Prepare this blank disk error in Vista

The other day I had an issue where I went to read a DVD on my new Vista laptop. It gave me a message implying that it was a blank disk. I knew it wasn't. I created the disk (along with many others) using XP Pro and Nero 6. These DVD's have been fine in all the time I've been using them. All of a sudden it doesn't work on the new laptop. Turns out it's a bug in Vista. Do this: add a file to "c:\Users\%username%\AppData\local\Microsoft\Windows\Burn\Temporary Burn Folder\". It can be any file. Somehow it just works. Amazing!

I originally found the fix here: http://www.ashbaughonline.com/2007/06/01/burn-a-disc-prepare-this-blank-disk/

Good luck!

EDIT:
Turns out that during install of VMWare, it asks you to disable CDROM autorun. This disabling of autorun causes the "Prepare this Blank Disc" problem. Simply reenable autorun.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom

change "Autorun" value from "0" to "1"

I found the solution here: link: http://signpark.proboards81.com/inde...play&thread=34


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How to create an ISO image of a CD in Nero 6.6.0.16

How to create an ISO image of a CD in Nero 6.6.0.16. Seems like very few people on the Internets know how to do this so I am officially documenting it here. This way I don't have to spend hours and hours Googling everytime I need to remember how to do this.

• Insert the original CD into the cdrom drive.
  
  
• Launch Nero 6.6.0.16
  
  
• In the "Applications" section, choose Nero Burning ROM. Cancel the wizard that comes up after that.
  
  
• File > Preferences... | Expert Features | check box the part that says "Enable all supported recorder formats for the Image Recorder"
  
  
• Click OK, then close Nero Burning ROM
  
  
• In the top portion of the main Window, be sure "CD" is selected. Then from "favorites" choose "Copy CD"
  
  
• In the next "Nero Express" window, be sure to change Destination Drive to "Image Recorder"
  
  
• Then click the "More..." button below.
  
  
• Then click the "Save Tracks" button.
  
  
• At the next window, if you are lucky, the "Output File Format:" option will be available for you to select "ISO" from.
  

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My new E-Trade account

Gas prices through the roof, economy crashing, housing markets down, banks are collapsing,... we are in the midst of one of the worst economic times in this nations history and on the verge of a second great depression. So I asked myself, "Would now be a good time to start investing?" Hmm, sure, why not.

So a few minutes ago I signed up at E-Trade. I have so many questions already. The goal is to turn my $100 deposit into billions.

Side-note: I'm glad they made it easy to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report on the computer now.

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iPhone headset no sound during playback fix

So there is this problem with the iPhone that STILL seems to exist. You're listening to whatever and then you pause it. When you go to press play again, there is no sound. This issue is well documented as being a problem with the headset jack. In fact, based on what I've read, Apple even tells you to simply plug and unplug the headset multiple times until the sound comes back. Lame!

Well a week or so ago while doing laundry and listening to a record episode of the Howard Stern show, this problem happened. I started fumbling with the headset jack with very little success. Finally, I was messing with it for so long, I missed like 3 minutes worth of show! So I pressed and held the skip track button on the left side to rewind it a bit and all of a sudden the sound came back!

Tonight, this problem happened again. So I did the fix and sure enough it worked right away. Next time this happens, I will drop everything and take a video to post here to try to demonstrate what I am talking about. But in the meantime, if you are lost and happen to stumble across this then I hope this helps even just a little bit.





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Access Windows directories over network from Linux

At work I have an Active Directory domain and most of my systems are Windows XP clients of this domain. I also have a Red Hat Enterprise network that uses NIS. At my desk, I have a machine that dual boots Vista and Fedora 8. And of course I have VMWare guests on each one. Anyway.....

So I'm on my Fedora box and I simply want to copy a file to the Windows 2003 SBS file server. I have created a shared dir on the server, but how to access it? There are several ways.

First, the GUI way

Click anywhere in a blank space on the X desktop and then hit Alt+F2 on your keyboard. This will bring up the "Run Application" dialog box. Type this in the box:

smb://your_windows_username@IP_address_of_server/shared_dir_name

You can also use the fully qualfied host name if you like. But for the sake of accuracy, I went with IP address. So let's say you have a machine with the IP address of 192.168.1.10, your Windows username is "JimSmith2001" and the name of the shared directory is "backup". Then you could type this:

smb://JimSmith2001@192.168.1.10/backup

Then just click on "Run" and enter your password when it prompts you. Make sure the domain is entered properly. If your domain name is hello.com, then put in HELLO for the domain name.

