/usr/bin/php^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

This error seems to be because the files in question do not use Mac line endings.  To get it to work you need to convert your file into Mac line endings, and using the terminal app, we can easily do this with Nano, already built into OSX.

Right first step is to open the problem file in Nano

nano -w [yourfilename]

Press f3 to access the save dialogue.  Now here is where we need to change the file to Mac line endings.  The key combination to do this is the Meta Key + M.  On the Mac Wirless Keyboard the Meta Key is Escape so press Escape  + M, then press Enter to save and F2 to quit out of Nano.

Try executing the file again and this time it should work.

The other choice was Android, specifically Andriod 3 Honeycomb.  The Playbook and HP’s Touchpad were not considered as these products could easily fail due to low market adoption.

I have had a handful of Android phones such as the G1, Dell Streak, HTC Desire, Sony Xperia X10i and Samsung Nexus S.  The Nexus S is by far the best one due to being a Google Experience Device and receiving updates straight from Google.  This is also the route I shall follow with a Android tablet.  This filtered down the selection to just one device, the Motorola Xoom.

Best Buy Hedge End staff will have you believe that all Honeycomb tablets are directly updated by Google by this is just blatant lies.  They also told me the Xoom is the official Google tablet which means it get updates first but the display unit is locked to 3.0.1, turns out this was another blatant lie.

The real truth is that the US version is GED and not the EU/UK version. This is really annoying as the Xoom costs £100 more that the competition such as Acer Aconia Tab or Asus Transformer and has older version of Android Honeycomb installed.  Granted it has 32GB of memory vs the 16GB of the others but expandable microSD cards are realtivly cheap.  The EU/UK Xoom is a rip off pure and simple.

However, if you have a bit of technical ability, you can turn the EU/UK Xoom into the GED US version very easily.  I did this and got 2 immediate updates in succession taking me from 3.0.1 to 3.1 to 3.2.  There is no rooting required and this can be reversed incase you need to do a warranty claim.  I have read online that some people when doing this process get Google Market in American Dollars but my device has stayed in pounds.  I think this is due to my device being used and set up on the original firmware before I flashed it.

The process is simple please follow the steps below, please note this is for the WiFi version only.

Download the kit including the firmware here

Extract the archive XoomGED.zip, if you are not using Windows rename the fastboot-lin or fastboot-mac file to fastboot.  Also if you are using windows you may need additional drivers which I believe are avaiable from the Android SDK. You will find two firmwares in the archive the US and UK versions.  The UK one is included incase you need to return your device to factory incase of any warranty claims.

Open the command prompt and navigate to the extracted folder

Turn off your xoom hold down the volme down key as you turn it on, release the volume down key when the screen says “starting Fastboot protocol support”

In the command prompt type

fastboot devices

If you can see you device listed in the terminal output you can continue to type

fastboot oem unlock

then follow the onscreen instructions

Reboot your Xoom into fastboot mode.  In the terminal window navigate into the US Original Firmware folder and run the following commands

fastboot flash boot boot.img

fastboot flash system system.img

fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

fastboot flash userdata userdata.ing

fastboot erase cache

fastboot oem lock

Reboot your Xoom and you should be presented after booting with a system update

* Update *

I have had to revert my Xoom back to the UK firmware due to the HDMI port not working and I need to get it repaired.  I had to perform the flashing process on Windows and I was missing a dll and a driver, which I have sourced and added to my download in case any other Window users need these items when performing this process.

For example I use a lot of FFmpeg for my video conversion scripts, on Ubuntu its as easy as Synaptic.  On Windows the easiest way is Cygwin Ports.  On a mac, erm …

Rather than compiling from source I found the ffmpeg binary in the package files of Miro Video Converter.  It does not include support for libfaac but the built in aac codec actually performs quite well compared to the Ubuntu and Cygwin versions so It can produce reasonable acc audio.  There was also the binary for ffmpeg2theora so I thought I would share this as well.

