For someone pretty computer-literate, I can be unbelievably stupid sometimes….

Santa brought me a new 19″ widescreen monitor. I connected it and was all set to sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, but Ubuntu picked it right up on boot and all I had to do was change the screen resolution. No problem, too easy. However, Santa also brought me a new wireless router, and a USB wireless adapter for P’s desktop so I don’t have to see the wire anymore, and I wasn’t sure that was going to be so easy. I set the router up no problem, changed the admin password, secured the connection, and since I’d made the mistake of leaving P with the instructions and the driver CD and telling him to set up his USB adapter while I got my laptop on the network, had to set his up, too. Of course, he had no connection because he’s a typical man, and a man who knows he’s computer-literate. That’s a bad combination because guys like that never read the instructions; they always think they know better. He said he’d installed the driver and run the wizard, but when I asked him about the final screen (the one that congratulates you for having got connected to the network..hehe), he didn’t know what I was talking about. I’d be willing to bet that’s because he tried to do it Old Skool and install the hardware manually. That’s what happens when you leave a man alone and tell him “just install it”. Anyway, I ran the wizard and had him connected in no time flat. He was good to go and I left my desktop wired (even though he’d bought me a snazzy USB adapter, too) because it sits right beside the modem and router anyway. We can take the cute little adapter back and spent the $70 (no shit–$70!) on something else; he just bought it in case I wanted to make my desktop wireless as well. Okay…mine’s connected wired, his is wireless, and only one left to go…my laptop, running an OS with which I’m really not very familiar when it comes to configuration. I suspected it would be easy because it’s a Vaio and I know that the Intel PRO wireless chip is well-supported under Linux. Still, all Linux OSes have a bad reputation for wireless, and I did know I’d have to deal with that godforsaken YaST, so I really wasn’t looking too forward to it. I took a deep breath, booted it up and hoped that the computer gods would be kind and it would just find the connection and ask me for the name and type of the network and the passphrase.

No such luck. Okay, so I have to set up the connection manually. I’m Geek Girl, so it’s not like I’m afraid of editing a config file or two. Problem: openSUSE has a file setup different enough from Ubuntu’s that nothing I tried as far as manual configuration seemed to work. Goddamn. Okay, slow-ass YaST it is, then; it’s Christmas morning, so it’s not like I’m in a rush to go anywhere. I fired up YaST and attempted to find the Network Manager, and finally, I did. To make a long (long) story short, I could see that there was a wireless adapter detected, but it had no name, and could not be configured because the module was unavailable. For two hours I cursed and swore, hating openSUSE, SUSE in general, Novell, and eventually, the entire continent of Europe (SUSE originated in Germany), but nothing I did would allow me to even see that there was a wireless network available, much less actually get to connect. I tried two Ubuntu Live CDs (6.10 and 7.10) because wireless in Ubuntu is pretty damned good, but no joy. FINALLY, it occurred to me to check the loooong list of boot messages. Bored, I scrolled through the list, but then a word caught my eye…”killswitch”. Oh, goddamn it–the killswitch is what turns off the OS’s ability to see wireless networks. If the killswitch is set to “off”, even a connection that once worked will work no longer. As Adam Savage is fond of saying, “Well, there’s your problem!”

What constitutes a killswitch depends upon the laptop. For some, it’s a dedicated key, for others, it’s a key combination. I tried Fn+F2, having some dim recollection that it was the combination for most Vaios, but no. Finally–and this is almost two and a half hours after I sat down in front of the goddamned laptop–I remembered the cute little grey switch on the side, down next to the USB ports. Yeah, the little one labelled “wireless” with the positions “on” and “off”. It was, of course, off. I switched that on and didn’t even have to reboot; a little icon popped up on the panel and asked me for the name of the connection, type of encryption, and the passphrase. I entered those, then watched the icon spin for a few seconds….while it connected to the network. Two and a half hours of my Christmas morning spent cursing in frustration because I forgot to turn the stupid switch to “on”. Geek Girl? I dunno! 😉

B. is utterly convinced that if it pertains to computers or the internet in any way, I either did it, or if I didn’t, then I know about it and can fix it for him. On one hand, that could be annoying, but he has such absolute honest faith in my nerd-bilities that I have to say “Awww!” even as I’m thinking, “What the hell’s he on about?”

