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One of the biggest problems people face when switching to Linux from Windows and Mac computers is the lack of support from service providers. Using Linux does require that you become slightly more tech savvy than the average computer user, but it no longer requires you to become a full fledged computer nerd. Here’s a tutorial to show you just how easy it is to setup DSL service using Ubuntu on the AT&T network.

Hardware connections

The hardware side of setting up the AT&T DSL modem is the same for Linux systems as it is for those running Windows and Mac OS. Simply connect the phone line, power adapter, and one side of the ethernet cable to your modem. The other end of the ethernet cable connects to your computer. Additionally, you will need to install DSL filters on all other phone lines in your household which are not connected to the DSL modem. This includes phones, fax machines, dial up modems, satellite television receivers, home security systems, and any other device.

Accessing the DSL modem

This is the first place where the Linux installation of an AT&T DSL modem will begin to differ from using Windows or Mac OS. However, this difference is rather minimal. Typically, Windows and Mac OS users will use the installation CD that comes packaged with their DSL modem to setup their service. This CD will not work with Linux and so Linux users must use the alternative setup method through their web browsers. This method can also be done on Windows and Mac OS systems, and it’s the preferred method for technicians that can take advantage of the advanced features offered here. For AT&T customers using the 2Wire DSL modems, the address to connect to the router is 192.168.1.254.

Settings

From the browser you will find a setup wizard that can walk you through this setup process. You can even contact tech support personnel and ask for help with the specific settings for your configuration from this point (if you don’t tell them you’re running Linux, they’ll walk you through the setup without any problem). Additionally, you can configure your firewall and DMZ settings in order to allow advanced security features.

Testing

When you think everything is setup properly, it’s time to test your setup. Begin by surfing to a few website you’ve never been to before. After that, try running a speed test to make sure your are getting the bandwidth you’re paying for. If everything is working, you can stop here or move on to setup your wireless router.

Continue reading »]]> Recently I was working on creating a custom Google Map for my other blog, Travel Jones. The map shown below was not displaying the custom icon in Firefox, but it did work in Internet Explorer and Chrome.

Credits

After some searching around I found the solution but figure that it may need some explaining to simplify things a little more. I found this information on a forum which linked to another forum on a support site.

It seems the problem is in the way that Firefox access the image files on the server and it is easily solved using a single line in your .htaccess file.

Solution

If you already have a .htaccess file in the same folder as the icons you’re using for your Google Map then you can simply add the line below to that file. If you don’t already have a .htaccess file in the same folder as the icons you’re using, now would be a good time to create one and add this line:

Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin *

Presto, it works.

Follow Through

If you did create a new .htaccess file, don’t forget to set the permissions for that .htaccess file. Also, if you already had a .htaccess file there, you may want to double check the permission on the file while you’re here. The correct setting should be:

• User – Read/Write
• World – Read
• Nobody needs to execute this file

In Linux, you can use the chmod command as follows:

chmod 644 .htaccess

In Windows or through a Linux GUI, this can also be done by right clicking on the file and changing the settings in the properties menu.

If this tutorial helps you use custom icons on your next Google Map, please share the link to your map in the comments section below.

Continue reading »]]> Taken from Ubuntu 9.10 instructions and updated for Ubuntu 11.10 and Luminance HDR version 2.1.0. Why do you want to install Luminance HDR? Because you’re tired of using the outdated version of Qtpfsgui that is still floating around the Ubuntu repositories and you want to create HDR images like this:

First, you will need to download and save the source files found in the Luminance HDR repository on SourceForge. For this tutorial, I am using Luminance HDR version 2.1.0 and the source file is named luminance-hdr-2.1.0.tar.gz.

Then, you will need to uncompress the files you have downloaded and save them to a folder on your computer.

After this, you need to fire up the command prompt and ensure your system has the required dependencies. This is where things change slightly between these new instructions and the older ones I found. Specifically, you will also need to install libraw-dev. You must run the following command to install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install qt4-qmake libexiv2-dev libopenexr-dev fftw3-dev libtiff4-dev libqt4-dev g++ libgsl0-dev libraw-dev


Once the dependencies have been installed, you need to navigate the command prompt to the folder containing the source files. From this folder you need to run the following command:

qmake
make
sudo make install

This installs the program to /usr/local/bin and after a quick reboot, Luminance HDR will be listed in the Ubuntu Dash Home. You can either search for the program by typing the name or find it in the Applications menu when filtered by Type > Graphics.

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Image by Adam Crowe via Flickr

Without going into the details of Bitcoin and its use as a digital currency, I’d like to look at the miner for websites which was developed by Bitcoin Plus. Although CPU mining for Bitcoins can be quite slow, that can be offset by using multiple CPUs. This is particularly true for websites which may have many hundreds of thousands of viewers every day. So I’ve got to ask, could Bitcoin be an alternative to Adsense?