Download ffmpeg for OSX Snow Leopard

Download ffmpeg2theora for OSX Snow Leopoard

The fix is quite simple, in your home directory delete the folder “~/.fontconfig”. Log out to restart your session and your fonts should now appear smooth and fuller.

The solution is simple, you just need to edit the file /etc/default/grub. Change the following line

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="i8042.nopnp"

After the edit, open up a terminal and run

$sudo update-grub

Then reboot and find your touch pad working.  There is however, a problem, which is that it is recognised as a mouse so you can not use features such as turning of the touch pad when you are typing, which I find really annoying.

Let me share my experiences with O2 over the last couple of months with you, you will see I have been unlucky but also this could happen to any customer on the O2 network as this is a battle against their “policy” which, like many retailers, is in breach of the law and they are unaware of this.

Lets start the story with going into the O2 store on July 5th to get a Dell Streak on contract.  The Dell Streak looked like a fantastic device, an Android phone with a screen big enough to actually browse the web and watch videos.  However, it turned out to be utter rubbish.

After owning the Streak for just over a week, it decided it would just do whatever it wanted.  It would just randomly restart or turn off or do real weird stuff like activating my sim pin lock all by itself.  The screen would often go black with the back light still on and all the buttons would just freeze.  I couldn’t live with this so I returned it to the O2 store on the 18th July.

At the O2 store they refused to exchange the device for a new one as they needed to see the fault.  This was a problem as the fault was intermittent and at the time I was in the O2 store, sods law dictated it should work perfectly.  However, the law is on my side and with any purchase within the first six months the shop has to prove to me that the device is not faulty.  In the case of intermittent faults they have to take my word for it.  So there, the law agrees with me the device is faulty and I am entitled to a replacement.  At this point I had to argue with the shop manager who kept on saying it was company policy to see the fault irrespective that company policy is worthless when up against the law (Sale Of Goods Act 1979).  I was getting no where with this so I played them at their own game quoting them their “14 day Change Your Mind Policy” which gave me the right to walk away from their contract only paying for my call charges.  So they caved in and replaced the phone for a new model.

Not leaving it there I gave O2 customer services a massive ear bashing over this and threatened to report them to anyone that would listen, namely Trading Standards.  O2 customer services agreed the shop was in breach of the law, it was not company policy to see faults (lies I think!) and that as a goodwill gesture they will credit my account with £40.  This have could been the end of my problems with a reasonable resolve, but wait the Dell Streak decided to bust itself again.

This time the flash decided it would pack up, so the phone went back to the O2 shop on the 15th September.  I was informed that the phone will need to go away to be repaired, it will take ten to fourteen days and they will call me when it was ready.  Cheekily they charged me a £25 deposit for a courtesy phone.  That was ridiculous as I had handed them a £400 phone and they want a deposit of £25 for the most basic Nokia they sell, which was tatty and barely working.  I believe I may have been legally entitled for a “like for like” courtesy phone, but I am not certain on this so just took the Nokia.

14 days went past and no phone call came so I phoned the O2 store to see what was going on only to find out the phone couldn’t be repaired so they have replaced it (No 3) and they called me 4 days ago to let me know.  I am missing something here as they certainly didn’t call me so I have no idea who they think they spoke to but it was not me.  I went into the shop on 29th September to pick up what I expected will be another shiny new Streak, only to be given a scratched and worn “reconditioned” model.  This was out of order as my phone was immaculate and they want to replace it with this – NO WAY!  The sales assistant told me this is how they do the exchanges and guess what “company policy”.  I made it clear I was legally entitled for a repair or a “like for like” replacement, which this piece of tat certainly was not.  Then the cheeky sales assistant told me my contract with O2 was only for the air time, for the phone its down to the manufacturers.  What a load of rubbish, the law is clear that if a gift is given as an incentive for a contract then it becomes part of the contract, meaning that O2 were fully responsible for the phone.  I demanded a new replacement from their stock to which they refused.  We eventually came to an agreement they they would escalate my claim to head office which will allow me to choose a different phone.  After taking some further details form me I was told that they would make a decision within 5 days and if head office decides I can have a different phone they will contact me with a list of available phones to choose from and they would send this phone to the store for me to pick up.  However, this phone will be a second hand reconditioned unit, which I expect will be tatty like the replacement Streak they tried to give me.