BigHugeLabs did a fun thing with Scout for Christmas. Instead of listing only the images the user had on Explore, it listed all of the user’s images with the text, “(number) of (user’s) images are completely AWESOME! Merry Christmas!”

It was called “Christmas Scout” and turning if off was as simple as clicking the link to return to normal Scout. If, however, you’re someone who does not have strong computing skills, and English is your second (actually more like fourth) language, you might not have noticed the link, and might not have understood what was going on.

Bless his heart; he sent me a message, asking me what I’d done to his photos. He said he was quite shocked and thought it was very funny, but could I please tell him how to return things to normal so that he could see how many pictures he actually had in Explore. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about at first because I’d already turned off Christmas Scout and forgot all about it, but it finally occurred to me. Even after I explained it and told him how to turn it off (and back on, should he so desire), I’m still not convinced he believes that BigHugeLabs did it and not me. 😆

P. brought in a section of the paper that had “Letters to Santa”, and they are printed exactly as they were written. A sad day for the future of the country. If you are savvy enough to write to Santa so your parents will think you still believe and buy what you want, and you’re old enough to want High School Musical and an iPod, you’re old enough to spell “high”, “school” and “musical” correctly, or at least the first two. Christ. Oh well, at least you managed “ipod’….somehow.

I wouldn’t exactly call Reddit a meeting place for the finest minds in the world, but occasionally, some wisdom can be found amongst the paulbots, [pic], [comic] and the faux-far-right trolls. This amused me to no end:

conito: Will someone, ANYONE, please tell me what the difference is between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party? I can’t tell the difference anymore.

heelspider: Easy. If you’re for gay rights, you’re Democrat. If you’re for gay sex, you’re Republican.

HAHAHAHA! AAAAHAHAHAHAHA! 172 well-deserved points!

CheckGmail is a neat little tray icon application that allows you to see when you’ve got new messages in your Gmail account even if your browser is not open.

How to install CheckGmail on Ubuntu 7.10:

Start Synaptic, enter password. Enable Universe repos if they are not already enabled. Type “checkgmail” into search box. Right click, select “Mark for installation”, click “Apply”.

If the version in universe is too old for your liking, go to the Sourceforge page, download the latest version as a deb. Click (or double-click if you haven’t altered Nautilus behaviour), enter password, click the “Install” button in Gdebi.

Done…menu entry is under “Internet”.

How to install CheckGmail on openSUSE 10.3:

Start YaST, making sure that the openSUSE 10.3 DVD is in the drive. Look under source management, ensure that all available repos are checked as active. If they are, close source manager, start the software manager. Wait 18 seconds for the scan and the list to load. Type “checkgmail” into search. Get zero results. Go to RPMseek.com, find package for SUSE 10.2. Close enough. Download. Close earlier instance of YaST because two instances can’t be running at the same time. Click (or double click) rpm, enter password. Wait for YaST to load, watch YaST crash. Ah, yes–this happened with Skype, too. Create directory in /home called “software”. Start YaST, go to source management. Add ~/software as a custom repo, move checkgmail package there. Close source management, start software management. Wait 18 seconds for scan and load. Type “checkgmail” into search box. Highlight package name, click “Install” button. Click “Confirm”. Be confronted with a window that offers three options: 1. attempt to resolve dependencies, 2. install, ignoring unsatisfied dependencies, 3. do not install checkgmail. Try the first option, and when it doesn’t work because dependencies cannot be resolved, use the third because if dependencies are not satisfied, it won’t run anyway. Close YaST.

