Apache & Linux Mint 17

Lately I have been experimenting with running apache2 on a linux mint 17 and after some challenges I have been able to make some progress on setting up a wordpress blog and a series of other experiments. This aligns nicely with the classes I am taking on JavaScript and through the combined efforts I am slowly getting a better understanding of the process and how the setup would need to run.

With that in mind my eventual goal is to expand the view and understanding of running a website from a local system. Certainly it has been explored before but at the very least through that effort perhaps more would be able to follow the process and more would realize as human beans there are many possibilities.

Twitter | Ratios Followers to Following | Overcome the Plateau.

There was a lesson that had to be learned, the hard way as most are always learned, twitter as an amazing medium, has mechanisms in place to keep the quality as high as they can muster. In example there is a limit of 2001 people following imposed by twitter to make sure the ratios are kept, in that there are more followers then following. In that perhaps for some frustration, but for me an opportunity to learn something new and experience something different, it is all in the matter of how you interpret it. You can make a conscious choice and take it as a lesson or leave that world with a sour taste in your mouth. This article speaks to a way you and me are able to explore more and understand more one the choice is made to take it as a lesson not a setback.

Read More and Purchase the Download, for Quick Reference;

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Ubuntu | A Lesson Learned | Why Certain Upgrades are Held Back?

A tough lesson to learn, in regard to Ubuntu, that first there is often a reason certain updates are held back, usually unless you know how to fix it, you should try not to break it.

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Syncing Motorola Phone – Ubuntu & VirtualBox

For this last week I have been looking for the right software to sync my Motorola SLVR L7 on Ubuntu. I tried Wine but the software I was thinking of did not work with it, and wine is a great bit of software but it still did not solve my challenge. From my Windows days, though I hate to remember them to fondly, I had found a program online that did the trick, without the need to pay the forty dollars it would usually cost for Motorola Specific Software.

Instead reverting back to the days of Shareware, Freeware in the like once so apparent on community based Bulletin Boards when 14400 was a fast connection and the only way to access it was through a dialer. The specific software that I recalled is Sync Cell which can be found @ the download area of the sync cell site. The catch is to make it work, I followed these steps:

1. Using Virtualbox after setting up Windows XP as a virtual machine to first use the program.
2. Once that is setup it was necessary also to make sure the shared folders were enabled depending on where you want to put the pictures or information.
3. Then to open the program after installing it from the Download Link above.
4. Once it is all said and done, you need to also make sure and connect the phone or you will get an error that basically says connect the phone.
5. May Look complex but it really is not.

Let’s break it down step by step:

First to install Virtualbox if it is not already installed you have a couple of options depending on what type of install you are looking for generally the easiest would be the OSE version which can be installed by simply navigating to VirtualBox in the download sectionand follow the steps outlined there. Once you have Virtualbox in order to install windows xp you need the original Windows XP Disk, and follow the simple wizard that is offered once you add a new virtual machine.

Once you have windows installed in your virtual machine then you navigate to SyncCell Downloads and choose either try or buy, for this article though I am speaking about the trial version which you are able to work with for 15 Days, to give you an idea how powerful this software is, and from there you can decide to Buy if you like. The nice thing is for the Slvr L7 at least you can also with the most recent addition sync it with your Google Account, which is simple enough to sign up for by navigating to G! Signup which is a simple process, and once complete you also have much to implement through your singular account, course all the options will have to be spoke about in another article, as they are outside the scope of this one.

With Sync Cell as you will see everything is pretty much click and go, soon as your phone is setup and connected, there are many things you can do, from pulling pictures from your phone to syncing your calender and contacts. Not to mention you can use OneSync, which is the proprietary version of this program that the creator owns the rights to which then enables you to do pretty much all you need to do with a singular click. I have not used it much as I am more interested in the abilty to take videos and pictures off my phone and locate them on my computer for later modification using programs such as;

Gimp

Kino

And Others that will be spoke about in depth in a later article.

