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Friday 17 February 2012

Flash Error #2046 definitive fix for linux users

By aldeby on Friday 17 February 2012, 00:10 - GNU/Linux

Flash plugin Error #2046 seems to be quite a nasty one.

There is a plethora of tutorials out there claiming to fix it with various methods.

There is consensus among license issues when there is an incorrect system date (differing from the actual date of +/- 5 years or more). The fix is as simple as ensuring your system date to be up-to-date (set it to automatically sync with timeservers).

Apart from this possible solution there are several other suggestions with a mixed feedback and which proved to be ineffective to me. Therefore I ended up trying to debug this issue by myself.

The quick answer is: remove the space in *all* profile directories path in /home/{user}/.mozilla/firefox/ for example change

/home/{user}/.mozilla/firefox/{random string}.Default User

into the following makes the trick

/home/{user}/.mozilla/firefox/{random_string}.default

It has been pretty hard to get till there because this bug:

  • applies to selected websites only (for instance youtube and websites using flowplayer work well by default)
  • applies to all versions of the flash plugin
  • applies to all browsers you may have installed on your system (yes, the directory is related to mozilla firefox, however renaming the folder also fixes flash in Chrome, Chromium, Opera, etc.)
  • applies also if your active profile is another one!

Should you have the following two profiles /home/{user}/.mozilla/firefox/daddy.Linux Box /home/{user}/.mozilla/firefox/mummy.linuxbox and "mummy.linuxbox" be the the active one, still it has problems with flash because of "daddy.Linux Box" being there!

This experience further proves closed source software (flash) not being superior in quality to open source one.

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Thursday 8 December 2011

Change the hostname and domain of ubuntu/linux

By aldeby on Thursday 8 December 2011, 01:01 - Admin

Hostname and domain in ubuntu linux are displayed follwoing the pattern:

username@hostname.domain

In order to change the latter two open a terminal and type:

sudo hostname host.domain

replacing host.domain with your own e.g. laptop.aldeby

Ensure that the changes are also reflected in the following files:

/etc/hosts
/etc/hostname
/etc/resolv.conf

The latter is only needed if you have edited it before, otherwise simply reboot your computer or restart networking services.

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Thursday 20 October 2011

Global applications menu in XFCE

By aldeby on Thursday 20 October 2011, 15:51 - Visual

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric has been released, now only featuring the Gnome 3 Shell blob and Ubuntu Unity threat (check what the "zeitgeist" dependency is for).

Luckily Linux is not Ubuntu and therefore other alternative still exist: XFCE (Xubuntu) is a very valid one which is likely to see its user-base vastly increased (at least +2 with Linux Torvalds and Me).

Ubuntu Unity has brilliant underlying ideas, among which the Global Applications Menu integrated in the top toolbar. Luckily, thanks to "aaronlewis1989" this is also available for XFCE 4.8. This is Linux flexibility: being free to keep the best ideas and dump everything not worth it. It's such a pity that someone in Canonical (Ubuntu) is trying to implement the same approach regular monopolistic companies do: forcing costumers to accept a compromise and surrender some right every time a new feature is implemented.

XFCE global app menu sources are available at this page and binaries (x86 32bit) at this page. A new PPA for ubuntu users has also been established here.

If you run a x86_64 (64bit) system you need to compile the source, which is a very easy job by the way!

Install a few dependencies first:

sudo apt-get install synaptic indicator-appmenu appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt appmenu-gtk3 firefox-globalmenu thunderbird-globalmenu xfce4-panel-dev libxfce4util-dev libindicator-dev libwnck-dev libxfconf-0 checkinstall

then unpack the tarball and open a terminal navigate inside the folder (if you have unpacked it in your home type)

cd xfce4-appmenu-plugin

now type

./configure --libexecdir=/usr/lib/xfce4-indicator-plugin/ --prefix=/usr --disable-debug

make

sudo make install
or alternatively
sudo checkinstall --pkgname=xfce4-appmenu-plugin --pkgversion=0.25-beta
then go in the folder binary/x86 and install the package 
dpkg -i xfce4-appmenu-plugin_0.25-beta-1_i386.deb

log out, log in again and right click on your XFCE panel and add the Indicator Appmenu Plugin!

Enjoy your 20px extra vertical real estate!! :D

Should you want to remove it simply use the package manager or type
sudo apt-get remove xfce4-appmenu-plugin

Troubleshooting:

  • Should you run into this error message:
    The required package libxfce4panel-1.0 was not found on your system.
You won't find package "libxfce4panel-1.0" in Ubuntu 11.10, the required files are instead included in package: "xfce4-panel-dev"

  • If you cannot find the Indicator Appmenu Plugin applet among the available panel applets, please ensure you have typed:
 ./configure --libexecdir=/usr/lib/xfce4-indicator-plugin/ --prefix=/usr
rather than simply

./configure

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Monday 26 September 2011

Search for telephone numbers in Mozilla Thunderbird Address Book

By aldeby on Monday 26 September 2011, 15:19 - Office

Many thanks fly to Abhijit for having spotted a way to search for telephone numbers in Mozilla Thunderbird Address Book. You can read more on his blog at: http://ifacethoughts.net/2010/08/09/configuring-thunderbirds-addressbook-search

In short you need to access the config editor and look for the string:

mail.addr_book.quicksearchquery.format

the string content feature the 'attr' fields that are searched by the quick search bar (you may type 'attr' to see all the possible fields.

e.g. my string content is:

?(or(PrimaryEmail,c,@V)(DisplayName,c,@V)(FirstName,c,@V)(LastName,c,@V)(CellularNumber,c,@V)(HomePhone,c,@V)(Notes,c,@V)(PagerNumber,c,@V)(FaxNumber,c,@V)(WorkPhone,c,@V))

which searches the Primary Email, the Display Name, the Cellular Number, the Home Phone, etc...

Mozilla Thunderbird is such a powerful program! It's users are even more powerful though! :D

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