This site, Jones PC Repair, does not receive a massive volume of visitors every day. At least not when it is compared with the truly big sites on the web. However, we did receive about 2,500 visitors last month and those visitors spent an average of about one minute on the site. This amounts to about 33 hours of processing time over the month. At an average  rate of about 1 payout from Bitcoin Plus per hour, this would amount to 33 payouts of 0.00003303 Bitcoin each. That adds up to 0.00108999 Bitcoin per month. At the time of this post, Bitcoins were exchanging at a rate of approximately 1 Bitcoin to 3 US dollars. This means that I could count on making approximately $0.0032697 each month.

Obviously this number would scale up as the number of visitors increased or the amount of time they spent on the site increases. However, the same could be true of Adsense marketing. Last month, Jones PC Repair brought in an astounding $15 from Adsense. Although that isn’t much, it’s more than 4,500 times what Bitcoin Plus would have brought in for the same period. For this reason, I don’t expect Bitcoin Plus to replace Adsense any time soon. However, some sites feel that advertisements of any sort will compromise the objectivity of their content. For these sites, Bitcoin Plus may be just the way to generate some revenue from visitors. The script is easily inserted into any website and works with any modern browser that has access to an updated Java installation. If not Bitcoin, maybe some other service could monetize spare processor cycles of website visitors.

There are many questions which still need to be answered, a few of which are listed below. On the topic of questions, tell me what you think of using Bitcoin Plus compared with Adsense in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Alternatively, you could give your opinion about any of these other questions yet to be answered.

• How will this effect SEO?
• Will users allow Bitcoin Plus to run?
• Should you allow visitors to the site to disable Bitcoin Plus?
• Is Bitcoin Plus too resource intensive? Does it slowdown you computer too much?
• Can a website generate as much revenue using Bitcoin Plus as with Adsense? For Jones PC Repair, the answer seems to be no. But other sites may have more visitors and fewer which are willing to click on advertisements.
• Do people prefer to view ads on website or donate processor time?

Continue reading »]]> I’ve found this great program which helps to make concept diagrams, flow charts, mind maps, family trees, social networks, semantic networks, and generally layout your ideas. I’ve only just begun using the yEd Graph Editor, but I am very impressed. Best of all, this software is free and cross platform (so it works on Mac, Windows, and Linux). Grab a copy and try it for yourself. Be sure to add your thoughts about the software in the comments section below.

If you’re running Windows or Mac you can grab the executable from the website and be running in no time. However, if you’re using Linux then you will need to enter just a few commands into the terminal. I found the instructions for installing yEd version 3.6.1.1 and have simply updated them for the current version 3.8. This process works for Ubuntu 11.10, but it should also work in other Linux distributions.

Download the package and make the file executable:

• Most systems will allow you to do this by simply right clicking the file, selecting properties, then in the permissions tab, clicking the box next to ‘allow executing file as program’.
• Alternatively, you may have to open a console and change to the directory where you downloaded the installer. Then enter the command sudo chmod +x yEd-3.8.sh

Once the file is executable, you can begin the installation by:

• opening a terminal and change to the directory where you downloaded the installer (if you haven’t done so already). In that directory, enter the command sudo ./yEd-3.8.sh
• In a moment, a graphical wizard will lead you through the installation

Using Ubuntu 11.10, you can find the program by simply clicking the command key (the Windows key), typing yEd, and pressing enter. Other distributions and versions of Ubuntu will install the program in Applications -> Other Applications -> yEd Graph Editor

Here’s an image I created using yEd:

Feel free to share links to your work and thoughts about the yEd Graph Editor in the comments below.

Continue reading »]]> Maybe you’re like one of my friends that uses Google Image search CONSTANTLY. Perhaps you’re also a little lazy, like they are, and you don’t want to constantly click the Images section on the default Google Search home page. If this describes you, then I’ve got a great Chrome hack for you!

Fire up Google Chrome and click on through to Edit > Preferences.

This will open a new tab called “Preferences’ and you will already be looking at the ‘Basics’ section.

From here you need to click on ‘Manage Search Engines’ to open the search engines settings.

We are going to add a new search engine to the bottom of this list.

Simply type ‘Google Images Search’ into the text box that reads ‘Add a new search engine’.

Then type ‘Google Images’ into the text box that reads ‘Keyword’.

Next, you need to add the snippet of code found below into the text box that reads ‘URL with %s in place of query’, copy it exactly as it is shown:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=645

Now you need to press enter to submit your changes.

Then, using your mouse, highlight the new search engine you’ve just created and click ‘Make Default’.

Your default search provider, when searching from the address bar, is now Google Images Search.