I went home and spent some serious time on the Internet reading the Sale Of Goods Act and found out a few interesting points which is that the retailer must repair the device to a satisfactory condition or they are in “breach of contract”,  also I am not to be given “significant inconvenience”.  For both of these points I have the right to “rescind the contract”.  Armed with this information I contacted O2 customer service and spoke to the customer retention team (select option to leave O2) and explained the whole situation and demanded to either be switch to a sim only plan or have the contract canceled without penalty.  I got fobbed off being told I need to go back and speak to the shop, which is ridiculous as they are waiting on a decision from head office about sending me a reconditioned phone which I don’t want.  Also I pointed out my contract is with O2 so customer services should be good enough to deal with this problem as I expect the shop manager would not have the authority to do anything anyway.

Annoyed that customer services couldn’t care less I decided to write an email to O2, the email I sent is below this post and I sent it to the following email addresses care@o2mail.co.uk, mycarewebform@o2mail.co.uk, mycare@o2mail.co.uk, complaints@o2mail.co.uk, complaintreviewservice@o2.com

After not hearing anything for a few days I phoned up customer services retention department again to see what was going on. This time I asked for the price for the contract cancellation fee, which I would subsequently claim back by small claims court.  After saying this and writing the letter I seemed to be getting taken seriously for a change.  O2′s solution to the problem was to do an early upgrade putting me on a new 18 month contract and sending me a new phone.  As I will be on a new contract I can cancel within 14 days on O2′s “14 day Change Your Mind Policy”.  If I don’t want the the phone, I can just send it back and have the contract ended without penalty.  Claire from O2 promised me I would get this phone on Wednesday 6th October.

Well you can probable guess on Wednesday no phone turned up.  I called O2 customer services again to see what was going on only to be told that the HTC Desire was out of stock.  I argued that I had been promised the phone on Wednesday by claire (extension 43247) and that this whole situation was far beyond acceptable.  After explaining the whole situation in detail the customer advisor spoke to a manager and said that I could pick up the phone from the local store as they had it in stock.  Its more inconvience but just to end this ordeal I said I would do this and pick it up in my lunch break.  The customer advisor said that I would have to wait 24 hours as they have to cancel the telephone order and re-order it for store pickup.  I decided that I have no faith in O2 for this to actually happen and due to everything I now want to speak to a manager and get this contract rescinded as I have had more than enough of O2.

I was out through to a manager called Richard Wood (extension 03137).  Richard was quick to tell me that he didn’t see what my problem was.  I had a broken phone, they replaced it, I wasn’t satisfied with the replacement so as a gesture of goodwill they offered me a brand new phone.  I was amazed at how naive Richard was.  I explained the whole story again, how my rights had been refused at all stages and how O2 was an absolute disgrace.  Richard insisted O2 had performed its side of the contract by replacing the broken Streak and that all they had to do was provide a functioning phone, the fact it was cosmetically damaged was irrelevant.  Richard also made it clear that if I want the contract ended I must pay a cancellation fee of £600.

I demanded to Richard Wood that the contract be rescinded, which is my legal right.  Richard refused and told me to take the new phone whenever it arrives and that will be the end of it.  I then demanded compensation, after all I am paying  a smartphone tariff but have no smartphone to use on it.  Richard said he would refund me the difference between a smartphone tariff and a normal tariff at £1.33 a day from the day the HTC Desire was ordered (4th October).  This is not good enough, I asked surely he should refund me from the day the replacement Streak was given in an unacceptable state (29th September) to which he refused.

