Category: Uncategorized

Opera released the final version of their 12th version of the web browser. It can be downloaded for free at http://opera.com/download . Unfortunately they released it with a pretty bad and unfortunate printer bug: When printing with my Canon LBP5050n the letters are printed over each other! Well, I have to admit I am pretty frustrated and unmotivated since Tim Altman left Opera Software and since then it appeared by the feedback I received from Opera, that nobody really cared anymore what was done and wrong with the Mail client they had. 2 years later I have a six-core CPU and updated HDDs and stuff and it’s still slow as shit. (Read my opinion about this here and follow the discussion there). Technorati Tags: Opera, Opera 12—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

If you happen to have an ATI Mobility card and/or a SONY VAIO and wonder why you get get green stripes when you try to run the Mandriva 2011 live CD or Installation routine, then you are not alone.



Unfortunately Googling doesn’t help much as there is not much information regarding this, even if you do search after many different things. Just by poor accident and by being on my wits’ end, I stumbled over the “Dodgy Vga” post in the Mandriva Users Booard. 

Simpy hit “tab” key at the start menu of the CD and add a “nomodeset” at the end of the atttributes line.

When you installed the system successfully you would run into the same issue. To avoid this, add the same “nomodeset” command in the extended settings of the GRUB boot manager (final step of installation!).



Technorati Tags: Mandriva, ATI
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urpmi.addmedia tmp_Main_32_release http://mirror.yandex.ru/mandriva/official/2011/i586/media/main/release
urpmi.addmedia tmp_Main_32_updates http://mirror.yandex.ru/mandriva/official/2011/i586/media/main/updates
urpmi.addmedia tmp_MIB_Basic_64 http://mib.pianetalinux.org/MIB/2011.0/64/basic/
urpmi skype –allow-suggest –auto –force
urpmi.removemedia tmp_Main_32_release
urpmi.removemedia tmp_Main_32_updates
urpmi.removemedia tmp_MIB_Basic_64
echo SKYPE 2.1.0.47 has been installed: Enjoy!
echo It needs now some time to configure it properly
echo Greetings from all the MIB Team
echo bye, bye

(based on a script found on mib’s blog

Technorati Tags: Skype, 64bit Linux—-

Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

TeamViewer released version 7 of their client for Linux now! Now you may wonder what do we Mandriva users do? Stick with the last version released for us (which would be version 6) or just moving to NetViewer which offers a Web based flash client. The solution is: Make sure the Windows emulator WINE is installed. After that download and use the CentOS5 version! It will automatically find WINE, adjust its settings accordingly ! Technorati Tags: Mandriva, TeamViewer—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Please note: I am writing this post basically for my own reference, i,e,:If I ever have to reinstall this crappy client in the future, so that I remember the do’s and don’t’s of this adventurous process.

I meanwhile got used to the fact that most of the Linux end user world is heading either towards SUSE or Ubuntu. But I prefer RPM based distributions over .DEB and I was always annoyed that SUSE did things so much different than other distros, but I found my fave in Mandriva. Easy to use, superior hardware support and absolutely fun to work with.

Since the wacky situation of the distro it’s even worse with RPM packages just for Mandriva.

When searching for an easy way to exchange files with my friends for working on the Scene World project I wanted to use a service that can be accessed from everywhere: Windows, Mac, iOS (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad), the web and I thought “Ah, there is surely simply a client to install in the package manager of Mandriva just like there was for Flickr.”).

So, yesterday night I got the brilliant idea to watch out for installing dropbox.

Ah, I was so happy! 🙂

I entered “dropbox” and found “dropbox-nautrius” . Okay, that’s for GNOME – I prefer KDE – but at least it’s something…. So I installed and started it. Then it would tell me that it requires to download and install the dropbox deamon.

From what I read, there should be appearing a GUI installer now asking you for your user name and password, but nothing.

So I had a look at what is actually happening. The dropbox application tries to run with the parameters “start -i”. Makes sense, probably trying to start the initialization.

