redconfetti

Update 04/23/2010 – I’m not finding a solution to this issue. Sorry. I’ve lost interest.

I recently setup Ubuntu 9.10 on a desktop system, so I could use it as a file server. I’m was able to enable the remote desktop feature for it, which is basically a VNC server.

The issue is that once I disconnected a monitor from the computer and set it up next to my router (plugged directly in), and restarted it, VNC would only work with a maximum resolution of 640×480.

In a forum someone pointed out that this configuration added to /etc/X11/xorg.conf would save the day:

Section "Device"
        Identifier "VNC Device"
        Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "VNC Screen"
        Device "VNC Device"
        Monitor "VNC Monitor"
        SubSection "Display"
        Modes "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "VNC Monitor"
        HorizSync 30-70
        VertRefresh 50-75
EndSection

I just restarted after my ‘sudo service gdm restart’ command didn’t seem to work. I think this might have something to do with a special Nvidia driver I’m using. Hm…

And I thought this most recent article was giving me the holy grail.

Eh. I’m going to bed now. It’s 3:29 AM. I’ll slay this dragon later perhaps.

My friend Marshall was recently having issues getting PHP5 installed and working on his Ubuntu server, which is a Debian based distribution.

We updated all the packages involved…Apache2, php5, libapache2-mod-php5, made sure the module was installed, restarted Apache2, etc. Nothing worked.

It turns out that the default php5.conf configuration for Debian / Ubuntu’s packages are using an incorrect syntax. Edit /etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.conf to reflect:

<FilesMatch \.php$>
  SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
</FilesMatch>

…instead of…

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Special thanks to this Apache wiki article for pointing this out:

http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/DebianPHP

I’m just posting this solution here for all the other nerds having the same issue that aren’t finding this article in Google.

This is one of the most awesome Gary Numan songs evar!!

I love this song. This piano tribute can possibly make the dark beauty of this song accessible by those who probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate the original.

If you like 80′s synth pop, you’ll likely like this.

http://www.purevolume.com/theaviationorange

Check out their single ‘Radio’.

At work I have a Dell Dimension 3000 workstation, and for months I’ve put up with the computer being kind of slow. I just figured it was due to the computer being kind of old…but I brought in some headphones so I could do some serious music listening while I work and just got fed up with the way the sound was choppy. Anytime I’d do anything processor intensive the music I was listening to in Grooveshark (which I highly recommend you check out) would sound like crap.

So I installed the latest sound driver from Dell.com for the integrated sound card and still after rebooting it sucked. Also when I start the computer up in the morning, I would have to wait like 3 minutes at least for all the startup programs to load. Nothing else would open until this was done.

So anyway, I searched for a solution to this issue and found this post:

http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/hardware-problems/29157-choppy-sound-dell-dimension-3000-a.html

It turns out that the Primary IDE controller in Windows XP was set to use some sort of PIO mode to communicate with the hard drive on the computer, as opposed to DMA mode. DMA stands for Direct Memory Access, and is totally more efficient than the PIO mode, Programmed Input-Output, where the central processor transfers data byte for byte or word for word through your system to the other components (like your sound card).

My computer runs blazing fast now in comparison to how it was running before. I’m so glad I checked into this. If you have a Dell Dimension 3000 and it’s running like crap, definitely try this.

My aunt recently asked me how to un-hide someone from the news feed for her Facebook account.

Like many other people before her, she’s pressed the ‘Hide’ button for someone, then realized it was a mistake…but couldn’t find out how to unhide them.

To add someone back to your Facebook news feed, simply scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the ‘Edit Options’ link for your news feed.

After you’ve done this, simply click on the ‘Add to News Feed’ button to add updates regarding one of your friends, or other pages, back to your Facebook news feed.

I’m not very experienced with X-windows on the Linux platform, so I’m not too skilled in troubleshooting issues with the display. I recently upgraded an Ubuntu system at work to use Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), which only has Firefox 3 available (no package for Firefox 2). I had a Selenium server setup running tests, but they stopped working after I upgraded to this newer version of Ubuntu.

I thought that perhaps Selenium wasn’t compatible with version 3 of Firefox, but this isn’t the case. The Selenium website says ‘Firefox 2+’ for browsers running on Linux.

The error I was receiving when I would run a test was:


10:46:19.778 INFO - Preparing Firefox profile...
Error: no display specified


After a bunch of research and Googling online, it turned out I just needed to run this before I started my Selenium server:

export DISPLAY=:0

I hope this saves someone else some time.

I don’t necessarily support the use of cocaine, but I really like this picture.

I took this photo at the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve.