Villeneuve Family Portal

Problem: You’re tired of the default Kubuntu login theme and want to install a new one. But when you try to add new themes by going to System Settings > Login Screen (under the category System Administration) > Theme, nothing happens.

Cause: A flaw in KDE

Solution: Open Konsole and type:

kdesudo kcmshell4 kdm

This will open the Login Screen module, but as root. Now try installing a login theme. You should be able to see the newly installed theme in the list once you install, and be able to specify it as the default.

Problem: Mozilla Thunderbird (running on a GNU/Linux machine) doesn’t display emoticons in messages that were sent using Microsoft Outlook. Instead, emoticons appear as the letter “J”.

Cause: Microsoft’s lack of concern for web and email standards

Solution: Install the “Wingdings” font so that Thunderbird can actually render the emoticons. On the latest versions of Ubuntu, this is as simple as clicking on the wingding.ttf file and then clicking Install. You can get Wingdings from your Windows computer. Just go to C:\Windows\Fonts and look for wingding.ttf. It should be near the end. Copy this file to your GNU/Linux machine and install it. Next time you start Thunderbird, you should be able to see emoticons in any message sent by a friend using Microsoft Outlook.

Problem: GParted crashes while starting up when launched from the Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Live CD, or from a Maverick USB installation. Restarting the computer and beginning another live session fails to help matters.

Solution: There’s actually a pretty simple solution for this very annoying problem: Upgrade GParted. A user dealing with this problem could, of course, fall back on an older Live CD with an older version of GParted. But older versions may run into “unknown errors” if a newer version of GParted has been used to configure a drive. Furthermore, it makes sense to just grab the latest and greatest version.

If you’re running Maverick on a USB stick, just open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install gparted

Ubuntu will upgrade GParted. Next time you try to start it, it should come up okay and not crash.

If you’re running a live session from a CD or DVD, use the disc to make a USB stick that can save data. Then upgrade GParted using the command above.

The situation: You’re trying to watch a Flash movie in Firefox and you can see video just fine, but the audio is stuttering like a broken record, making it impossible to hear the sound. Audio does not stutter in non-Flash applications. You have the latest version of Flash from the Ubuntu repositories.

What’s going on? This appears to be a bug that many Ubuntu/Kubuntu users are experiencing. It looks like it’s a glitch with Flash. Messing around with your sound architecture is unlikely to help matters, so don’t do that.

Solution: There is a fairly simple workaround. Go to Tools > Add-ons. Select “Plugins”. Disable your Flash plugin. Restart Firefox. Then, go back to Add-ons and enable the plugin. Try playing a Flash video again and see if the audio works. Repeat this workaround if the problem occurs again.

In some (but not all) other browsers, this problem can be alleviated by simply restarting the browser.

Comment: If you’ve found this post, I hope the above troubleshooting advice helps. I can’t wait for the day when proprietary software is no longer required to view video on the Web. Flash sucks. The advent of HTML5 will hopefully make Flash problems irrelevant and a thing of the past.

The situation: You’ve just spent the last few hours writing a post for your blog or newsletter, using the editor built into your blogging or mailing platform, which you access inside of a web browser. You go to hit Publish, and you get prompted to login (because it auto-logged you out for some reason). Or you see an error message, maybe something like, We’re sorry, we couldn’t process or request. Or you see a blank web page.

You login again (or go back) and discover that all that’s left of your blog post or newsletter is an incomplete fragment…. or worse, nothing! You curse your blogging tool and wonder if there is anything you can do to retrieve your lost draft.

As it so happens, there is.

The solution: Assuming your data is not saved in a cookie or in a cache file, and can’t be retrieved using a tool like Lazarus Form Recovery (which you MUST install if you are a Firefox or Chromium user, after you are done following the steps outlined below), your only recourse is to dump the browser’s memory and search for the draft.

I have successfully recovered a draft using this method (which was pioneered by Thomas Strömberg) more than once, either when Lazarus failed me, or I was running a browser that did not have Lazarus installed. So can you… but only if you are capable of reading carefully and following directions!

This tutorial assumes you are running Windows, because that’s the operating system most people have on their desktop or laptop.

Prerequisite: For this method to work, the browser you were/are working in needs to be kept open and undisturbed. Do NOT close your browser and do NOT close the browser tab your data was lost in! Leave it open. Don’t touch it. Open a different browser and proceed with these instructions in that browser.