Reluctantly I backed down as I was getting no where and I said to Richard that I will pick the pone up from the local store tomorrow.  Richard Wood then told me I was not allowed to do that and I must wait until it is delivered.  I explained this had just been offered to me by the person who I was speaking to before him.  Richard Wood still did not budge and refused to let me pick up the pone from the local store.  I also made it clear to Richard that I will now exorcise my rights to cancel the new phone within 14 days and walk away from O2 as Claire told me I could do.  Richard then told me Claire was wrong and I’m still in my original contract which there is no option to cancel.

I am really disgusted with O2 and especially with Richard Wood.  I am soon to buy a house so I cannot afford to do anything such as refusing to pay any more bills from O2 as I can not have my credit rating effected.  Also I can not get my PAC code and transfer my number out the whole time I am considered to be in contract with O2.  To be honest O2 have me over a barrel on this whole issue.  I could cancel the order for the Desire and take O2 to small claims court but I believe the only realistic thing to do will be to take the phone and wait eight weeks and then report O2 to Otelo, the telecommunications ombudsman who regulates O2.

In future I will only get sim only contracts and buy my phones sim free using my credit card.  This way if the phone breaks I can take the phone back to the shop where I bought it from and if they want to give me hassle, as it was bought on a credit card then there is always Section 75 to claim on.

Copy of letter sent to O2

Dear Sirs,

REF: Contract with mobile number 07914 314778

After taking legal advice on an issue I have with O2, I have been advised my best course of action is to email yourselves as the final stage before legal action is submitted.

I have been with many mobile operators over the last 12 years and not once have I had the problems or bad service, until I joined O2 in July this year. I shall detail the problem I have below.

I need to make clear that O2 was selected due to the fact you were the only network carrying the phone I wanted, the Dell Streak. I went into your store at Southampton High Street on the 5^th July to get a Dell Streak on a 18 month contract.

After owning the Streak for a week, it decided it would just do whatever it wanted. It would just randomly restart or turn off or do real weird stuff like activating my sim pin lock all by itself. The screen would often go black with the back light still on and all the buttons would just freeze. I couldn’t live with this so I returned it to the O2 store on the 18th July.

At the O2 store they refused to exchange the device for a new one as they needed to see the fault. This was a problem as the fault was intermittent and at the time I was in the O2 store, sods law dictated it should work perfectly. Your shop refused to repair or replace the device informing me it was “company policy” to see the fault. After much arguing with the sales assistant and the manager the handset got replaced only after I threatened to cancel my contract under the “14 day Change Your Mind Policy”. As prove to me that your company policy was this, the manager told the sales assistant “you must write down you have seen the fault”. This was “significant inconvenience”.

The law does inform that in the first six months it is the responsibility of the supplier to prove the fault to the buyer which in the case of intermittent faults they cannot do so they must take the word of the buyer. Sale Of Goods Act 1979 section 48A(3), 48B(1) does clearly state that the law requires the seller to repair or replace the goods.

I quote from DTI A Traders Guide

Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
Consumer Sale of Goods Contracts
Consumers cannot have their legal rights removed in sale of goods contracts. Furthermore, it can be an offence to mislead consumers about their legal rights. To do so could result in a criminal prosecution.
For example, notices such as “We do not give refunds” are misleading and cannot be used. Enforcement is undertaken by local Trading Standards Departments.

The replacement Dell Streak didn’t take long to break, this time the flash stopped working properly. I went to the O2 shop (West Quay as Hight Street closed) on the 15th September. I was informed that the phone will need to go away to be repaired, it will take ten to fourteen days and they will call me when it was ready. Cheekily I was charged a £25 deposit for a courtesy phone. That was ridiculous as I had handed them a £400 phone and they want a deposit of £25 for the most basic Nokia they sell, which was tatty and barely working. I actually had to pay money to avoid “inconvenience” , which was in itself “significant inconvenience”. I would like to add at this point that I use smart phones as part of my job as a web developer to develop websites for mobile devices and to pick up my important emails when I am out of the office. In this case the replacement pone was a “significant inconvenience”.