Go back to RPMseek, look up CheckGmail. Click file name (not download link), scroll down to list of dependencies:

perl
perl-Gtk2
perl-Gtk2-TrayIcon
perl-libwww-perl
perl-Crypt-SSLeay
perl-XML-Simple
perl-Crypt-Simple
perl-Crypt-Blowfish
perl-FreezeThaw
perl-Compress-Zlib
perl-gtk2-sexy
/usr/bin/perl
rpmlib

Start YaST, go to software manager. Search for each of the dependencies on the list. Get results for some, but not for others. Mark the uninstalled ones for installation, click “Cofirm”. Wait while they install, then wait again for a scan and load. Go back to RPMseek (you didn’t close the window, did you?), find a working download page (some links are dead) for each of the ones not in the repos. Download their packages and put them in the ~/software directory. Close YaST, then restart and wait 18 seconds for new scan and list. Search the name of each of the unresolved dependencies, mark for installation, confirm, wait for installation. Search checkgmail, mark for installation, confirm, wait. Close YaST.

Test to make sure program works by opening a terminal and typing “checkgmail”. Look through the list of menu items for an entry, since starting programs from the terminal means you have to remember to append nohup, or leave the terminal open because closing the terminal will also close the program it started. Discover there is no menu entry. Start YaST. Look for some option to edit the main menu. Discover there is none, or if it exists, it is remarkably well-hidden. Close YaST. Go back to the main menu and look for a menu editor entry. Discover there is none. Open a terminal, type “alacarte”, watch error list scroll by as menu editor starts. Ignore errors. Create new entry somewhere sane in the menu. Look for appropriate icon. Discover there is none. Say “fuck it” and leave the default custom launcher icon–it’s okay, you know what it is even without a cute little picture. Close alacarte. Look in the main menu for the newly created entry. Discover it isn’t there. Open a terminal, su, enter password, start alacarte again as root, repeat process. Discover it still isn’t there. Give up, create a custom launcher in a drawer on the panel, still with the default custom launcher icon. Congratulations, you have now successfully installed a tiny tray applet on openSUSE 10.3! Wasn’t that simple?

Hehe. When I was a Win user, I used to check at GRC.com to make sure my computer was safe according to Steve Gibson, paranoiac in residence. I freaked out the first time I showed an open port and tightened my firewall security so that practically everything was blocked unless I specifically allowed it on a case-by-case basis. I think I went there once after I switched to Linux (Mandrake back then), and all ports were stealth except for one that was “closed”. After that, I didn’t think too much about it, but I was reading Ubuntu Forums and a new convert was asking about how to install a firewall. They told him he didn’t really need one, and I’d say that is probably so:

I installed Firestarter once or twice, but never really paid much attention to it beyond allowing Samba services. I didn’t bother this time, and didn’t bother to install ClamAV, either. Some Linux people do use an anti-virus, but it’s not to protect themselves, it’s to protect Windows users with whom they communicate. Know what I have to say to Windows users who can’t protect themselves from viruses? Two things. First, my rates are reasonable, and second, suck it–that’s what you get for using a POS. 😉

Sometimes, I’m so goddamned awesome that I scare myself. 🙂

Last night, someone who shall remain nameless (but lives in this house and knows how to use Linux) may have been drunk enough to accidentally upset half a bottle of Smirnoff Twisted V, “Pomegranate Fusion” on the desk, and a good percentage ran down into the keyboard. Okay, so it was me, I was three-quarters drunk and I did upset half a bottle of wonderfully sugar-sweetened malt beverage into the keyboard. I didn’t do anything with it last night because I had other things on my mind, so I just shut down when we went to bed. I forgot all about it when I woke up this morning, and even after I did remember, I didn’t think too much about it because Christ knows I’ve dumped enough coffee, crumbs and other crap into the poor thing, and somehow, it always forgave me. This time, though, it did not. I have auto-login enabled, so I did manage to get logged in, but when I went to check my Gmail, I couldn’t type the password because for every key I pressed, I got at least four characters. Uh-oh.

