It Came From The Internet - One Humanoid's Adventures And Findings

Google Voice and Video Chat not working in Firefox

I went and installed voice and video chat in Firefox the other day, and when it's done the browser restarts and it's as though nothing happened. I go to check and it tells me to install it just like it did the first time. Repeat process until hair loss ensues.

I can only speak for Firefox 3.6 on Windows 7 (not compatible w/ Ubuntu unfortunately), but after installing voice and video chat, go into:

Tools > Add-ons > Plugins then enable the Google Talk Plugin which for some reason is disabled upon install. After you enable it, go ahead and restart the browser then video chat should be working for you.

Resetting Gnome's Settings in Ubuntu

Linux Journal has a great bit about how to reset GNOME specific settings in Ubuntu when things go wrong.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/resetting-gnomes-settings-ubuntu

Basically, if you've been customizing and tweaking and somehow end up completely borking things this can undo all changes (like a nucelar option) and set it back to it's default state. This is just for GNOME settings, it won't help you repair damage you did to graphics drivers, x-server, etc. Just GNOME.

Chkdsk countdown freezes at 1 in Windows 7

I'm a dual booter, Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7 (64 bit), and yesterday I was greeted with an irritating problem that was making me pull my hair out (I know, with Windows, huge shock right? :p )

When the computer was booting up Windows, I kept getting a message that my C drive needed to be checked for consistency, for no apparent reason. So the message states to press any key to skip the check or let it finish the countdown and the check will begin, well, after multiple attempts either way I can assure you neither happened, all I got was a countdown timer frozen at 1 second remaining.
I will not bore you with all the crap I tried to remedy the situation.

What did finally work for me was this hotfix from Microsoft.

Once that was applied, I still got the Chkdsk message one more time after I rebooted, but this time it didn't freeze, it completed the check, and booted up Windows as it should. All reboots after went without a hitch and the message was gone, all is well. (this lasted a week)

UPDATE:

Ok, the problem eventually came back, why I don't know, but this is how I ended up resolving it as the flag had not been cleared before it seems. To get rid of this issue, just do this:

Click on Start

Then in the Search programs and files box type cmd (do not press Enter)

When cmd appears in a list of results under Programs, right click it and select Run as Administrator. (unless you're already running as Administrator)

Now type fsutil dirty query c: (this tells you if the drive is flagged as dirty)

Then type chkntfs /x c: .

The X in that command will tell Windows not to check the C: drive when it next reboots. Once you reboot the computer manually, it shouldn't do a chkdsk scan, it should just go to the normal Windows login screen.

When Windows has completely finished loading, open another Command Prompt as Adminsitrator (like you did before) and you'll want to enter chkdsk c: /r

When asked if you want this to happen on the next boot of the system reply with Y. Now reboot again and what should happen is you'll be taken through all 5 stages of the chkdsk scan and if all goes well it will reset the flag from dirty to clean. I have a 750GB drive on my computer and it took a few hours to complete, so be patient, it will all depend on many variables, but it could take a very long time. At first it didn't seem like it was doing anything, I thought it had locked up but decided to give it time and sure enough it was fine and completed all 5 stages of the chkdsk scan.

Once the scan has completed and you're back and logged in to Windows again, open another Command Prompt and enter fsutil dirty query c: to make sure the drive now reads as clean when you query it.

Hopefully this can save someone some hair loss

FTP for renaming file extensions

In Unix, Linux and BSD renaming file extensions is easy. In Windows, it can be a bit trickier depending on what you're working with. If you need to rename a file extension in Windows but it won't let you, just get any ftp program (I use Filezilla and FireFTP) and open it up, navigate to the file you want to work with, and rename it. That easy.

I had an .img file I needed to rename as .iso to work in Virtualbox and Windows wasn't thrilled about this, so I popped open Filezilla, renamed the file extension, and all is well now.

Using Lubuntu To Remove Files That Won't Delete In Windows 7

I recently got sent a zip file for a project I was working on, I saved it to a thumb drive, and later extracted it and opened it up. As luck would have it, there were some files in there with insanely long names, invalid characters, and dozens of other no-no's that Windows 7 didn't care for. No matter what I tried, even the command line wouldn't delete all of them (that's a first)! I still had a couple remaining.
Then I remembered that Linux doesn't have the same issue with long file names or with the funky characters. Since I couldn't move the file off the thumb drive, I instead booted into Ubuntu with the thumb drive plugged in and was able to easily remove the files, and all was well.

So say you don't have a dual boot setup, just Windows, what then?

You can just install Linux on a thumb drive (I recommend Lubuntu for this as it's lightweight and easy to use), and when you start up the computer go into your boot options and choose to boot from the thumb drive. Once Lubuntu is loaded you can use the file manager to go onto other drives and delete files with bad/invalid names that you had trouble removing in Windows.

If you haven't tried Lubuntu, it's a great spin on Ubuntu but using LXDE, which is a lightweight desktop environment. I've been really happy with it so far in all my tests.

Anyway, just another couple of ways you can get rid of files that won't delete in Windows 7 if all else has failed you. Having a Linux distro on a thumb drive is never a bad idea as it can come in handy for a lot of things.

Buzz on your Blackberry!

Google Buzz and Blackberry users!

In Opera Mini browser go to:

https://m.google.com/app/buzz

Click the link to continue in unsupported browser and you’re in!

Click “Menu’ in top left of Buzz for options.

Takes a little getting used to the navigation but it works! You can post, reply etc

More Great Google Chrome Extensions

Not long ago I posted some Google Chrome Extensions that I found useful, but that was early on, and the developers out there have been quite busy! So here are some new ones I've stumbled across and became fond of, I choose things I'll actually use as opposed to just "that's cool" extensions.

Give 'em a whirl...

Dust Theme for Chrome (Looks great in Ubuntu 9.10)
Theme intended to compliment the Ubuntu Dust theme

Android Theme for Chrome
An unofficial Android™-inspired theme for Chrome

Chromed Bird (Twitter)
Chromed Bird is a Twitter extension that allows you to follow your timelines and interact with your Twitter account.

TV Chrome
World TV in your Google chrome browser.

AddThis!
Share to Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Posterous, Instapaper, and 200 more. Translate pages. Autoconfigs based on usage.

NPR
Listen to NPR stories as you browse the web, check the latest headlines and set up custom feeds based on a keyword.

What extensions do you love? Any good finds?

Gwibber for Twitter, Facebook, identi.ca and more!

Gwibber is an open source microblogging framework and desktop client for GNOME. You can find it in your package manager for most major distributions. Currently it supports Twitter, Identi.ca, FriendFeed, Facebook, Jaiku, Digg, Flickr, BrightKite, Qaiku, and OpenCollaboration. Word is when Google opens the Buzz API that Gwibber will include support for Buzz too.

In Ubuntu, I love that I can minimize Gwibber down to the tray on close and see bubbles with the latest updates. Being able to manage multiple Twitter accounts plus Facebook, identi.ca etc. is really convenient as well. I added Gwibber to my startup applications list so I don't even have to launch it, it's there as soon as I login to my computer. I hear you can install it on the Nokia N800, N810 and N900 too if you're willing to do some tinkering, not sure I have time for that one at the moment.

Gwibber has replaced all my other social networking clients, I just hope the Buzz support happens. Check it out, should be in your package manager.

http://live.gnome.org/Gwibber
http://twitter.com/gwibber
http://identi.ca/gwibber