Ready? Let’s go!

1. Determine whether the browser you were working in is multi-process or single-process. If it was Internet Explorer 8 or Chromium (i.e. the spyware-infested Google Chrome – yuck, or ChromePlus – free of Google’s spyware), then the browser is multi-process. If it was Firefox or a previous version of Internet Explorer, the browser is single-process. If you use some other browser, search for the answer on Bing.
2. If you use a single-process browser, proceed to the next step. If you were using a multi-process browser like IE8, maximize that browser now and begin counting how many tabs are currently open, beginning at left. Stop counting when you get to the tab you were working in, where your draft was eaten. Write this number down.
3. Next you need to download two tools: pmdump and strings. These tools will permit you to dump the browser’s memory into a text file for examination so you can look for the contents of that lost draft. Go here to download pmdump. Then, go here to download the Sysinternals strings utility. Download these files to your Desktop.
4. Click the Start button. Choose “Run” and type “cmd”, then hit Enter. (Vista/Win7 users: Just type “cmd” into your search box and hit Enter).
5. A black screen will appear and will display a copyright message, then it will show a command prompt, like this: C:Documents and SettingsYour Username>
6. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded pmdump and strings (should be Desktop), by typing the following and hitting Enter:
   • cd Desktop
7. Now it should say C:Documents and SettingsYour UsernameDesktop> Type the following and hit Enter:
   • pmdump -list
8. You should see a list of currently running processes ending in .exe with numbers to the left of them.
9. Now it’s time to dump the memory. First, however, we have to narrow down which process contains that lost draft. (If you were using a single-process browser, skip to the next step). To do this, we’ll isolate all processes related to the browser. So, for instance:
   • pmdump -list | find "chrome" OR
   • pmdump -list | find "ieexplore"

   Once you have executed this command (again, by hitting Enter), you’ll see a smaller list of processes. They will all have the same name, but different numbers preceding them. Start counting the number of processes, beginning at the top of the list. When you reach the number you wrote down earlier (of the tab you were working in), stop.

10. Now write down the four-digit number of the line you’re on.
11. To dump, type the following and hit enter, where “XXXX” is replaced by the number of the browser process. This command may take some time to run. Let it finish.
    • pmdump XXXX recoverdraft.dmp
12. Now you’ll get rid of all the non-text data from the memory dump you just made using the strings utility. Type the following, hit Enter, and then be patient while it finishes:
    strings recoverdraft.dmp > recoverdraft.txt
13. Leave the command prompt window open.
14. In the folder where you downloaded pmdump and strings, you should now see recoverdraft.dmp and recoverdraft.txt. Right click on recoverdraft.txt and choose Open With > WordPad. The file may take a while to open, so be patient. If you were using Firefox and had many tabs open, the file will be huge.
15. When the file finishes loading (assuming WordPad doesn’t crash) hit Ctrl+F to open the search box. Type a unique phrase from your draft and hit enter. If all goes well, you’ll stumble across decently-sized fragments of your draft, or maybe even the draft in its near entirety. If you find nothing, try another phrase, and then another.
16. If you don’t find any fragments at all after several tries, it could be that you dumped the wrong process. Go back to the command prompt window and verify which process you dumped.
17. If you miscounted, dump the correct process.
18. For multi-process browser users: If you didn’t miscount and suspect the list of processes top-to-bottom does not correlate with the tabs open in your browser left-to-right, try dumping and running strings on each one of them. Obviously, this could be time consuming, but trial and error usually is!

Ideally, after following the steps above, you’ll succeed in recovering most or all of your lost draft. If your draft has been separated into a great many fragments, piecing it all back together will be tough. You are more likely to encounter fragments if you were switching back and forth between writing and doing something else (like researching) while you were composing the draft. If all you were doing was typing your post or newsletter for an uninterrupted bloc of time, you are likely to find your draft mostly intact.

You can close your browser and the command prompt after you are all done, and have successfully recovered your draft… or given up

In the future, save yourself a lot of time by installing Lazarus Form Recovery. This add-on is available for Firefox and Chromium (if you want to use Chromium, I recommend ChromePlus, not the spyware-infested Google Chrome).

Lazarus securely saves all the data you type into forms, so in the event of a crash, disconnection, or other mishap, you can get your input back with just a couple clicks. Lazarus works more reliably in Firefox. It may not save your bacon if you’re a Chromium user, because it is still in early development.