To test this, open a new tab and type in ‘Jones PC Repair’. Then press enter. If you are looking at a Google Images search for the key words ‘Jones PC Repair’ then you have successfully setup Google Images Search.

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Image via Wikipedia

Those of you who have followed my previous posts will remeber that I mentioned having a continuous ink supply system (CISS) on my printer when I wrote about repairing my HP All-in-One Scanner.  I have had this system for about four years and have not even used more than half the ink from the original installation.  I very highly recommend CISS ink over refilling cartridges or any other option for both the cost and ease of use.

Original Cartridges

The first most common, and most expensive, method people use to refill their printer ink is to simply purchase new cartridges from the manufacturer.  This is the most expensive option by far and some quick math can help illustrate this point.  The HP 02 black ink cartridge for my printer contains 10ml of ink and costs $20 at Best Buy, but can also be found online for $10 +shipping.  There are approzimately 3,785ml in a gallon which means 378.5 of these black ink cartridges are needed for one gallon of ink.  That’s $20*378.5=$7560/gal or $10*378.5=$3,785/gal for ink, and you were worried about gas prices!

Professional Refills

Professioal refills can offer some savings while avoiding the mess an ink spill would cause at home.  However, the savings is insignificant when compared with that of the CISS.  Also, your cartridges can typically be refilled only 3 or 4 times before the print heads begin to warp and your printer becomes less precise or leaks.

Home Refill Kits

Home refill kits will allso you to tap into the savings of CISS without the need to purchase specialty cartridges used in a CISS.  However, should this ink spill on your clothes or any of your posessions they will be perminantly stained.  For this reason, I prefer using the CISS because it needs to be refilled less frequently and it is much easier to refill when necessary.

Image via Wikipedia

Continuous Ink Supply System

When you install a CISS on your printer you will be able to purchase large bulk ink packages which include up to 3,000ml of ink for $124.  That’s just $155/gal for CISS ink compared with more than $3,500/gal for the ink in the original manufacturer’s cartridges.

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Image via Wikipedia

When discussing internet connection speeds you will often come across abbreviations for kilobits per second (Kbps) and megabits per second (Mbps). At the simplest level, most people simply know that Mbps is faster than Kbps. However, you may be curious why this is.

Latin and Greek Prefixes

To start with, we will need to become familiar with some common Latin & Greek prefixes. Rather than dealing with the whole etymology of these terms, as some other sites (http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/prefixes.htm) have done, I’m going to focus on the meaning of these prefixes. Below is a chart of the most common Latin and Greek prefixes used in computer terminology today.

Tera- trillion (1,000,000,000,000)

Giga- billion (1,000,000,000)

Mega- million (1,000,000)

Kilo- thousand (1,000)

Kilo vs Mega

Some basic conversions show that a kilobyte is 1,000 bytes (or 1/1000^th of a megabyte) and a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes (or 1,000 kilobytes). In other words, when discussing hard drive storage capacities you could refer to a drive which stores 10,000 kilobytes of data, or simply 10 megabytes. In both cases you would be referring to the same amount of data. By changing the prefix the numbers are easier to understand. This becomes even more obvious when considering that many hard drive can now store terabytes of data. It would be incomprehensible to discuss a drive which stores 2,000,000,000,000 kilobytes instead of simply 2 terabytes.

8 Bits = 1 Byte

This is where it gets complicated, there are eight bits in one byte. This means that Kb and KB are not the same thing. Kb refers to kilobits while KB signifies kilobytes, so 1KB is equal to 8Kb. This is a common confusion when discussing internet connection speeds. Many people are used to saying kilobytes and forget that the Kb in Kbps stands for kilobits.

Data Transmission

Kbps and Mbps are two abbreviations which are commonly used to discuss data transmission rates. Each is dealing with the number of bits which can be transferred per second, but one is scaled in the thousands and the other is in the millions. Kbps stands for kilobits per second while Mbps stands for megabits per second. There is no standard discussion of kilobytes per second (KBps) or megabytes per second (MBps) and this is due to difficulties in converting these units. Remember, there are eight bits in one byte. This means that to convert Kbps to KBps you would have to divide by eight. A simple example would be converting 8 Kbps into 1 KBps. However, more commonly measured internet speeds are 28.8Kbps, 56Kbps, 1.5Mbps, and 10Mpbs. Each of those do not convert to KBps or MBps very easily.

