Twitter / it566

Monday, February 14, 2011

Light the Lamp!


Had several problems with getting phpMyAdmin and LAMP configured this but finally figured itself out with the help of Jason. KEY: Remember the word "root" is important part of the username process. I still have a E:dkimproxy error in my phpmyadmin somewhere that may come back to haunt me (who knows). I found a fix for this E:dkimproxy in a forum but it was written in Dutch. Felt like going through google language translator for a Dutch translation but found a fix somehow or it found me.

1. Found tuxtweaks.com and a forum for installing LAMP, (ordinaryjoe80 found it before, I should have looked at his tweet beforehand)
http://tuxtweaks.com/2010/04/installing-lamp-on-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx/

2. In synaptic manager phpMyAdmin was turned on. AVOID activating dtc.toaster (I think) in synaptic manager. I think I did by mistake.

3. Had trouble logging into phpmyadmin on localhost, did not know about the secret about using the word "root".

4. Went back to synaptic and uninstalled phpMyAdmin and thats where the E:dkimproxy error started showing up. Tried to uninstall LAMP and the evil E:dkimproxy would not allow a full uninstall.

5. So I pressed on as I thought most of my original uploads were intact (LAMP, phpMyAdmin, and Apache2. All were intact.

6. Started different combinations of logins into phpMyAdmin using the word "root" (I think in username) and IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!! how the &%$^&*(#@! did that happen? But I was really happy for sticking in with this and not giving up.

7. I even thought about the nuclear option (taking Ubuntu totally off my computer and starting fresh) for the E:dkimproxy would not go away (and still exists on my server/phpmyadmin/ somewhere).

Now onto figuring out how to fix the E:dkimproxy or figuring out how important it is, or not worrying about it.

QUACK! am I happy!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Tales of a Facebook fanpage administrator

Three years ago I decided that there wasn't enough information out there on the internet about things I liked. So I decided to create some fanpages about military trucks (when it was easier to set up a fanpage) in Facebook since it is free. In my former life I drove trucks in the military from 1989-1993. I thought I would post old pics about the Oshkosh M977 HEMTT (heavy expanded tactical truck) which has been in service since 1984 through today. Now why a mechanical military machine fanpage in Facebook? a social networking system?........because there wasn't one created for this item.
Now a truck is much like a computer, many moving parts, static displays, stuff that breaks. When I was in the army driving these machines I really did take many pictures as I was being told to do (or redo) tasks (sometimes meaningless tasks) almost all day. So with the M977 facebook fanpage I decided to take it a step further and make HEMTT parts albums along with the other albums. With the help of government liqudation I comb the truck parts sections on their fantastic website. Culling through parts seems on your computer tedious for the faint of heart or those with a life. But I do it as I want this to be a info center years from now. When I find what I am looking for either by nomenclature or NSN, I copy pictures and label their function, cost, and manufacturer.  The best part of government liquidation is the pictures are free! I have fans from all over the world who probably would also look but they keep wondering where these pictures come from, some secret ops type dudes (and ladies) who know of these HEMTT vehicles. 

Helpful tips for getting your Facebook fanpage admin types:
1. Visit your fanpage(s) everyday either through Facebook or google. At first this page was about #7 on the search results list. People are all about #1 and don't like to scroll too much.

2. If you use personal pictures on your fanpage you cherish of make them SMALL! (around 280 x 200 dpi). I unfortunately did not do this with my other fanpage M915 and some pictures ended up on  some "globalsecurity" website and a youtube video. Also use a personal emblem or logo to watermark your pictures.

3. Do not give others admin access to your created page unless you know them. Or they give you lots of money and you cannot resist. 

4. Give credit where credit is due. Yes I've copied some pictures, but I put names in the credit line. Some anti-social types can be fussy when their property is used—especially publishers who hire lawyers. 

5. Be a fan of your own fanpage or "like" button it, it may sound mundane, but if you don't like what your page is about why do it then? The like button has kind of thrown into the fray to accelerate followings.

6. Resist Facebook modifications or upgrades until you check out other fanpages to see what the new modification will look like.

7. Facebook (or wikipedia) will try to compete (wiki-pete) your fanpage if it gets traffic. Like my site M977, a M977 competitor exists now (with one fan!) set up wikistyle.

8. Setting up a Facebook fanpage is harder now with all new prompts. You probably would have had an easier time 2 years ago setting up your own Facebook fanpage(s)

9. You can sell stuff, I have had questions about truck part availability, but I am not a wholesaler, just a cataloger. But I wish I were.