After running an update the other day at the prompting of KPackageKit (the software that Kubuntu uses to manage and install system upgrades), I rebooted to find that my GUI (graphical user interface) had disappeared. Puzzled, I logged in at the command line and tried to start X, but Kubuntu threw back an error.

I suspected that the problem had to do with the upgrade that I installed, and I was right. Looking through the Kubuntu Guide for an answer, I found this:

Sometimes after a kernel upgrade a proprietary driver may stop working. In such a case, try installing the new linux-headers that match the newly upgraded kernel:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Logging in to the command line, running the above command, and rebooting solved my problem and brought back the GUI. If you run Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Debian, or a similar GNU/Linux distribution, try executing the above if you find yourself staring at a black screen with a text welcome instead of the familiar graphical login screen that you’re used to.

If you’ve installed OpenVBX on your server to provide an administrative backend for your virtual phone system, then you may have noticed that Twilio, Inc. – the company that released OpenVBX – has slipped a Google Analytics tracking script into the package’s source code. I consider this unethical, because they don’t state upfront that they’ve done this. They can embed Google Analytics in their own website if they want, but it’s wrong of them to put it in the software that they’re distributing.

Essentially what Twilio is doing is spying on their customers without their consent. That Google Analytics tracking script is sending information to their Google Analytics account, by default!

I make a point of avoiding doing business with Google because Google is obsessed with destroying the whole idea of user privacy, which is sacred to me. I pay good money for full-fledged webhosting partly so I don’t have to rely on any of Google’s products.

So naturally, when I discovered that there was a Google Analytics tracking script hidden inside of OpenVBX, I wasn’t happy. I set about removing the tracking code as soon as I had a spare moment. If you’d like to do the same, here’s what you do:

1. In the shell (or your FTP client) navigate to where you have OpenVBX installed, i.e. /home/user/example.com/myopenvbxinstall/
2. In your OpenVBX installation, there will be a folder called OpenVBX. You want to navigate into this folder, then “views”, then “layout”. (Example path: /home/user/example.com/myopenvbxinstall/OpenVBX/views/layout/)
3. Navigate into the content subfolder. You’ll see a file called analytics.php. Open this file. Replace the entire contents with <!-- --> or, alternatively, tracking code provided by your Piwik installation. (Piwik is the open source alternative to Google Analytics, which you can run on your own server).
4. Save the file. Now navigate back up to the “layout” folder and into the “flow-editor” folder. Again, you’ll see a file called analytics.php. Repeat the last step with this file.
5. Save and you’re all done.

You have just removed Google Analytics from your OpenVBX installation. Privacy assured!

As anyone who has spent enough time with electronics knows, computers and mobile phones are delicate, fragile devices that are prone to malfunctioning or breaking. And often it takes just the loss of one essential component to render an entire device useless.

That’s what happened to me at the beginning of the month when I discovered, to my chagrin, that my BlackBerry would no longer charge when it was plugged in. I took the phone to the Verizon Store to find out what was wrong with it. Lo and behold, the USB port that allows the phone to charge and exchange data with other devices was broken. The only way to get it fixed, according to the Verizon employee I talked to, was to replace the whole phone.

Fortunately, the phone was still under warranty, so I was offered a free replacement. Taking the replacement, however, would have meant surrendering my old BlackBerry to Verizon, along with all of my settings, messages, and other data which I didn’t want to lose.

I ended up declining the replacement initially, so that I could figure out a way to back up my BlackBerry’s data first. I knew I could use my micro SD card to transfer off the pictures and music that were on the phone, but wasn’t sure how to save anything else. Neither were the unimaginative folks at the Verizon Store…  they had no ideas or suggestions to give me. The most they could offer was to simply go ahead and replace my phone.

I decided to leave my phone at the store so I could at least get the battery charged (it was almost completely dead when I brought the phone in).

When I got home I started researching the problem. I soon found a potential solution while browsing the CrackBerry forums. It turns out that BlackBerries can be backed up wirelessly using Bluetooth – no cables required. It sounded like Bluetooth could come to my rescue.

So I headed back to the Verizon Store. On my way there I stopped at Best Buy to purchase a Bluetooth desktop adapter for my notebook computer, which doesn’t have one built in. I had misgivings about going to Best Buy but didn’t want to drive all the way to Fry’s in Renton to get what I needed.