14 days went past and no phone call came so I phoned the O2 store to see what was going on only to find out the phone couldn’t be repaired so they have replaced it (No 3) and they called me 4 days ago to let me know. They certainly didn’t call me so this was clearly a lie. I went into the shop on the 29^th September to pick up what I expected will be another new Streak, only to be given a scratched and worn “reconditioned” model. This was out of order as my phone was immaculate and they wanted to replace it with this which is not a “like for like” replacement and clearly a poor attempt at dealing with my problem. The sales assistant told me this is how they do the exchanges and guess what “company policy”. I made it clear I was legally entitled for a repair or a “like for like” replacement, which this tatty phone certainly was not. Then the sales assistant told me my contract with O2 was only for the air time, for the phone its down to the manufacturers. This is a load of rubbish, the law is clear that if a gift is given as an incentive for a contract then it becomes part of the contract, meaning that O2 were fully responsible for the phone. I demanded a new replacement from their stock to which they refused.

Consumer Direct website details quite clearly that the phone is the responsibility of the trader not the manufacturer.
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/after_you_buy/know-your-rights/mobiles/

The shop assistant was only willing to ask the repair centre to send another phone and I pointed out this was extremely unfair and a “significant inconvenience”. At this point a colleague steeped into inform him that this could be escalated to a claim in which I could be provided with a different phone. This was told to me to give me the assumption that it would only take a few minutes and I will be walking out the store with a new phone. After taking many details from me the sales assistant told me I now have to wait five days to be contacted where they will discuss with me what phones and contracts I can be moved onto. To go away and come back again is “significant inconvenience”.

Sale Of Goods Act states as I have given you Reasonable time to repair the goods I can now cancel my contract for breach of condition 48D(1), 48D(2). I also do not loose my right t to reject the goods/require my money back merely by agreeing to let the retailer try to repair them. This is made clear by s.35(6) of the Sale of Goods Act.

I tried contacting your customer service department yesterday morning to try and get an amicable resolve to this problem. I would have been happy with not having a phone provided by O2 and being switched onto a simplicity tariff (sim only). However, your very unhelpful customer service department insisted I need to speak to the shop manager as he is dealing with the phone, totally ignoring the fact I don’t really want a phone form O2 any more. Also they cannot insist on this, my contract is with O2 not O2 west Quay and going back to the store will involve more time of work and “significant inconvenience”.

To sum it up as you have failed to repair my goods to a satisfactory condition. You have also failed to remedy this situation and being fobbed off on the phone yesterday was the last straw. I can have my contract cancelled for Breach Of Condition. Also as the amount of inconvenience cause to me has been significant I can also rescind the contract as well under section 48C(2)(a).

As well as having the contract rescinded I will also demand my PAC code to port my number back to T-Mobile where I was very happy before.

To prove I am reasonable, I will happily pay for any of my call charges made outside of my calling plan. At this point I shall not demand anything more such as compensation, to enable us to wrap this up quickly.

Faithfully,

Martin Fleming

As a web developer I need to test websites on multiple web browsers and since Safari was made available for Windows, this meant that I could run every web browser within Windows.  My current practice is to fire up Windows in a virtual machine to test IE and Safari but there was a chance this inconvenience could be over, I just needed to see if I could work with Windows as my main platform.

My current laptop came with an OEM disc of Windows 7 and 6 months ago I decided to install it.  I thought that I could force myself to be happy with Windows, after all most of the software I use is cross platform so all I require Windows to do is be an operating system.  I was wrong as I have found Windows to be a pain and very primitive in some cases.  I could have forced myself to continue using it but I have decided to move back to using Linux (Ubuntu), not because I am a Linux geek/fan boy or a MS hater, just because generally I feel that its a better system, especially when using Gnome window manager.

