Jared Evans Global Microbrand

A quick workaround for failed GDM logins seen in Karmic (9.10) Xubuntu when running inside VMware VM with vmware-tools installed:

Do not attempt to change the Display size, leaving it at the default 800×600.  Login and let Gnome session start up in 800×600.  Wait about about 5 seconds then you can use VMware-tools key short-cut of CTRL-ALT-ENTER to go to full screen and the screen resolution will automatically change to the higher settings.

If you have set the Display size, you may be experiencing the cycling GDM login window problem.  There is a problem changing the screen resolution and the screen always returns back to the GDM login window.

To start over: select the xterm session at the GDM login window (at the bottom) then login and remove the ~/.config directory in your home directory.

The standard (and up-to-date) Ubuntu 9.10 installation also exhibits the screen resolution problem.

*more updates*

This seems to be related to the recent kernel updates.  However, if you wait 10-15 seconds before logging in at the GDM window, the display resolution changes work.  This may have something to do with the boot order of the modules.  VMware modules may be getting a late start and this affects the ability to change resolution inside a VMware VM until they are fully loaded and ready to go.

One of the great things about enterprise Linux distro installations, such as RedHat, SLES, etc is that most of them are defaulting to a LVM (Logical Volume Manager) filesystem which is a natural fit for Linux virtualized systems.

Using LVM with a virtualized hard drive makes it very easy to grow the disk space within minutes when the need arises. A good system administrator will already understand the LVM relationship between Physical Volumes, Volume Groups, and Logical Volumes.

Suppose you wanted to grow the disk space within a Linux virtual machine to 50GB:

The first step is to increase the VM vmdk file size:

This can be done via the VMware admin GUI by opening the settings of the VM and using the Expand utility to grow the hard drive size to 50 GB.

Another alternative is to use vmware-vdiskmanager.exe on the command line:

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x 50GB “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4-cl1.vmdk”

Note that this action doesn’t have any resizing effect on the existing partitions of the virtual machine and only adds more unpartitioned space to the virtual hard drive.

Convert the unpartitioned space into usable filesystem so it can be included within the LVM filesystem.

Boot into the VM and su to the superuser account

Find the device where the unpartitioned space is:

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 53.6 GB, 53687091200 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6527 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14        2610    20860402+  8e  Linux LVM

since this is a virtual machine and this is the first disk expansion, it’s likely located in /dev/sda (note the size of /dev/sda which is roughly the new expanded size).

Create a new partition that takes up the remaining space and is of filesystem type 8e (LVM):

fdisk /dev/sda

n (new)
p (primary)
3 (partition number, since 1st and 2nd partition already exists)
select default first available cylinder to the default last cylinder.
t (type)
3 (partition number)
8e (set type to LVM)
p (view the new partitions layout)
w (write out the new partitions layout to disk)

reboot the system so the new partition is recognized by the system.

reboot

The new partition layout is now:

Disk /dev/sda: 53.6 GB, 53687091200 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6527 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14        2610    20860402+  8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda3            2611        6527    31463302+  8e  Linux LVM

The next step is to use LVM to take the newly formed partition and turn it into a new Physical Volume, add it to a Volume Group, and finally assimilate its free space into a Logical Volume.

Convert /dev/sda3 partition into a Physical Volume so LVM can make use of it:
pvcreate /dev/sda3

Add the new Physical Volume to the Volume Group as additional free space:
vgextend VolGroup00 /dev/sda3

vgdisplay (note the free space now in the Volume Group which can now be assigned to a Logical Volume)

— Volume group —
VG Name               VolGroup00
System ID
Format                lvm2
Metadata Areas        2
Metadata Sequence No  4
VG Access             read/write
VG Status             resizable
MAX LV                0
Cur LV                2
Open LV               2
Max PV                0
Cur PV                2
Act PV                2
VG Size               49.88 GB
PE Size               32.00 MB
Total PE              1596
Alloc PE / Size       636 / 19.88 GB
Free  PE / Size       960 / 30.00 GB
VG UUID               0JB6GV-gFJW-onuN-7Xq1-OKim-n5gM-EVPUKB

Have the Logical Volume (within the Volume Group) overtake the remaining free space of the Volume Group:
lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

vgdisplay (note the free space in Volume Group is now gone since it was all assigned to a Logical Volume)

— Volume group —
VG Name               VolGroup00
System ID
Format                lvm2
Metadata Areas        2
Metadata Sequence No  5
VG Access             read/write
VG Status             resizable
MAX LV                0
Cur LV                2
Open LV               2
Max PV                0
Cur PV                2
Act PV                2
VG Size               49.88 GB
PE Size               32.00 MB
Total PE              1596
Alloc PE / Size       1596 / 49.88 GB
Free  PE / Size       0 / 0
VG UUID               0JB6GV-gFJW-onuN-7Xq1-OKim-n5gM-EVPUKB

Trigger online resizing of the live and mounted filesystem so the new disk space can be utilized immediately:
resize2fs -p /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00

Now, the system has a bigger diskspace to play around with.

df -h

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
45G  3.2G   40G   8% /
/dev/sda1              99M   19M   76M  20% /boot
tmpfs                1014M     0 1014M   0% /dev/shm

Marlee Matlin shows up at around 26:20 into the video.

If you have problems attempting to open CIFS/smb shares using Nautilus or Places –> Connect to Server (if using Gnome) and seeing a message about no application registered for the smb:// protocol.

These commands will register nautilus as smb:// protocol handler

$ gconftool-2 –set –type=string /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/smb/command ‘nautilus “%s”‘
$ gconftool-2 –set –type=bool /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/smb/enabled true
$ gconftool-2 –set –type=bool /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/smb/need-terminal false

The i’s have been dotted and the t’s have been crossed. It’s now official that I will be joining the Information Technology team at Gallaudet University this October. Gallaudet University has always been on the list of places where I would like to work. After several meetings with Jon Mitchiner and getting rave reviews about him from others, the positive vibes tell me that I’m on the right path. I came away impressed with the network infrastructure changes the Gallaudet IT team has made over time, and I’m looking forward to working with them. Among the compelling projects I’ll be focusing on will be building the new disaster recovery datacenter and migrating the Peoplesoft business system to a different hardware/OS platform.

It will be hard to leave Viable Communications, where I’ve been for the last two years. I’ve been lucky to work with people of very high caliber who made possible innovative products, such as the VPAD. I’ve learned a lot from the capable IT team; dealing with a complicated network infrastructure, the engineers who can handle all the gritty details of VoIP signaling and embedded systems, PR/media team who have output some of the most dazzling video/advertisements seen in the VRS industry, and other strong operational people. I’ve also had the privilege of meeting many Viable interpreters in person and they are all an outstanding and talented bunch of people.

While it’s well known that Viable is currently in a difficult financial predicament, I sincerely hope that the planned acquisition by Snap will be completed and both companies will emerge stronger as a result. Despite what some of the current sentiment might be, Viable still has remarkable people and resources. Everyone at Viable took a risk in joining a young start-up company because they could see the impact the company could have on deaf community. With the Snap acquisition, they will be able to right the boat and set sail again.

I wish the very best to Viable/Snap people as they get through this difficult transition and have confidence they will be able to see this through. If you are at Gallaudet University, feel free to meet me at EMG building- I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar faces there and meeting new ones!

Posted via web from jarednevans’s posterous

Sometimes, you’ll make the mistake of cat a binary file.  The goobley-gokey output can sometimes corrupt your terminal screen and any characters you see during output or typing doesn’t make any sense.