As far as setting up Shared Folders on VirtualBox in order to copy, the files from the mobile phone, to a local directory on your computer when running Windows XP on VirtualBox, it is as simple as setting up shared folders on VirtualBox before you even start the guest operating system. To do that requires going through the settings for the Virtual Machine, in this case Windows XP, until you find the shared folders and then move your mouse down to Other and choose your directorie(s) one at a time, and once that is complete start up the XP Virtual Machine. I would suggest XP simply because Windows 7, however exciting it may be makes the accessing of shared folders far to involved, and since many know XP I figure it makes sense, as with Shared Folders, you can just navigate to My Network Places/Entire Network and from there you will see VirtualBox Shared Folders and then can use them like any other directory.

Overall this is a spectacular program and it is also nice you can run something like VirtualBox, and run it without the need to have a separate partition with Windows on It.

Restarting an AT&T Uverse Router – How To and Solution.

A question many have asked and few have had the opportunity to find an answer, hopefully in this post on how to restart uverse router will have a chance to explain it further. First and foremost like many things it is often simpler then you may of thought in the first place as simple as pressing a button, but for a better option and what I used in order to access all my data to reboot the entire system;

1. You need to access the Administrative Panel, usually available @ 192.168.1.254 by typing that address in the browser input box at the top. Now it also matters if your network is entirely wireless, and to follow this tutorial the best approach is to insure there is a host system a primary computer that is directly connected to the router via a Wired Connection as the router does not have to deal with any other problems that seem to occur with wireless and can access the Administrative Panel easily. As well as effectively, as you want to make sure you are directly connected when you follow these steps as when they are finished everything will be down for a moment wireless included.
2. Once you have connected a host computer to the router using Cat5e or Cat6 cable, which can be found at most Computer stores, you can be sure the connection is solid, now it also depends on your system or Operating System, for this tutorial I am using Windows XP Professional on a computer that was in the same room as the router connected via Cat6 cable with an integrated Wired Connection on the system.  You may also need to do some simple setup often expedited with the Windows Wizard to set it up and use the connection.
3. When everything is set and the wizard completes and shows you as connected you can then proceed to open your chosen browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or what have you) and type 192.168.1.254 which should bring you to an administrative panel. From this administrative Panel navigate to Device>View Details where you will then see a link to restart the system. A note of warning, when you click this link the entire uverse network in your home will be down for a matter of 5-10 minutes or so while everything restarts, meaning;
   1. No Phone – If you chose to Switch your voice line to Uverse
   2. No Internet – Since it is completely based on the Uverse Router, though if you followed the steps outlined you should still have the wired connection in place though not operational when the system resets.
   3. No Cable – Not even Basic Cable, so by any standards you will pretty much be in complete silence during the reset of the Uverse Router.
4. Once it is all said and done, and everything is reset I would recommend restarting your computers though they should work fine after the system resets and you should be back inline and everything should be operational.

As that is the procedure I followed and happily once it was all done and complete, Uverse was live and everything was working well again, though I would also suggest that you use this tutorial as a last resort only and try turning on and off the devices and the like beforehand just in case it can be solved without the downtime.  Consider the decision to restart the entire system as a last resort, though I am sorry to say it is more likely when the software that runs your Set Top Box is Windows Based, it will eventually require a reset simply because Windows CE that runs the set top box is still Microsoft.

The hope is in time AT&T will be able to improve the uptime of their system as more and more people move from early adopters to accepted by the community as a solid alternative to companies such as Comcast or whomever is the conglomerate in your area. Otherwise I do hope this was helpful because I imagine as more people adopt it, there is always going to be challenges and really sometimes that is the best solution.

If you have any other questions I can try and answer go ahead and leave it in a comment, will see if the solutions can be found … And if you enjoyed this Article Please Subscribe to Our Feed and share it with those who you know who may also be having problems with AT&T Uverse.

Wubi & Graphical Issues ~ Some Solutions

I finally got Ubuntu 9.04 installed and all was well.

