The Geek Brewery

By default, the Flash player in the repositories is a 32-bit version of Flash. This version does not work properly on 64-bit installations of Ubuntu 10.04.

Someone made a bash script to automate the process of installing Flash Player 10 to Ubuntu. All you have to do is to type or copy-paste the following in the Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal):

wget http://conradmiguel.com/install-flash.sh
chmod +x install-flash.sh
./install-flash.sh

It will ask for your password. Just provide your password. Restart Firefox and enjoy your Flash Player 10!

Hello guys. I’m gonna talk about a free service which saved me a considerable amount from my SMS expenses, Chikka. I’ve been using this service even way back in elementary, around seven years ago.

For those of you who are already acquainted to Chikka, you know very well that the most popular way to use their free text messaging service is through their very own Chikka Text Messenger. I personally don’t prefer this method because of the following reasons:

• They don’t have a Linux version of their messenger.
• In case you’re a Windows user, you still have to install it.
• Their messenger is also quite bloated, the only functionality I want is to send text messages.
• Lastly, you need to register an account which takes a short time (but then as the famous quote goes, time is gold).

If you frequently login to a chat server that uses XMPP such as GTalk or the chat inside GMail, here’s an easier (for me, at least) way to do things. Basically, you just have to:

• add 63[9-digit-number]@chikkatalk.com as your buddy, and
• send a chat conversation to your new buddy and you’re done!

No registration needed. You may add as many friends as you want!

In some Linux distributions that uses GNOME Desktop Manager such as Ubuntu, an icon of a volume or partition appears on the Desktop whenever you mount them as seen on the screenshot on the left.

Although it was made that way for the easy access of the volume, other people just want to get of rid. At the top of the list are the people who have minimalistic desktops, those who are obsessive-compulsive about their icon arrangements, etc.

Gladly, there’s a very quick hack to do it without the use of any third-party software such as Ubuntu Tweak. To do it, press Alt+F2 to open the Run Application window. Then paste this command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible false

That’s it. No restart required! To undo its effect, just negate the false on the command to true.

If you enjoyed this post, you might considering running into my other Linux posts.

Everytime I boot Ubuntu, I have to mount all the partitions I need to get them up and running. But seriously, I find it annoying. Here’s a workaround that worked for me.

Identify the partition you want to automount. Mount that specific partition and open its content using File Browser. Keep in mind it’s mount point, the ones found on the location bar.

Advanced knowledge in using Linux IS NOT A prerequisite.

Open System Monitor (System -> Administration -> System Monitor). Go to the File Systems tab and find the corresponding Device of the mount point. The format would be something like /dev/sd[a-z][1-9].

Now, open terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal). Navigate to /dev/disk/by-id by typing this command:
cd /dev/disk/by-id.

Get the list of files and directories on the path by typing ls. Find your appropriate device. If it’s /dev/sda3, it should end with something like -part3. Copy the file name and paste it somewhere else such as a text-editor. (more…)

Last Friday, we had our Globe Broadband connected at the apartment. Globe Telecom deployed a PROLiNK Hurricane 5200 as our ADSL modem. Since we wanted to share the Internet connection throughout the room, we bought a Linksys WRT54G2 wireless router.

Configuring the PROLiNK Hurricane 5200 to work with Linksys WRT54G2 wasn’t that easy. Here’s a rough guide on how to do it. This guide must work with other models (such as Hurricane 9200) and other brands, but the steps will differ. (more…)

Globe Telecom uses a transparent proxy on it’s http.globe.com.ph access point. This means when you open a website, it passes thru their server for caching or whatever purpose it might server before it reaches your cellphone or computer.

URL of image when not cached.

I’ve noticed though that they replace the URL of images inside <img> tags with another URL on their server for caching. This, in turn, causes some problems with web applications that requires authentication and generates images on the fly such as StatCounter. This replacement/caching process is only done when Globe Telecom detects that you are using a web browser on a computer or on a mobile phone (I curl-ed this website and the output did not have any URL replacements).

URL after caching. Notice, the cached and compressed image is in Globe or a third-party partner’s server.

As a workaround, you can spoof your User-Agent by modifying the headers of your requests. You may do this in Firefox by:

1. Going to about:config. A warning will have to scare you but just continue.
2. Then, find the general.useragent.extra.firefox setting. Using the filter above may help you find it.
3. Once you find it, double click the entry and change it to whatever you want. For it to work, it should not contain words like Mozilla, Firefox, Safari or other web browsers. I’ve changed mine to MikkoFox.