To fix this or reset the terminal characters, type at the terminal prompt:

echo -e “\xF”

Wordpress is a popular CMS usually reserved for blogging but can be adapted for many different purposes.  Every year, there are Wordpress camps in different cities where web developers can go and take part in workshops to learn more about this CMS.  Thanks to Grant Laird who was persist and pushed for ASL interpreters at the 2009 WordCamp Dallas event, the deaf attendees got equal accessiblity (despite Aaron Hall’s lame comment about removing the interpreters to save money).  The event host has ensured that the deaf web developers are on an equal footing, rather than be ignored and left behind.

The icing on the cake was the video clips present by David Curlee, who apparently took the exta step of embedding the ASL interpreter onto the video of the panel discussion!  Thanks David Curlee for being smart enough to make the most of the presence of the interpreters and making the panel discussion accessible to everyone who comes across the video.  They have set a great example for other similar events.

After a freshly-minted openSUSE installation, one of the first things that an user will want to do is to set up Compiz with its awesome 3D desktop effects.  I’ve yet to find a how-to guide online that cleanly explains the steps to take on an openSUSE system.  After a number of attempts with trial and error, I was able to figure out the correct steps and decided to write up a guide to save time/energy for any enterprising users who want their openSUSE system with a Nvidia video card to work with Compiz.

It may be possible to luck out and get a working 3D desktop if attempting the 1-click installation of Nvidia drivers for openSUSE.  While this step may seem to be trivial to have the Nvidia driver installed on the system, there is no control over the version of the driver. The version of the installed driver may not be fully compatible with the particular model of Nvidia video card on the running system.

For example, from my prior experience using Ubuntu on my system, Ubuntu recommends the older Nvidia Linux driver 180.44 for my video card which gives the best results, even when there are more recent Nvidia Linux drivers available.  To alleviate a lot of frustration on the users part, I believe that openSUSE team should look at and mimic how Ubuntu recommends a specific video driver. Ubuntu is able to present this critical piece of information to the user and makes it simple to install the correct video driver.

The steps I list below will skip the openSUSE 1-click installation of Nvidia driver and will instead download and install a specific version from Nvidia website.

1. Install openSUSE 11.1 from media then do a full update, including any new kernel upgrades. (YaST2 -> Online Update)

2. Reboot to ensure you are running up-to-date system.

3. Via YaST2 (Software management) or zypper, make sure ‘kernel’, ‘make’, and ‘gcc’ packages are installed.

5. Visit Nvidia Linux Driver webpage and find the version you want. (will use 180.44 for this example)

6. Download the script NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.44.pkg1.run to  your Desktop

7. To exit the desktop environment to the shell so the driver can be installed, open a terminal, su to root, and type rcxdm stop

8. Once at shell, login as root

9. cd to the directory where you downloaded NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.44.pkg1.run

10. sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.44.pkg1.run -q

11. At this point, the Nvidia driver will be compiled and installed as a kernel module.

12. Reboot.  This is the easiest way to ensure you are running up-to-date system.

13. Once back in the desktop environment, need to exit it so can re-config Xorg to use the Nvidia driver. Open a terminal, su to root, and type rcxdm stop

14. Login as root

15. sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia  (The digit zero, not the letter o)
– Change configuration
– Select your monitor and resolution
– Save & exit

16. rcxdm start

17. open a terminal, su to root, and type nvidia-settings.  If you have dual screens, can set them here using twin-view.

18. close nvidia-settings, go back to terminal, exit from root back to your user login prompt.

19. simple-ccsm and check the ‘Enable Desktop Effects’ check box.

20. At this point, Compiz should start working and you’ll see all kinds of nifty 3D desktop effects.

Important note for future, if you update your kernel, Nvidia kernel module needs to be recompiled and put back in place.

To do this: cd to the directory where the Nvidia script is and run as root:

sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.44.pkg1.run -K

I’ve uploaded the presentation I gave at DCARA vlog symposium and you can view it by downloading it here.

It covers the evolving world of social media, including the changing role of blogs with new players on the scene: Facebook and Twitter.

Enjoy!