Rebooting the machine, rebooting into GNOME and trying to start the application resulted into error messages of missing permissions to write to certain dropbox folders and files.
KFilebox (yeah the URL and some places still says “KDroobox” but who cares). The how to install page …..ah dejavu… the Dropbox daemon again with its nice setup GUI that never works on me.

Googling for other options only resulted in helpful German manuals which I will refer to here, the solution is from them 🙂

Funrecycler’s Run Dropbox without a GUI blog post mentions the command-line utility. So I installed that one, when trying to run it it said “dropbox deamon not found, run “dropbox -i” to install it.”…….

….So I just did that which would result in a message that the paremeter “-i” is unknown and a list of known commands……NOOOOOOOOOOO

So what I did then is reinstalling all dropbox related RPMs in the Mandriva RPM packet manager and shutting down to go to sleep.

Next morning I ran the dropbox command line client again and it worked right away!

Qouoting the manual:

“If you’re running Dropbox on your server for the first time, you’ll be asked to copy and paste a link in a working browser to create a new account or add your server to an existing account”

(reminder to myself: Don’t start as root user…)

Once done that, the files should be synced to /home/user/Dropbox

Now I set symbolic links to sync the folders wished or to enable other users access to the dropbox shared folder. (hint found on Fene’s blog post Setup Dropbox under Linux (Debian) without GUI.

Interestingly, in contrast to this manual, the service deamon is already starting automatically during startup of Linux. Last but not least I will download and put the CLI script to be able to control it.

Reminder to myself: There are no RPM packages (despite mentioned in the installation instructions) of KFilebox on its homepage. Probably because he gave up on it.
So use RPM Search and download latest version for Mandriva.

Thanks to funrecycler for his speedy replies to my emails and helping me to get this thing working! Thanks a lot!

Technorati Tags: Dropbox, Mandriva

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Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂
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A while ago Creative Labs told me that they won’t fix the dolby surround bug in their Windows 7 X64 drivers as the card is too old. By poor accident, I actually scanned with DriverMax for new drivers and found out that roughly a year after my complaint they released new drivers that even fix my problem with the dolby surround not working! That’s so cool because I worried that I would need to exchange it by a new card! Maybe enough people complained so they were forced to do it! Thanks to everybody for the support so! 🙂 Technorati Tags: X-Fi/a>, Windows 7—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Just recently,  Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail, the first free email service,  released a new SMS app for almost any mobile phone OS you can imagine: jaxtr sms.


There is controversal feedback about this service on the internet.  some say they see no reason why to use jatrx sms instead of one of the tons of other free SMS services out there!


I have tried it with many different destinations and I can tell so far: Because it just works! 
To fulfill Indian regulations a user may only send 200 free SMS per day max.
Other than that it offers your mobile phone number as caller ID and you can really send it to any network and country.


How do they cover their cosst? With ads at the end of each SMS and (soon to come) adds in the app for your mobile/smartphone.


I have tried out many other free SMS services, none of them were really reliable but jaxtr sms so far is!

SO, do not hesistate and try it out!

Technorati Tags: JaxtrSMS, skin—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Telefonica, a mobile operator from Spain recently gained very much power, not only in Spain and Latin American countries but also in Europe. Especially UK and Germany.

I am writing this post becausse I wanted to show how it’s possible for an operator to cut your calling freedom. The story is the following:

Usually in Germany, everything is charged extra:

Using an iPhone as a modem? (tethering), does cost you extra. Using VoIP (Skype, etc) on your iPhone? forbidden until you pay for it extra. Using your SIM card to browse the internet on a notebook? You could, but guess what… they try to charge you extra. This goes on with many other things….

This is why I decided to leave German Telekom as a provider in March 2010 as O2 Germany was the only one allowing EVERYTHING without extra charge.

Since I knew back then that E-PLus blocked the free call-back service “Rebtel”, I asked O2 whether they do the same. I was ASSURED that this is not the case and never will as Rebtel uses national landline numbers and such are covered by my free national landline calling plan!