Turns out I should have.

The “Rocketfish” Bluetooth adapter I got from Best Buy refused to work, even after I had installed the drivers. I kept getting an error message telling me “Bluetooth license check failed. Please make sure that the bluetooth device you are using is licensed”.

As a result, I was unable to connect to my phone to back it up. But at least I was able to take my phone home with me, freshly charged, to keep trying. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the Rocketfish adapter to work (Rocketfish, incidentally, is one of Best Buy’s house brands. Figures).

So the next morning, I returned it to Best Buy and did what I should have done in the first place: go to Fry’s.

At Fry’s I found a Belkin adapter that was less expensive than the Rocketfish adapter, and better supported. (The Rocketfish website is awful, there’s almost nothing there. No drivers, no real support).

I installed the Belkin adapter successfully but was unable to connect my BlackBerry. I returned to CrackBerry to find out why and found out that BlackBerry Desktop Manager only works with the native Windows drivers. I followed the instructions to register the Belkin adapter with Windows and then uninstalled the third party Broadcom drivers.

When I restarted my computer, the Found New Hardware screen came up. This situation wasn’t addressed in the CrackBerry instructions so I wasn’t sure what to do. I chose Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) and clicked Next. At the next screen I decided to try Option Number Three: Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install. I clicked Next.

To my amazement, Windows detected its own drivers and promptly finished the hardware configuration correctly.

I set my BlackBerry to listen for a Bluetooth connection and initiated the Add Device wizard in Windows. Sure enough, it came up. After creating a passkey, I was able to successfully connect. I then opened BlackBerry Desktop Manager. Thankfully, the Bluetooth options in the Connection Type selector were no longer grayed out. I checked the boxes to use Bluetooth and then Yes when the Desktop Manager asked me if I wanted to connect now.

Then, at long last, I was able to back up my BlackBerry.

Less than forty eight hours I had restored the backup onto the new replacement BlackBerry, plugged in my micro SD card, and I was back in business, with all my data intact. That is, except for applications, which I quickly was able to reload with the help of App World. And I now have a charging cradle to further reduce the wear and tear on my BlackBerry’s USB port. (It charges the battery via the gold contacts on the bottom of the phone).

Moral of the story: Just because someone tells you something is hopeless doesn’t mean it really is. I was able to save my data and save myself from a lot of trouble because I was persistent.

Nice:

BREAKING NEWS: Washington has clinched at least a tie for the Pac-10 basketball championship with an 83-78 victory over Arizona. Details to come.

It was a pretty close game all the way through, but the Huskies stayed ahead at the end with good free throw shooting, making up for missed shots in the first half.

The No. 21 ranked Huskies defeated Arizona State in a big game on Thursday night. With the win over Arizona, the Huskies have improved their record to 22-7.

The Huskies have one league game left… they will square off against WSU at Hec Ed on March 7th (2:30 PM). They’ll also take on Seattle University on March 3rd, also at Hec Ed. (Kind of nice to have those last four games at home!)

This is how a high school basketball game ends in our house?

In a matter of seconds, Friday night’s KingCo 4A Crest Division boys basketball game between Redmond and fourth-ranked Garfield turned sour.

In a bizarre scene, a Redmond High School senior charged out of the stands and punched Garfield player De’Andre Taylor in the face, spurring punches from both sides as the two teams and fans had to be separated.

The Redmond student who threw the punch reacted to a collision and verbal exchange between Taylor and Redmond player Max Wisman in a game where opposing fans traded derisive chants. Referees had stopped the action to separate the two players when the student ran onto the floor.

The Garfield bench emptied and eight Bulldogs were ejected by referees for leaving the bench area and coming onto the floor in the mayhem. With Garfield leading 50-33, the game was suspended with 5:26 remaining.

I wasn’t at the game last night, but when I read accounts of the brawl in this morning’s P-I and Times, I was appalled. I’m sure I’m not the only Redmond alumnus who feels ashamed that this happened on our home court. That any Redmond student would surrender their self control and assault a player from an opposing team is embarrassing to both RHS and the people of the City of Redmond. It’s beyond disrespectful.

Whatever happened to Honoring the Game?

I hope the Redmond senior responsible for instigating the brawl is creatively punished. Perhaps he or she should be sent over to Garfield to do community service there.

Knowing the administration at the Redmond High, they’ll think of something appropriate.