Have fun browsing without cached images.

Ubuntu 9.04 indeed was the fastest version of Ubuntu I had in my laptop. Before, boot time gradually increased as each version is released. But Jaunty Jackalope broke the trend, it was faster than it’s predecessor Intrepid Ibex.

But the release had a very noticeable annoyance, the Update Manager pops up a couple of times if you don’t have an updated system. It was unlike before when Update Manager only issues a notification on the notification area.

Fortunately, there’s a quick fix for that. Just go to your terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) or press Alt-F2 and paste this:

That quick fix just fixes the annoyance, no side-effects or whatsoever!

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It’s the time of the year when people enroll themselves on schools. For new registrants in a school, a birth certificate is usually required. For sure the queues at NSO (National Statistics Office) stations are getting longer and longer as the school year starts.

Good thing NSO birth certificates can now be requested thru phone. Birth certificates ordered thru phone will be delivered anywhere nationwide within 3 to 4 days. Just dial the number (02) 737-1111.

Icon from Citizen Services

Lately, I have been trying to amaze myself doing some weird stuff on Linux. Gladly, I thought of connecting my mobile phone to my Linux-running laptop for Internet.

I’d like to share it in case anyone might be concerned on how to do so.

Prerequisites

1. A Bluetooth, GPRS and/or 3G (but preferably with 3G) capable mobile phone.
2. A machine with a Bluetooth adapter.
3. Bluez Bluetooth GNOME applet (the Bluetooth icon on your system tray).
   1. If not installed, may be obtained by typing sudo apt-get bluez-gnome.

This works pretty well on my Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and Linux Mint 5.0 installation.

Here’s how to do it:

1. First of all, enable Bluetooth for the mobile phone and workstation (laptop, desktop, etc). Make sure both devices are discoverable.
2. On your workstation’s terminal (on Ubuntu, go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), type hcitool scan .
3. You should see your mobile phone’s name and address.
4. Now, let’s bind your device to rfcomm. Type sudo rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 <replace_this_with_address_of_device> <replace_with_channel> .
   1. Replace <replace_this_with_address_of_device> with the address you obtained from hcitool scan (the ones on the left of your phone's name).
   2. Try the values 1, 2 or 3 for <replace_with_channel>. In case the whole process doesn’t work, just unbind your device to rfcomm by typing sudo rfcomm unbind rfcomm0 and repeating the whole process again with another value.
5. After doing so, click on the network icon in your system tray (near the clock) and choose manual configuration. Unlock it with your password. Change the settings of point-to-point connection by double-clicking the option.
6. Check “Enable this connection”.
7. Choose GPRS/UMTS as Connection Type. Change access point name to “internet” without the doublequotes. For account data, just enter any username and password.
8. On the second tab named “Modem”, type /dev/rfcomm0 to modem port field.
9. On the third tab, check “Set modem as default route to internet” and “Use the internet service providers’ nameservers”.
10. Hit OK.
11. Now, check the checkbox of point-to-point connection.
12. By this time, you should have an internet connection on your workstation. If it doesn’t work, repeat the process. Note to try other channels (described in the fourth step).

That’s all. Hope it works.

Are you looking for a fix on the WordPress error: “Your attempt to edit/save this page/post: [post/page title] has failed. Please try again.”? If you are, you are on the right page!

Yesterday, my WordPress for this blog went problematic after the server reboot at my web host’s end. The first problem I encountered was the corruption of the table wp_options of my WordPress database which resulted to WordPress asking me to reinstall the blog. I fixed it using the Repair DB functions of cPanel.

The next problem I saw was that I can’t post or edit any page. It keeps on dumping “Your attempt to edit this post [post title] has failed. Please try again.” I tried searching for the problem in the Internet and learned that it is caused by the WordPress autosave function.

To fix it, you should have access to your WordPress blog from cPanel file manager or FTP. Browse to [blog_root]/wp-admin/ and locate the file post-new.php. After locating the file, edit it directly thru your File Manger (cPanel) or download it thru FTP. Edit the file using your favorite text editor such as NotePad if you downloaded it thru FTP. (more…)