Mostly about my amusement
WordPress 2.8 is out. Check out the list of features. I was running 2.8-RC1 and updating via SVN (my usual method) was painless as usual.
Using SVN was as simple as logging in and switching from the /trunk to the tags/2.8 like so
cd wordpress/ svn sw http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.8/
Easy peasy.
Update 6/7/2009: Still broken.
Update 6/6/2009: I’ve used Flickr import three times and it looks like Facebook fixed the problem.
Facebook has really taken off with the 35+ age group (which I am part of). I have been connecting with people I have not interacted with in 20 years.
As a result, I find myself using Facebook as a means to keep my friends up to date. One of the things I have come to depend upon was the Facebook Flickr integration. Using this tool, when I upload pictures to Flickr account my Facebook friends get a notice and see my photos.
Normally this works sporadically. For the past two weeks it does not work at all. And I can’t find a link to let me ask Facebook “Hey, am I doing something wrong?” This functionality used to work but now it completely doesn’t.
I can’t really complain or get upset simply because I don’t pay Facebook, so I’m getting my money’s worth. But I wish they could provide something better than “Please try again later”. I suspect that the two site’s API changed but I can’t see any meaningful error messages to help figure it out.
It’s that time again and I am playing with WordPress 2.8 beta 2. So far the front end looks identical so I am sure there will be less people crying over this update.
Sometimes I post things to be able to recall 6 months later what I did. This is one of those “I’d better write this down” articles.
After a couple of iterations, my Acer Aspire One Netbook runs well on Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04. Here’s what I did.
I created one root 8 GB filesystem formatted in ext2 with no swap space. I don’t know why but using ext3 (a journaling filesystem) and/or swap meant poor performance. It’s probably due to the SSD not handling the read/writes well.
Following the advice from the Ubuntu AspireOne documentation page, I installed linux-backports-jaunty-modules and ran all the updates. Among other things this gets the wireless LED working. UNR 9.04 is still young yet so it’s not a lot of updates.
In my /boot/grub/menu.lst file I added “enable_mtrr_cleanup pciehp.pciehp_force=1” to my defoption line and kernel line. The mtrr_cleanup is to allow the X server to take advantage of a performance boost and with the pciehp I can use both SD card readers without any problem.
After using lspci to get the correct values, I added this line to my /etc/rc.local
echo "base=0x40000000 size=0x10000000 type=write-combining" > /proc/mtrr
The mtrr part is for improving video performance, the pciehp portion is to get both SD card readers working.
With these settings, the netbook is working well with only a few caveats. Youtube is still jumpy and slow. But I got this netbook to play with Ubuntu, ssh to my servers, and view web pages so I’m satisfied.
I’ve installed Windows 7 RC1 on a old P4 with 1GB RAM, GeForce 5600FX, 140 GB HD. So far so good.
Tuxradar has a good review of Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04. I knew about maximus but I totally missed the part about virtual desktops being disabled.
I’m now using Firefox 3.5 beta 4. They bumped up the version from 3.1 beta 3 to 3.5 beta 4. Beta 3 worked really well so I expect beta 4 to be “betterer”.
The nice thing about my netbook is that I have no hesitation to wipe it clean and install a new OS on it. Which is what I did today after I downloaded Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04.
It was released today and the instructions for installing off of a USB stick were very clear. It’s a very slick package and for what I am doing with Firefox and Gnome Terminal it’s more than enough. The menu system is replaced with a compatible front end that lets you create a favorites page and launch apps from there. And unlike the recently talked about”floats like a lead baloon” Windows 7 Starter, I can easily run more than three apps at a time.
I’m writing this on my netbook and I still need to optimize the environment for speed. But so far so good.
After I returned my defective Dell MINI 9, I shopped around for a replacement. I found a better deal with the Acer Aspire One AOA110-1588 from J&R Music. It was on sale for $229.99 and had free shipping.
From the product web page
It’s tiny. It rained yesterday and I fit the netbook into a zip lock bag to keep it dry.
Once I unpacked it, I downloaded all of the required XP updates. That took over 2 hours. Getting the McAfee 60 day trial updated and registered took another 30 minutes.
No matter how I kicked it around and configured it, I could not get it to work quickly. Applications ran but the netbook would pause for seconds at a time. Something in Windows XP was causing it to stutter. I removed McAfee and installed Norton 360 (it comes with 3 PC licenses and I have a spare) and that seemed to made the netbook more responsive but the stutter would come back whenever XP accessed the 8GB SSD drive.
So I fixed it by installing Ubuntu 8.10 via a USB stick.
I wiped out the whole XP install, hooked up the ethernet to my LAN and ran the install and then the update. The update refreshed 291 packages. The whole process is documented at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne110L and is very straight forward. Once the updates were applied, I was able to get the ath5k wireless driver working in no time.
Now I have a Linux netbook just like I wanted and no stutter.
The 1024×600 is a little constrained but viewing web pages and hitting the F11 key makes it all better. The keyboard took some adjustments on my part but it’s all good. I did hook up a wireless mouse to it but on the couch or in bed the touch pad is very usable. Overall I am very satisfied with how it performs.
If you mess up your WordPress theme’s widgets (I was playing with the code and screwed up) and can’t add or remove them, try following the advice here. The manual reset saved me a ton of time.