We repair computers, so it’s not like there aren’t four hundred keyboards lying around, but for me, it’s not that simple because I am quite particular about my keyboard. There is one model manufactured by Keytronic, and I have used that model for many years. I touch-type, and I’m fast on it because I don’t have to know exactly where the keys are–my fingers already do. Since I know I’m fussy, and this keyboard cannot be purchased anywhere locally, I keep a spare, but the problem this time was that the board I’m using is my spare. The one I had before is still downstairs, but the space bar only works about half of the time. That is actually why I use this particular board–they’re tough. I was taught to type by a woman who was born three years later than Jesus Christ, and she made us learn on the old Remington manuals. In order to be able to type carbons on a manual typewriter, you need to be able to strike the key hard. Mrs. Ogden sent us all home with those red/white/blue rubber balls, and she told us to use them to exercise our hands so we’d gain the strength to hit the keys hard enough. I took her at her word, and although I haven’t seen a manual typewriter for many years, I’m absolutely sure that I could still manage a three-copy carbon on a full-size Remington. It’s habit now, and too deeply ingrained to break, but it means I’m hard on computer keyboards because I hit the keys damned near as hard.

In order to have something, I went down and got one of the spare boards, but since I would die without my model, I decided to try cleaning it. If none of the circuits were actually fried, then all I’d need to do would be to get the sticky stuff off so the sugar couldn’t conduct current where current wasn’t supposed to go. I told P. that I was going to try cleaning it, and he said that in all of his years working with computers, he had never once seen a major keyboard repair succeed. That made me all the more determined to try. 😉

I took a picture of the board so I would know the key arrangement, then started trying to get it apart. There are no screws, but I’ve taken these boards apart before, so I know where all of the little clips are. Got the cover off, and started pulling keycaps. Holy fuck, what a disaster it was in there. I dumped the keycaps into a container with hot water and dish detergent, then pulled off the plastic base underneath them (gross). Not looking good–there was Pomegranate Fusion down on the membrane. I pulled that off and stuck it in the water with the keycaps, then looked at the circuits. Keyboard circuits aren’t on a board, they’re printed on transparent plastic. My board has two sheets of circuits separated by a plain sheet, and be goddamned if the stuff hadn’t got all the way down to the bottom. Fuck.

I washed the case, towel-dried it and then dried it the rest of the way with a hair dryer, then set it aside. I didn’t have any distilled water, and our water is hard enough that it does leave some calcium deposits, so I tried cleaning the circuits by gently wiping with rubbing alcohol. Crossed my fingers, then got started washing the membrane and keycaps. At this point, I didn’t hold out much hope that the board would work because there was so much gunk on the circuits that I figured something had to be fried, but I’d gone that far, so damn it, I was going to finish.

I have a standard 105-key board. Each one of the keycaps had to be carefully dried, paying special attention to the inside of the post, since water didn’t evaporate from there, and didn’t drain very well, either. I now have intimate knowledge of each and every one of my 105 keys, thank you very much. Finally, I did get them all dry, unloaded the pictures from my camera and brought up one of the board. It didn’t take me long to get the keycaps back on, and I was ready to give my repair job a try.

I use a PS2 keyboard because I have a PS2 port and have 4000 (give or take a few) USB devices already. Even with six ports on board and an 8-port hub, USB ports are still a precious commodity. Anyway, I shut down the computer, switched keyboards and fired it up. Booted okay, nothing shorted out, and I was hopeful. I started gedit and typed the sentence I know so very well (thank you, Mrs. Ogden). “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their land.” Goddamn. Typing “i” was giving me i888, and “l” made the 8 repeat as if I was holding down the key. Fuck.

I shut down, unplugged the board and started popping keycaps again. My fingers are sore, BTW–couldn’t find the key puller. I took the whole thing apart again, and this time, I didn’t worry too much about the circuits because they were fucked anyway. I took them right out to the sink and held the little board in my hand while I rinsed the circuits with the kitchen sprayer. I figured they’d be fucked for good, but it was worth a shot. I dried the circuits carefully, just in case, but didn’t bother putting all of the keys back on this time; I just put the letters and top row numbers on. This time, I grabbed a brain cell and connected with a PS2 to USB adaper (forgot about that the first time…hehe). Lo and behold, the time that I don’t bother to put everything back together….it works! I unplugged it, stuck the rest of the keys back on, put the cover on, and be goddamned if it isn’t working just fine. I told P. that he could officially say that he had, in fact, seen a keyboard repair actually work, and it took only 31 years for it to happen, since he began working with computers in 1976. Yes, since punch cards. 🙂

Yay once again for Geek Girl (actually, this time Sadie the Cleaning Lady–nothing she can’t clean!)