Toss it all

I’ve explained Kbps and Mbps so you now have a strong foundation for understanding these terms. The next step is to pull the rug out from under you and explain when these rules change. There are two competing interpretations of the Greek and Latin prefixes described in the first section above. Traditionally, these terms have been used in the base ten number system (the numbers 0 – 10 that we typically use when counting). Computers use base two which is described in more detail by other sites (http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/how_big.htm). Counting 0 – 10 like this: 0,1,10,11,100,101,110,111,1000,1001,1010. For this reason the prefixes are defined as shown in the chart below:

Tera- 2^40 (1,099,511,627,776)

Giga- 2^30 (1,073,741,824)

Mega- 2^20 (1,048,57)

Kilo- 2^10 (1,024)

Continue reading »]]> Along with the 35 apps that needed updating, I found the Android 2.2 upgrade waiting for me.  It seems there are two ways you can go about upgrading the firmware on your phone.  I bought the Kyocera Sanyo Zio M6000 when Cricket launched this phone as their first Android smartphone.  Since then they have launched several other phones and I’ve terminated the service because I’m too cheap to pay $50/mo, but that’s a topic for another post.  Today, I stumbled across a GPS app that stores the maps on the SD card so you don’t need a data plan.  I figure this would be a perfect use for my Kyocera Sanyo Zio M6000 because I no longer have a data plan for this phone.  Even without celular service, the Zio is a great media device with WiFi and now it can become a portable GPS too, also the topic of another post.  The main point I’m getting to is that I turned on the Kyocera Sanyo Zio M6000 and checked for updates today only to find Android 2.2 waiting for me.

The total time needed to upgrade you Kyocera Sanyo Zio M6000 to Android 2.2 is about 20 – 30 min.  Using the phone menus seems to be the easiest method, although it may save some time using your PC for multiple phones.

Phone Menus:

The way I accomplished the Android 2.2 upgrade on my Kyocera Sanyo Zio M6000 was to simply use the built in upgrade feature in the phone’s menus.

1. Plug-in and power up the phone
2. Turn off the screen time out (Menu > Settings > Display > Screen timeout > )
3. Select the ‘MENU’ button on the phone then tap ‘Settings’
4. Scroll to and select ‘About phone’
5. Scroll to and select ‘System updates’
6. Select ‘Check for updates’
7. Follow on screen instructions to install any available updates

Depending on how long your phone has been powered off (mine’s been off for two months) you may find there is more than one firmware update waiting.  To be sure you have all the updates available, simply follow the above procedure repeatedly until your phone tells you “No firmware update available.”

Via Your PC:

The firmware upgrade is a fairly large file and could take some time for your phone to download (My phone took about 10 min).  The alternative is to download the firmware upgrade to your PC and run the update from there.  I have been unable to locate these files, but I have found a forum and video that describe the process.  If you know where to locate the firmware upgrade files on the manufacturer’s website, please share that info in the comments section below.

Update:

Thanks to Erv, I can now post a link to the software location for the Zio M6000.  This site supplies software for connecting your phone to a Windows computer, but you still have to download the firmware upgrade from another site.  The problem with this method is that the third party which provides the firmware upgrade may, or may not, supply a hacked version.  I am in agreement with the phone manufacturer who recommends that the firmware upgrade should be installed using the WiFi connection built into the phone.

Continue reading »]]> It seems that my concern about problems with the Archos tablets came just a little too soon.  While others are also having power issues and I continue to have some problems, they are easily solved.  The Archos 101 is extremely new to the market as are tablet computers in general.  Some glitches are to be expected by early adopters of any device and it seems the Archos tablets are no different.  Here are some quick steps to get your Archos 101 working again if you are having power issues as well.

Reset:

1. Hold the power button for at least 15 seconds.  For some devices, users have reported they need to hold these buttons for up to a minute although this is extremely rare.  Additionally, other users have reported the need to also hold either the volume – or + button as well as the power button.  In my experience, only holding the power button for 15 seconds is needed.
2. While holding the buttons as instructed in step one, you will notice the power led flash.  This flash is very quick, dim, and only occurs once so pay close attention.
3. After the light has flashed, the Archos 101 tablet will start up the next time you press the power button.
4. Keep enjoying the use of your Archos tablet.

Manual Firmware Installation:

1. Press and hold the volume + button while pressing the power button to turn on your device.
2. Once the device powers on, you may release the power button (continue holding the volume + button).
3. After the Recovery screen loads you can release the power button.
4. Use the volume buttons for navigation and the power button to select “Repair System” and then select “Start USB MSC”.
5. You will be asked to connect the device to your computer, do so.  Then, copy the latest firmware version onto the device.
6. Select “Done” on the device.
7. Scroll up to “Update Firmware” and select “Done”.

Last try before RMA:

If that still does not correct the problem, reboot into the Recovery menu and select “Format System” then “Reset Android”. When it refreshes select “Reboot”.  After this, backup one step and try installing the latest firmware again.

If those steps don’t work, then it’s time to contact Archos and look into warranty repairs.  If you’ve learned any other tricks, feel free to share them in the comments below.

Related articles

• Archos 101 Problems & Concerns
• Install Google Market on Archos 101
• Archos 101 Screen Calibration
• Inside the Archos 101