There are many good and bad points about all systems, even though you will not hear OSX users admit to this.  My writing here is not to be completely negative against Windows 7, just to point out the reasons why I decided to stop using it.  This is not intended to be a Windows/Ubuntu comparison as that would be unfair. It’s just the issued I am raising with Windows are problems solved with Ubuntu.  For the record, I was impressed by many aspects of Windows 7, and for use as a pleasure machine then this is the OS I would choose, but for business and productivity Ubuntu with Gnome wins in my opinion.

To start with installing the Operating System, installing Windows 7 was very easy, that was until it was installed and you wanted to use it.  Not much hardware seemed to work out of the box and I had a CD from Dell with tons of drivers to install.  This was not very easy as I couldn’t see an easy way to tell which drivers I needed to install as there many options depending on what hardware was actually in the machine.  Windows did try to find drivers by Windows Update but that did not work.  This point is not a major one as you could argue that this only has to be done once but it does lead me on to one of the most annoying aspects of Windows, which is consistency and uniformity.

For example on the uniformity point, I install the bluetooth driver which comes with the bluetooth management software.  This software looks crap next to the polished look and feel of Aero and the Windows 7 theme.  Not only does it look out of place but the whole interface to managing bluetooth devices is absolutely horrible and difficult to work and understand. Why is there no built in software that manages bluetooth devices, so regardless what bluetooth device I have, Windows will use the same integrated interface for it?
My latop has built in mobile broadband, so I have to install the Sony Ericcsson driver and software.  This looks different again to the windows interface and has a big connect button, which once pressed connects and minimises to the notification area.  Now in the notification area I have the Windows Network software and the Sony Ericcsson software running, and in principle they are doing the same job, connecting me to the Internet.  Surely the mobile broadband connections could be managed by the Windows Network tools.
Gnome desktop is great at providing software for a task and then using the Linux Kernel to talk to the devices.  For example the Gnome Network Manger controls Ethernet, Wireless, Mobile Broadband, Bluetooth Internet and VPN’s all from the same place and it doesn’t care what brand of Bluetooth or Broadband Dongle you have got.
I had to install Dell Quickset to enable all the multimedia keys to work.  When you press one of the volume keys I get an ugly notification in the centre of the screen.  When I receive a new email, I get a notification pop up in the notification area.  In fact all software that use notifications, seem to do it in their own way.  Surely something as important as notifications should be presented by the Operating System in a uniform manor so not to confuse the user?  DBus or NotifyOSD from the Linux world solves this problem.

There appears to be no unified software update for Windows.  We have Windows update which updates Windows itself and possibly some drivers as well as some Microsoft software such as Internet Explorer, but wouldn’t it be nice if other software vendors could plug into this instead of having their own update mechanisms.  I notice every time Windows 7 is started, Java will run an update check and if an update is found it will launch Java’s own update tool.  Mozilla Firefox checks for its own updates and so does countless other software.  It seems I cannot escape software always performing update checks and throwing the results in my face if action is needed.  This is really annoying, prime example if the Apple Software Updater that tries to convince me I need Quicktime whenever there is a Safari update.  Even more annoying is the Adobe Flash updater that launches the Adobe Download manager and then completely fails to install the update, instead takes me to manual instructions.
I do not expect Microsoft to release a tool like the Fantastic Synaptic found on Debian systems, but surely they could let plugins to Windows Update that will allow non Microsoft software to be updated from this tool from the vendors repository.

Windows also only seems to like to work with FAT or NTFS file systems.  I believe the whole world does not run Windows so wouldn’t it be nice to include out of the box support for HFS, Ext2+ and some other file systems.  It can be done but only with add on software which isn’t transparent and does not work completely natively within Windows.
How about remote file systems? Windows explorer can mount an FTP drive but its pretty lame.  How about something like GVFS which will enable Windows Explorer to mount all sorts of remote file systems so that you can browse as if you were on your local hard drive.  There are tools like SFTP Drive, but that still requires assigning drive letters manually and its not quite native.
Even for SMB networking, Windows seems to make this far harder than it has to be.  I actually gave up trying to create a share with virtual users.  Its made worse by different rules for Home, Public and Work networks.  I assume this is to help with security but if you have half a brain this is actually a hindrance.

