Fix for Constant Hard Drive Clicking Noise in Ubuntu

0
3 months ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in ,

If you are reading this it is probably because you have a laptop that keeps making a disconcerting clicking sound. You suspect that it may be the hard drive – and you are probably correct. It very well could be on its way out, and doing a full backup certainly can’t hurt anything… The racket could be something else though, it could actually be a feature of your hard drive. Let’s fix the “feature”!

(more…)

Acer 4830T TimelineX No Audio on Ubuntu / Mint

8
6 months ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

If you are trying to run Mint 11 or Ubuntu 11.04 on an Acer Aspire 4830T TimelineX Laptop, then you’ll no doubt notice the lack of audio from the internal speakers. Luckily, fixing the issue is painless.

(more…)

Custom Fill Colors in OpenOffice.org

2
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in ,

 

OpenOffice.org and the LibreOffice branch both suffer from an apparent restriction – the color palette appears to be severely limited. By default, you’re given a small palette of ~106 colors for everything from highlighting and borders to fill and font coloring.

Luckily, adding a custom color is no big deal – it just happens to be buried deep within the UI. So, color up your palette by following the steps below:

(more…)

configuring nginx for gpeasy cms

1
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

gpEasy CMS is a lightweight content management system ideal for maintaining small websites, especially in shared hosting environments. It outperforms most other content management systems in terms of raw performance and ease of use for those unfamiliar with website maintenance. With no database requirements and a straightforward installation process, there is much less to configure and maintain than other content management systems with similar features, such as WordPress.

nginx is an extremely efficient and robust http server capable of putting limited resources to much greater use than most other http servers, including the popular Apache http server. nginx, like gpEasy, is ideal for extracting speed and cutting down overhead for small to mid-sized websites in shared hosting environments.

Coupling the two technologies seems like a great idea - unfortunately configuring nginx so that gpEasy works properly is not well documented and riddled with roadblocks for those unfamiliar with nginx’s rewrite rules. nginx’s “try_files” directive seemed like an ideal solution, but never did work correctly in my tests. So, without further ado, here is what you need to know to get gpEasy working with nginx:

(more…)

adding services for mailto links in firefox

3
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

Under Windows, Firefox, unlike Internet Explorer, gives you an option for how you want to handle mailto links. The problem is, by default, you are only given options for two services: yahoo and gmail.

If you’d like to use another service, you’ll have to add it manually. This, as it turns out, is no big deal. The steps below will show you how to add Hotmail as an option for mailto links in Firefox:

(more…)

Win7 64bit on Ubuntu Virtualbox Error

0
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

If you’re getting an error that “Windows failed to start” while trying to install 64bit Windows 7 on a Virtualbox machine with an Ubuntu host, then you’ll appreciate the following fix.

(more…)

change remote desktop listening port

0
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

The most common reason for wanting to change the listening port for Windows Remote Desktop is to connect to multiple machines behind a firewall or routing device. In reality, a better method is to simply use the port forwarding feature of your router or firewall. However, some routers do not offer a robust enough feature set and there are other legitimate reasons of wanting to change the remote desktop port number. For instance, you may want to make a demilitarized machine (one connected directly to the internet) marginally less susceptible to an attack, or resolve a port conflict with another service.

(more…)

Blank Black Screen Fix for HP Laptops

0
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

A problem affecting many of HP’s newer laptops, including the dv9000 (dv9XXX) and dv6000 (dv6XXX) series of machines is that you’ll get nothing but a back-lit black screen on boot. More specifically, the touch-bar lights will turn on and the hard drive light will blink – the machine will actually appear to be booting into an operating system, but the screen will remain black. This problem usually occurs when the video card fails to work because it has overheated and is no longer soldered to the motherboard. It is a common problem, and the normally recommended fix is to re-flow your gpu (video card) and motherboard.

(more…)

Ubuntu 10.04 / 10.11 Touchpad Quitting

3
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

There seems to be a bug in the newer Ubuntu releases where disabling your touchpad via the hardware toggle button disables it permanently for your user under the gnome desktop. It sometimes disables your ability to type, too. The mouse works at the log-in screen, but after you log in, it quits working. Luckily, there is a relatively painless fix.

(more…)

VirtualBox Guest Additions Windows XP Error

0
1 year ago
by Andrew D. Anderson in

This article discusses modifying your machine’s registry. Altering your machine’s registry can lead to problems, and you do so at your own risk.

If you continually get an error message such as:

“ERROR: File not found!”

and/or

“ERROR: Could not install files for Windows 2000 / XP / Vista! Installation aborted.”

while trying to install guest additions in a Sun VirtualBox Windows XP Guest, you may have a registry problem. In this case, uninstalling guest additions completely and attempting a reinstall will not help. Some or all of the features afforded by guest additions may not function properly, especially seamless mode.

The issue stems from a bug in Windows XP/2000 where new hardware cannot properly be detected if the “RunOnce” key is missing in the registry beneath: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

To fix the problem:

  1. Navigate to Start > Run and enter “regedit”.
  2. Then find: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
  3. With “CurrentVersion” selected, go to the Edit menu and click New > Key
  4. Name the key “RunOnce”, and leave everything else at defaults.

NOTE: The new “RunOnce” key should appear underneath the “CurrentVersion” key.

After you’ve added the key, reboot your virtual machine and reinstall guest additions. Everything should go as expected.

Go to Top