) and the MD5SUM check was fine. The program I used for that was winMd5Sum.
I wish I could give you some pointers on some install problems but I can't - that is because there weren't any. Really. The whole think installed without a hitch.
The only problem I had was with setting-up the internet connection. As I didn't have a spare UTP cable as it was being used on the PC I got from home, I tried to setup the wireless access first. Now I am not sure whether the driver was incorrect or it had to be set-up manually. I installed the WiFi driver from MadWiFi, then entered the IP address, subnet mask... manually and it worked.
After that the update service installed 150 updates and after that the network didn't work again and the new drivers went missing, or so I presume. This time I didn't bother installing the drivers again but just re-entered the network data. The little Thinkpad WiFi light came on and the internet was back and running.

For those who will have a try at this with the similar computer can find a somewhat usefull but very advanced (for my taste) website at http://foosel.org/linux/t43. As a novice I was surprised to see how little standard programs are made for Linux. The only luck I had was with Kaspersky antivirus, but even that seems to be mainly for servers and after installing it it doesn't seem to work. There are probably think I missed during installation but I will probably try out a native Linux antivirus ClamTK. As the Firewall I installed the Firestarter via the Applications - Add/Remove utility.

There was an added complication with the wireless setup and the WPA connection with my Netgear router kept on dropping. I found some good instructions on how to fix the problem and I am posing them in this post.

How to replace the hard disk on IBM Thinkpad T43 (1871-4AG)

2008-01-06T14:00:00.000Z

I think this might work on all T43 Thinkpads but I do stress that this worked on mine (1871-4AG). Photo gallery.

Shut down the laptop and disconnect from any power supply or docking station. You will need to manipulate the laptop quite a bit later on :-)
Turn the laptop on its front and remove the battery by releasing the two locking mechanisms. The one on the left has to be pushed and then stays there, the one on the right has to be pushed and held there while you pull out the battery.
Unscrew the fixing screw that secures the hard disk in place
Lift the laptop's screen and rest it on the keyboard on a soft surface
Gently pull out the hard disk
Remove hard disk from the holder and re-attach the holder to the new disk
Gently, but firmly insert the new hard disk in the HDD slot. At this point you might experiance a little resistance, like the whole think has stuck. Just gently manipulate it in. It should go in the end.
Screw back the fixing screw and re-attach the battery.
You should be ready to start-up the system.

That should be it.

Hard disk problems

2007-12-19T18:35:00.000Z

Just to let you know I my laptop is no more. Its hard disk departed this earthly world and went to heaven. It will be dearly missed, however I did manage to backup most of the important files. The new disk is ordered by a very good friend of mine and should be arriving next week.

By the way, this blue screen of death is not from my computer.

How to post your blog on Facebook

2007-10-27T12:00:00.000+01:00

It seemed a bit silly to have two presences, one on Blogger and one on Facebook with nothing to unite them. I found a couple of software that can do just that. They are both Facebook applications so what they really do is show elements from your blog on Facebook.

The first, and very basic one, is called As seen on. Enter the details of the blog(s) that you have and a small box will give a link to your blog. As I said, it's very simple and not much more to it.

The other Facebook app I wanted to introduce you to is called Flog. It has recently become a much wider used app as it merged with myBlog and it now claims to be the "the largest Blogging Network on Facebook". In any case, it really nicely integrates your blog in Facebook. All it requires is, that your blog is also published through a RSS feed. Then you need to enter that RSS URL into the app and that is it. Really. See my Facebook profile or click on this Flog page to see my blog integrated in Facebook.

Google Apps and Blogger in the same domain

2007-03-15T20:10:00.000Z

This post is quite a bit nerdy so, readers, beware!

[nerdiness=on]
I posted this on the Google Apps group last week. I registered my domain martinmcdowell.com through Google Apps and wanted to use the same domain with Blogger, but using a sub-domain blog.martinmcdowell.com. I know Blogger allows the use of your own domain, but I wasn't sure if it will work with a sub-domain and also, if this will disrupt the functionality of Google Apps.

I found out, it worked. As I said, I registered the domain martinmcdowell.com though Google Apps and wanted to use it for my blog at Blogger.com. You do understand that I cannot be responsible, if everything goes tits-up but I do say that this worked for me very well.

What you have to do is the following:

1. go to Blogger.com, sign in and go to Settings - Publishing - use own domain. I entered blog.martinmcdowell.com and saved the settings.

2. then you have to change the CNAME table at the registrars: this is done by signing in http://tdns.secureserver.net using the sign-in number and password you can see in Google Apps settings. The instructions on doing this are here: https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=47610
The alias I used was "blog" I saved it and it worked straight away.

Sometimes you have to wait longer (a few days) for the DNS servers to update.
[nerdiness=off]