The desktop interface misses some much needed functionality.  We have some good ideas such as side-by-side view but Microsoft has also wasted effort by putting in useless ideas such as shake to minimize and Aero Peek (seriously what good is this?).  How about adding multiple workspaces and an easy way to make any window stay on top, things Gnome does well.  There is software to enable Windows to perform these actions but its not where near the experience you get on Gnome.

And finally, something that really annoys me is that applications do not seem to be added to the system path.  I can install PHP for example and if I want to evoke it to run a simple CLI script I will need to type the full path to PHP, which becomes a complete waste of time. I tried to be clever and put a link to it in the System32 folder but running that link makes Windows try to run the link not the binary the link is to.  Really not helpful!

This issue is also there when using Windows Explorer to view the music files.  Its seems that some MP3′s and M4a’s (AAC) do not show any ID3 information.  I know this information is there as its works perfectly with Rhythmbox on Ubuntu, or even Songbird on Windows but its seems that Windows has an issue with some files.

It turns out the answer to this problem is rather unsurpirising, Windows 7 does not support nativley ID3 v2.4.  The solution is to either use a different media player such as Songbird or to convert your ID3 v2.4 to ID3 v2.3.

I don’t care much for Songbird, Media Monkey, iTunes or any other media player I have found available for Windows and hope one day either Banshee or Rhythmbox will be available for the Windows platform, so until then I have chosen to convert my ID3 tags.  There is a great application for completing this task called Kid3 which you can download from Sourceforge here kid3.sourceforge.net/#download

Installing MySQL seemed to be a headache.  The installer would stop responding at Instance Configuration Wizard, however the solution to this problem is easy.

You need to punch a hole in Windows firewall for MySQL before you install.  Open up TCP ports 3306 for both incoming and outgoing and the installation will complete fully.

If you get stuck with a problem that I did where it installed MySQL without a root password even though you selected one, run:

$ mysqladmin -u root password NEWPASSWORD

Replacing NEWPASSWORD with your password.

If the command above does not work for you, you will need to use a full path to the command which may be in C:\Program Files\MySQL or C:\Program Files (x86)\MySQL or another location depending on where you installed it.

T-mobile is a little more difficult than O2.  You get a swipe card to top up with but you still need to select the usage you wish to use to deduct from your credit (daily, weekly or monthly).  This is easy with the connection manager software that comes with the dongles but all the software does is take you here www.t-zones.co.uk/apps/ebdc/en/purchase-redirect.

So its simple, get your dongle, use the swipe card and then visit the web address above and your good to go.  Your dongle will not be activated until you top up and after top up it could take up to 1 hour.

T-mobile also let you know that you can top up by using “my T-mobile” online.  However, this involves getting a pin sent to you by sms so you will have to use a Windows or Mac machine to receive this or put your sim card in a phone that will accept it.

This is slightly more hassle that the fantastic way O2 PAYG mobile broadband works as you just need to visit the website https://mobilebroadbandaccess.o2.co.uk pay and go.  No content locks or hassle involved.  With T-mobile though, you get a much better fair use policy on internet usage and you do not get charged for going over your usage, instead they may block video sites and downloads between he hours of 4pm and midnight, whereas every other provider will charge you stupid amounts or stop your usage.

Just as a re-cap, the connection deatils for T-mobile PAYG mobile broadband are

APN: general.t-mobile.uk
Number: *99#
Username: user
Password: pass

Contract

Pay as you go

I took my hard drive out of my old laptop which had Intel GMA graphics and put it in my shiny new Studio 17. Everything seemed to be fine until I tried playing a video in Totem or VLC. The video was very dark and reddish. I tried installing the proprietry crap fglrx which seems to suck at multi head if the external monitor has a higher resolution than the laptop screen. With this fglrx driver enabled the video completely disappeared and left just a blank black window in Totem.