I had forgot how crappy Windows is with memory management. Two gigs of RAM and it still can’t manage to run Photoshop, Firefox, WinRAR and Winamp without giving me enough time to go make a pot of coffee while an A4 PSD at 300 dpi saves! In Ubuntu, I can have a dozen windows open on any or all of four different workspaces, and it runs fine, and that’s with Gnome. I can even burn a DVD while I’m working on other stuff without worrying that a surge in memory use by something else is going to cause an error on the disc. Windows is such a lame POS.

This cat thing is soooo not working out. P., of course, loves the cat. I have Claritin and an inhaler, so I can tolerate the cat as far as allergies and asthma go (so far, at least), but the longer it’s here, the less I want it here. It is supposed to sleep on its bed, which it does occasionally, but for the most part, it can be found sleeping on the chesterfield or one of the kitchen chairs, or somewhere on the carpet. The carpet bothers me the least–though it does mean I can’t lie on the floor anymore–but since there’s goddamned cat hair all over the chesterfield (in spite of my enthusiastic vacuuming efforts), I can’t go sleep in the living room if P. does his Fred Flintstone impression, as he does on many nights. I don’t mind the cat on one of the kitchen chairs because it isn’t the one I usually use, so I’m not going to get cat hair all over my arse if I sit down, but the problem is that the cat doesn’t stay on the kitchen chair, it sneaks up onto the table and sits beside Cliffie’s tank. I know it does because for goddamned sure none of the fish, shrimp or crabs gets up there and knocks stuff down, and yet it gets knocked down. It also gets up in the north window of the kitchen and terrorises poor old Ubie. I swear I’ll drown the goddamned thing myself if it hurts any of my fish or knocks over one of the tanks on metal stands (like Ubie’s). On his third try, P. got a litterbox that I can bear because it’s closed in so the cat can’t fling litter all over the floor, and even has a little flap door on the front to keep down the stench. That doesn’t mean the cat can’t get litter on the carpeted floor, it just means there’s less of it. Neither does that mean that cat shit smells like roses (it doesn’t), or that I can’t smell the litterbox even though (to his credit) P does clean it every day. I certainly can smell it, and although it’s in the spare room that’s used only for storage and my live food cultures (the only place in the house I could stand it), it’s still in the house and it’s still…cat shit. I don’t mind that the cat thinks my community tank is its own personal Kitty TVâ„¢, and that it watches African Cichlid TV when the tetras and cories go to commercial, but I goddamned well do mind the shredded styrofoam all over the floor. Styrofoam is under the tanks to help level them and take pressure off the bottom glass, not to provide claw-sharpening material for a cat. It has a scratching post and (so P tells me) does use it, but that’s in addition to the arm of the chesterfield, the carpet in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, and any woodwork that should happen to be nearby when it thinks its claws need sharpening. I haven’t caught it on the kitchen counter yet, but I know cats, so I know it will happen. I’m not sticking tape all over my fucking house, either; if the cat is on the counter, the cat is getting very wet, very fast, and it’ll just have to learn the hard way.

It’s a very quiet cat, it’s cute, and the cat toys all over the floor don’t bother me at all. Cat food stinks, and I’ve learned to navigate around the dish on the floor even when the kitchen is dark. I don’t really mind cleaning up bits of cat food off the floor, even though I have to do that twice a day (otherwise asking for roaches). P. likes the cat, and I like P., and don’t mind the cat itself too much now that it’s associated me with the words, “No” and “Get down” and doesn’t stick to me like velcro, but there is a reason that I prefer to keep furry, uncaged animals outside or in a barn…because that’s where I think they belong. I didn’t want a cat, and–surprise–I still don’t want a cat because (wait for it)…I don’t particularly like cats! I never have, and I never will.

Absolutely goddamned brilliant! I need a divorce so I can marry nautilus-actions! (Hugging my little Tux because you can’t hug a software download.)