Next is the CLI way

Just type this:
$ sudo mkdir -p /winserver/backup
$ sudo mount -t cifs -o username=JimSmith2001,password=JimSmithsPassword //192.168.1.10/backup /winserver/backup

Basically you are making a directory to mount to, and then simply mounting the remote Windows directory to it. You can replace cifs with smbfs if the above doesn't work. I think the smbfs is no longer supported though (or something like that). You'll have to research that on your own. But hopefully this will get you started. Good luck!


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How to: Firefox 3 on Fedora 8

Ok, I look all over but nobody posts these sorts of things for the n00bs out there. So I will. This is very easy and much less hassle then trying to rely on some guys home-made rpm's and such. Now keep in mind, there is always a hundred or more ways of doing things -- this is my way. So if you don't like it, then don't do it this way.

1> First, I login as root and create a directory called /downloads. (You can also just login with your regular user account and do sudo if you so desire. I'm just going straight forward here to keep things as simple as possible).
# mkdir /downloads

2> Then I go to the internetstubes and download the latest Firefox. It's version 3.0.1 at the time I am writing this.

3> CD to /downloads and undiscombobulate your newly downloaded FF file.
# cd /downloads
# tar xvfj firefox-3.0.1.tar.bz2

Note: If it were a *.tar.gz file, you would do like so (note the diff between the z and the j):
# tar xvfz firefox-3.0.1.tar.gz

4> Anyway, now you should have a directory called "firefox" in your /downloads dir. Time to rename it and move it to somewhere where it's useful and makes sense.
# mv firefox firefox-3.0.1
# cp -r firefox-3.0.1 /usr/lib

5> Now in order to make it work you have to do this:
# cd /usr/bin
# mv firefox firefox.bkup
# ln -s /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.1/firefox firefox

6> Make sure your launcher points to: /usr/bin/firefox %u (if it's %s then FF will always open www.s.com). You can just delete your existing launcher from your GUI panel and then readd it from the Applications menu and then this way you get the correct url and icon.

There, done. You're welcome. =P




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Mocha VNC Lite on iPhone + TightVNC Server on Windows XP

So basically you just install TightVNC Server on your Windows box (or it can be Mac or Linux, doesn't really matter). Then you install the VNC Lite app on your iPhone. Give your computer a static IP address, open up port 5900 on your router and point it to your IP address and wha-la,.. you can now remote control your computer from anywhere. Amazing!



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Rush on the Colbert Report

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My Fedora 8 desktop

My Fedora 8 desktop



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Ringtones for iPhone

Great! Now I can create ringtones very easily for iPhone. This site http://audiko.net/ is the greatest!

I used to do it the manual way with this complicated rig: http://www.ehow.com/how_2160460_custom-iphone-ringtones-free.html

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Dumb lady at Jack in the Box

So today I went to lunch with my friend at around noon at Jack in the Box. We finish lunch and head back to my car to head back to work. As we are walking, we are passing the drive-thru. The drive-thru actually starts once you pull into the lot and goes all the way around. First you pull in, go to the order menu and then pull around to the window where they take the cash and give you the order. Well there is actually a break in the drive-thru where you could easily just pull right in and bypass everyone. You wouldn't get to place your order but you can get into the line.

Well anyway, as we are walking, I see this lady in this little red car pull into that open section of the drive-thru. I started laughing and said to my friend "HA! That lady is dumb!". Then I kept looking back to see if anything was happening. Well we get to my car and start to leave. But then I thought,.. wait,.. I want to see what happened to that lady. So I turn around and go back and now i can see her car is hanging off the edge of a high curb section of the line. This is hilarious!!! Not only did she break into the line, but now she is trying to exit out of the line.

So me and my friend couldn't resist. I went ahead and parked so we could walk over and get a closer look. By the time we got there, about 6 or 7 people walked up there. We all were kinda laughing at the stupidity of the situation but knew we needed to help this lady. So we altogether, on the count of 3, lifted that car off the curb and back to the order lane. Now for the 3rd dumb thing she did. As we start lifting, she quickly jumps out of her car. Ok,.. so um,.. WHO'S GOING TO PRESS THE BRAKE WHEN WE PUT THE CAR DOWN? LOLOLOL. So we yell at her,.. "Get in the car and press the brake!!!!" as this car came within inches of the car behind her. Yeesh!