The solution is easy, run

$ gstreamer-properties

On the Video tab on Default Output select X Window System (No Xv).

Testing with Telnet is real quick and simple,we are going to assume plain password authentication and no TLS or SSL.

1. We need to open a connection to the server

   $ telnet yourmailserver.com 25

   You should get a response like this

   Trying 74.125.79.16..
   Connected to yourmailserver.com.
   Escape character is '^]'.
   220 mx.yourmailserver.com

2. Now we need to greet the serer

   HELO yourmailserver.com

   Response

   250 yourmailserver.com

3. We need to authenticate ourselves with our username and password.  This may not be neccessary for all SMTP servers.
   We are going to use plain authentication but we need to encode it to base64.  Below is two ways to do this with Perl or PHP, with both methods you must leave in the “\0″ characters. 

   $ php -r 'echo base64_encode("\0username\0password")."\n";'

   or

   $ perl -MMIME::Base64 -e 'print encode_base64("\0username\0password");'

   Take the value given and pass it to the mail server

   AUTH PLAIN AHVzZXJuYW1lAHBhc3N3b3Jk

   Response

   235 2.7.0 Authentication successful

4. Now we start to send a test message by putting in who the mail is from

   MAIL FROM:me@mydomain.com

   Response

   250 2.1.0 Ok

5. Add recipient

   RCPT TO:me@myotheremail.com

   Response

   250 2.1.5 Ok

6. Add a subject

   SUBJECT: Test message from me

7. Start the message

   DATA

   Response

   354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>

   Press enter then add the message body

   Hi this is my test message

   Press enter and on the next line type a “.” then enter

   .

   Response

   250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 666F4E0157

8. Thats it the message is on the way now quit

   QUIT

For now Roadsend can be used to compile CLI apps or webapps where you want to protect the source code.  The Roadsend Compiler is completely independent from the Zend Engine and actually compiles to a binary file for your operating system / architecture so very different from other source code protection systems such as Zend Guard, Ioncube or Bcompiler.  Roadsend also can use its PHP engine to interpret and run scripts just like the Zend Engine.

You will need to install the Bigloo package first then the Roadsend package.

Tested on Karmic (9.10)

• bigloo_3.2a-1_amd64.deb
• roadsend-php_2.9.8-1_amd64.deb

You will also have to change the LD_LIBRARY_PATH before it will work.  For some unknown reason putting this in .profile wont work so we are going to export this new path in our .bashrc file

$ echo 'export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib"' | tee -a ~/.bashrc

Tested on Jaunty (9.04), Karmic (9.10)

php-gtk_2.0.1-1_amd64.deb

Installation Instructions

Download the deb file for your version of Ubuntu above and double click this file when downloaded.

Once installed you will need to edit your php.ini file to get it to work.

$ sudo gedit /etc/php5/cli/php.ini

In the Dynamic Extensions part of the file add the line extension=php_gtk2.so

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;
; If you wish to have an extension loaded automatically, use the following
; syntax:
;
;   extension=modulename.extension
;
; For example, on Windows:
;
;   extension=msql.dll
;
; ... or under UNIX:
;
;   extension=msql.so
;
; Note that it should be the name of the module only; no directory information
; needs to go here.  Specify the location of the extension with the
; extension_dir directive above.

extension=php_gtk2.so

You may wish to do a simple test to make sure all is working (taken from http://gtk.php.net/manual/en/tutorials.helloworld.php).

<?php
if (!class_exists('gtk')) {
 die("Please load the php-gtk2 module in your php.ini\r\n");
}

$wnd = new GtkWindow();
$wnd->set_title('Hello world');
$wnd->connect_simple('destroy', array('gtk', 'main_quit'));

$lblHello = new GtkLabel("Just wanted to say\r\n'Hello world!'");
$wnd->add($lblHello);

$wnd->show_all();
Gtk::main();
?>