10. Fanpages for movies, music, copyrighted entertainment are being created by the owners of those services. Who knows someday I may be ousted by Oshkosh Corporation over this site, I bet they have themselves have viewed my fanpage about their product several times and wonder what I am trying to prove.     

Installing software 3 ways

I learned during the set up of this machine in Ubuntu three different ways to install software. The first was software center: I added the graphics programs and some photo manipulation programs. MT Paint was also added to edit screenshots that I posted.



The launching of LibreOffice in early 2011 made it possible to load and remove OpenOffice in the same instance in terminal. I chose to try downloading the software this way as it could do two steps at once or two steps and not worry about OpenOffice still on my computer.



During the creation of the server, Jason Bennett helped me find the DD Client that helps moderate my router traffic and settings. This was a download off the DynDNS website. Once the download was complete the Synaptic Package Manager made the necessary modifications.

I learned much in the last 4 weeks, the downloading of software still may be a concern with my slow internet connection even though I have DSL. The download of Ubuntu 10.10 was done at work as it would have taken 2 hours to download here at home. It took 12 minutes at work. So I had to adapt to my surroundings for sure.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Yellow Fuzz! Success!

After 4 hours with Jason trying to figure out the marriage of At&t DSL and WRT54GS2 it finally worked at 8:45! Jason thought up the ingenious plan to download and livestream in Team Viewer 6 and we both trouble shot any errors on my computer. Jason is 31 miles from me in Knoxville off of Weisgerber and I am in Dandridge. So the distance was erased.




The Linksys admin was the tricky part, on the initial install from the Cisco Router manager install disk settings were default or erroneously change by myself weeks ago when I initally set this computer up in Windows7 then forgot about them when I coverted this machine to Ubuntu 10.10. The problem was port 80 and the remote access button. Port 80 open yet was still inhibiting outside traffic. The gray
portion of the box was white when the block was active.


Jason kept checking my computers port 80 and it was open because the diagnotic from canyouseeme.org proved that it was indeed okay. So something was limiting the access.





I subscribed to DynDNS the night before as from reading the blogs and tweets from the IT566 classmates. DynDNS was cheap $15 and had technical service that was concise. Yet the problem could not be corrected.



It finally was Jason who had found the answer at Boutell.com, in a 2008 FAQ post about "visitors seeing the router the login prompt when connecting to the host name", and lo and behold the same still holds true in 2011 and the problem was solved!!!!




This was a very valuable learning experience. I feel I learned much tonight and am ready for the challenges ahead..........Quack!

 quaxster.dyndns-blog.com

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Thursday, February 3, 2011

LibreOffice Added

Okay I cannot help myself, I am a graphics software junkie so I jumped up into the downloads and wanted to see the new replacement for Openoffice. I ran across a link off a google search and wanted to try terminal for adding new software to my computer. It was fun utilizing terminal as well as LibreOffice

Replace OpenOffice with Libre Office in Ubuntu 10.10

1. Remove all instances of OpenOffice.
Open a terminal and type:
sudo apt-get autoremove openoffice.org-*

2. Install LibreOffice via PPA
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libreoffice
 
 

Server System

HP Pavillion

Intel Core i5 processor-450M (2.4GHz)
RAM 4GB DDR3 (8GB expandable)
500GB HD SATA HP Protect Smart
Intel HD Video Graphics
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n/WLAN & Bluetooth with WiDi

Ubuntu 10.10 (plus two)

Finally got Ubuntu on this computer, re imaged another .iso in 64 bit and it worked. I have still have window 7 on my computer as well as a drone Ubuntu that is a "recovery" and will not boot. Anyway I will learn how to get that drone off someday. Thanks to Jason and James for their help

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The cursor wink of death

Tried another install of Ubuntu 10 with a .iso instead of the demo, screen blinks out and on, then the blinking cursor of death. I cannot startup any operation system now nothing boots. I have the U installer disk in my drive and it whirls then stops.

Doing a start up diagnostic on my computer to assess the next move. No windows 7 reinstaller to start a fresh install either.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Ubuntu in Demo Mode?

I think this may be in Ubuntu 10.10 demo mode? There is an Ubuntu 10.10 install icon on this desktop. Having problems with Ubuntu booting up regularly as the screen goes black when I select Ubuntu on the startup instead of Windows 7. After several attempts I pressed  esc when the computer was loading and selected demo so it loaded.

If anyone can help with this mystery I appreciate it
Quack!