Needless to say, I'm sure she must've been embarrassed beyond recognition because she just left. She never did order any food. And I do hope she was taking her car to get it looked at because after all that, it looked like she leaked a bunch of stuff on the curb. Brand new car too. So sad. How do people like that even get licenses in the first place? =)

Below are 2 pictures we took. I took the one of the car after we lifted it back into the lane and the other is a close up of the wheel hanging off the curb. I'm not sure who the people in the picture are. Just some of the bystanders who helped lift the car up.







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The Cyborg Name Decoder

Get Your Cyborg Name

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Stephen Colbert vs Rain (Dance Off)

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Install Nvidia drivers on Red Hat 9 or RHEL3

This guide will help you install Nvidia drivers on a Linux based computer system that has an Nvidia card. This guide assumes you are using Red Hat Enterprise 3 or Red Hat 9 (or something along those lines. This guide would probably work ok for Fedora too. Not sure about SuSE or Ubuntu though.)

Basically, after a default installation, you will want to try to install your Nvidia drivers. You go to Nvidia.com, you try to pick out the right driver, you go to install and you have no luck. You probably get errors similar to what I have written below. Well, here is what is happening as best as I understand it...

The computer will try to take the Nvidia drivers and basically compile those drivers into the Linux kernel. But after a default install, the kernel source files aren't there. You either have to put them on the computer by copying from the CD or downloading from a repository of some sort. So in my opinion, the best thing to do is to just copy from the CD you installed from. In Ubuntu, you probably just download it, but with Fedora or Red Hat, use the CD.

Ok, so now you should have the kernel source file and the nvidia driver located together in one directory (can be anywhere, just as long as you know where).

Problems: These are the messages you will get if it's not setup up properly.

No precompiled kernel interface was found to match your kernel; would you like the installer to attempt to download a kernel interface for your kernel from the NVIDIA ftp site (ftp://download.nvidia.com)?

ERROR: Unable to find the kernel header files for the currently funning kernel. Please make sure you have installed the kernel header files for your kernel; on Red Hat Linux systems, for example, be sure you have the 'kernel-source' rpm installed. If you know the correct kernel header files are installed, you may specify the kernel include path with the --kernel-include-path' commandline option.

ERROR: Installation has failed. Please see the file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log' for details. You may find suggestions on fixing installation problems in the README available on the Linux driver download page at www.nvidia.com

Solution:

1. Install and configure Red Hat Enterprise 3 as best as you can. Configure NFS, NIS, etc. if you like. Or just jump right away into this...
   
   
2. Be sure you are in run level 3 (text mode) before doing all this.
   
   # vi /etc/inittab
   id:3:initdefault: <-- make sure number value is a 3 so you boot to text mode # reboot
3. Determine kernel release
   
   # uname -r
   2.4.21-40.EL
   
   
   
4. Install kernel source rpm file. First, get it from from one of the CD's (either CD-3 of the install CD's or use the CD that I made (which if you are reading this from my blog, then you probably don't have it.) Just make sure the kernel release numbers match up before proceeding or you might have to format/reinstall).
   
   # rpm -ivh /full_path_to_rpm/kernel-source-2.4.21-4.EL.i386.rpm
   
   
   
5. If all goes well, Then try to run the Nvidia driver. In this example, I assume you copied everything to /tmp
   
   # cd /tmp

I assume you have the Nvidia driver. In this case, this is the one I am using. You can go to nvidia.com and get one from there too. It might be a newer version too.
I just happen to like this one because I know it works with what I have.

# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-8756-pkg1.run

Note: You might get an error message similar to one of the ones above, but keep going and let it recompile. You should see a progress indicator which shows that it's working. It will say it's finished at the end. Then you can change /etc/inittab back to run level 5

# vi /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault: <-- make sure number value is a 5 so you boot to graphical mode # reboot

Please feel free to comment if you find any mistakes here. Thanks in advance.
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Mötley Crüe - Saints of Los Angeles

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Al Gore interview on 60 Minutes

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Lunch at Panda Express

Barack Obama 'A More Perfect Union'

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Customize Microsoft Windows Vista Start Menu folders

1. On the Start Menu, right-click "Programs"
2. Choose, "Explore All Users"
3. Enjoy
   

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