And this is what happned a month ago:

When I assigned a new local landline number to a friend’s mobile phone in Bulgaria, I received an automatic message telling me that the number I dialed is no proper landline number annd might be charged as it isn’t covered in the landline flatrate I do have.

Wondered by this I called the customer service hotline the same evening. I was told that there is something wrong with the number Rebtel assigned and it doesn’t seem to be properly registered. [……] … and even Googling the number brings no result. (OH sure, google is the new phone number validator!).

I didn’t believe this at all…….. So I emailed Rebtel about it. And below are their replies. (My email continues below!).

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:41:25 +0200, Rebtel blackberry[at]rebtel.com wrote:

> Thank you for contacting us!

> > I will be happy to help you with your questions.

>

> O2 is not blocking our numbers, however, they are charging 0.09 cents to their customers who called our numbers. I have therefore now changed the local number which were assigned to your contacts so you now have a new contact list with new numbers.

>

> Please try calling this numbers and get back to us with the results.

>

> We are currently in discussions with O2 about how to resolve this issue. We provide Rebtel service in almost 60 countries and have had no problems with any operator apart from O2 in Germany in the last few years. > > Rest assured that we will be bringing this up with Neelie Kroes (VP of Digital Agenda in European commission), who has a very harsh view against operator pressure and unfair competition, since we strongly believe that O2 are abusing their market position.

> > > Please feel free to contact us if you need further information

> > Kind Regards,

> > Janine > Rebtel Customer Support Team

I want to stress the fact that indeed I know what I am talking about. I worked for an ISP and telephony provider in the technical department for years, I read routing tables, troubleshooted connection issues, red SIP communication dumps, etc!

O2’s brilliance doesn’t stop here, I remember a case of last year where I couldn’t exchange SMS between me and friends in Peru.

They asked me to contact Claro Peru instead. So I sent them an email and forwarded their reply back to O2.

A few days later O2 called me and told they cannot read the email, because Claro Peru wrote in English HAAHAHAHA and so they cannot help me?

In the end, after 8 months (!) they fixed the routing problems. If you have experienced similar issues with O2, Telefonica, i.e. one of their national service brands feel free to share with me, I would gladly listen:

I have decided to cancel my contract with O2 and will then continue with Vodafone (as German Telekom is too expensive for the services I want!).

Contact me at nafcom[at]c64.org

Technorati Tags: O2, telefonica—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Certification is very important in nowadays’ IT world especially if you want a more advanced and higher paid job.

You can go for the original certification books and software (e.g. from Microsoft) but I found the translations are often questionable and the training software often crashed or didn’t work at all on my computer. Plus they tend to be expensive or require a lot of hardware (multiple computers to install for practicing some parts).

uCertify is cheaper and different in this aspect

uCertify PrepKit Tour from uCertify Video on Vimeo.

The training works without a book and comes as a download. The software consists of 2 parts, the lessons that first explain you some things and then inquiry you about what you just learned and the training area.

The training area is pretty cool as well!

If you go through a training and then checks results, it not only shows you your false answer and the correct answer, but also explains you why it is in “fact” the way it is!

*this review will continue as soon as I had a chance to dig into it a bit deeper!*

Technorati Tags: uCertify, review—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

As announced by Moshe Kigler in the ICQ Beta Testers facebook group, ICQ 7.6 final and ICQ on-site beta has been released.

So, now ICQ can connect you to 4 different IM accounts at once:

Google Talk, Facebook Chat, AIM and of course ICQ itself.

Despite being mentioned as not working in the Known Issues list, ICQ for Mac and ICQ for Linux can handle GTalk contacts as well. You cannot add them from within the client but if you have added them using ICQ for Windows or ICQ for iPhone, then they will display as available if they are online and you can chat with them.

ICQ on-site beta however is a widget you can put into your blog or website to provide visitors an abillity to chat.

Interesting is: For the first time the ICQ Team even provides a direct way of support incase you have any problem with the widget!

Last but not least they also released ICQ for iPhone 2.8 to add GTalk functionality. Android will be coming later!

Technorati Tags: ICQ, 7.6—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-