But I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I installed a video card – NVIDIA Ge Force 5200 (256MB).

Now Ubuntu hangs at the boot screen and I have to manually shut down to reboot. I tried reinstalling – didn’t help.

Here’s the specs:

Dell Dimension 2300
windows XP sp3
Pentium 4 – 2 Ghz
640 MB RAM
160 GB Hard Drive

Also – ubuntu is installed inside windows xp. I installed the driver that came with the card.The card works fine in windows.

I’d love to hear any suggestions.

Any ideas?

via UbunTux for joonyer77

Well joonyer77, as I am not entirely sure about your name and I only found out about your challenge through a link via Ubuntu-Linux on Friendfeed I have worked with Wubi on at least one of the dual booting Linux boxes, and indeed it is often the Nvidia Cards, that seem to have issues with incompatibilities, as well as the Intel Cards and a series of others who are on a blacklist of drivers with issues.

The one solution that I found out by my own experience, and you can also consider, is when you are booting into Ubuntu hit Escape before the timer runs out, and choose Recovery Mode, which will present you with a series of choices, for now only focus on

1. Command Prompt with Networking and
2. Auto Repair Graphics

Using terminal is  just as functional if not more so then the Graphical Interface, as that is the wonder of Linux but I know for a person coming from the Proprietary World of Windows and it’s Graphical User Interface it is quite the change to go back to something that used to be considered DOS to do such important things with your Ubuntu Box. Including fixing such graphical annoyances as working with Nvidia or any generally proprietary companies including the infamouse ATI, though they have made improvements since the days when it was only for windows.

First thing you want to try is using the Command Prompt with Networking, along with the

sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get upgrade

once you are at the prompt with the simple blinking cursor in Monochrome, using these two commands will check for any updates, then if there are any upgrades will install them, as long as you have Internet Access on your system and it is setup for Ubuntu. I am assuming that you have internet access as you posted this question in the first place, so running that line of command may just solve your problem but if not then just step on over to

• Step 2: Pressing Esc (usually found on the top left of your keybard) which will then take you back to the Recovery Menu, where you would then use your keyboard, I know it’s rough without a gui but you can do it 🙂 , using the arrow keys to move down through the menu, there are a variety of options but for the moment just pass them up, until you have Try To Auto Repair Graphics selected, now pressing enter here will then shoot you to a blank screen for a second while some other processes run along with some other options you can explore at a later time. The objective of the Auto Repair, is to do just that to Auto-Repair because sometimes it is merely a matter of some misconfiguration or simply because the Graphics Card is not yet well supported. After the system runs it’s processes you will be brought back to the basic recovery menu, where you can then just press enter, as it defaults to the top entry which is to Resume Normal Boot, which it does, of course you need to wait for a few minutes until it loads up but if it does not load up, then you may need to drop to a terminal from within the bootscreen, by by pressing Ctrl+Alt+1 which will bring you back to the very basic terminal where you can try any of the following;
• From that same prompt you can type sudo restart and the system will do just that, that is if you need to get back to the recovery menu now you know how, from there you can also try startx which tries and start up the graphical interface, it is likely after the Graphical Auto Repair at the very leas you should be able to get back to the desktop and do what you need to do from there.

If these suggestions did not help then just remember it is a community initiative and the community grows day by day, as perhaps another person would be able to help you out on the matter, but my guess is with these simple tests you can solve most of the graphical issues that may occur and if not there is always the UbuntuForums, or the Friendfeed Room, any number of options to see if you can find help.

In closing within this article there has been offered some very simple solutions to problems that can often plague a new user such me and such as you, but the wonder of Linux/Ubuntu and Open Source is you learn from experience and in time perhaps you will be telling the same to another wayward soul, finally escaping the proprietary trap that is Windows, for now I wish you the best and I am sure that a solution will be found as many of my own problems have been figured out by accessing the Open Source Community Initiative, so welcome to Ubuntu and come join the party you are with good people who are willing to help.