My Twitter Mosaic of people I follow:

Last Friday on June 26th, Congressman Edward Markey introduced the 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act of 2009 to the Congress.  This is a significant step forward in a push for online captions on the Internet.

This bill represents the effort of many people in to improve accessibility on the Internet.

If you support this bill and want to increase the chances of it getting passed, there are three things you should do:

1) Give your thanks to Ed Markey for his help on the bill by emailing him via this form.

2) Write to your representative and ask them to help Markey by co-sponsoring H.R. 3101.

3) Write to your senators and ask them to introduce a similar bill.

DCARA will be hosting a very special day this Saturday: Vblog Symposium during the day and a Wine & Cheese fund-raising event at night.

There will be a dizzying array of exciting presentations by experienced Deaf vbloggers which can be seen on the second page of this PDF.

I’m looking forward to bumping into them again and a few vbloggers I will be meeting for the first time!  I’m honored to be counted among these passionate personalities, whom in their own unique ways,  push for the betterment of the Deaf community.  All of their presentations will help the Deaf community understand better how to take advantage of vlogs and blogs to push for positive changes.

As for my presentation, it is titled “Being highly visible in the new world of social media.”  Some of you may recall, at the last DeafRead conference in 2008, I gave a presentation on how to make your blog more discoverable on the Internet and how to increase your blog traffic by understanding how to attract potential visitors.

At the time, vblogs were the mainstay of social media on the Internet and nearly everything revolved around them.  How times have changed since then: The rise and dominance of Facebook in the Deaf community and Twitter starting to heat up among the Deaf.  Social media has already started to diverse and as a result the role of vblogs has evolved to fit into this new scheme of things.

My presentation will have a short recap about vblogs then expand upon how well vblogs, Facebook and Twitter reinforce each other.

I want to say a BIG thanks to DCARA and especially LaRonda for taking the lead in setting up this innovative and desperately needed symposium for the deaf.  See you all this Saturday!

I’m sickened at Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings’ attitude towards subtitles and captioning for their portfolio of  online movies that can be instantly watched.  He claims that it’s too difficult and the technology isn’t here which is the furthest thing from the truth.  I’ve been faithful Netflix customer for years and have submitted numerous requests to Netflix customer support pushing for subtitles and captions to be offered as an option.   From the Netflix shareholders meeting, it’s apparent that Netflix has no plans to do this and doesn’t care much for the idea that there are many customers who would benefit from the subtitles or captions.

Below is excerpt from:

http://willworkforjustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/netflixs-annual-shareholder-meeting.html

—————

….I then mentioned Netflix’s failure to add captions/subtitles to its online streaming videos. Netflix’s “instant play” option doesn’t include captions, making its online video option unusable for many users. As a result of not offering captions, Netflix is alienating its hearing-impaired, deaf, and senior citizen customers. According to some estimates, there are 34 million hearing-impaired persons in the United States. One would think Netflix would think better than to alienate such a large customer base.

I asked what Netflix was doing to make its website and online video accessible to everyone. Mr. Hastings said other sites didn’t offer captions, and mentioned hulu.com as one of them. He said as time progresses, captioning technology will become more widespread, and Netflix would then incorporate it into its own technology. He also said that customers can continue to receive DVDs through the mail, and most DVDs contained captions.

Unfortunately for Mr. Hastings, I use hulu.com to watch Simpsons episodes. Except for a few episodes, every Simpsons episode I’ve watched had captions. Obviously, the technology exists to make online video accessible to everyone, so I wasn’t quite ready to let this topic pass. I gave Mr. Hastings another chance to explain how he would make his business accessible to everyone. I mentioned that hulu.com did indeed offer captions, and I said (paraphrased), “It sounds like you’re not planning to do anything to add captions to your site. Am I correct in understanding that you don’t plan on making your online videos accessible to the disabled?” Mr. Hastings said he would check out hulu.com, but essentially agreed that adding captions wasn’t an active agenda item. Now, I don’t want to go Kanye West on anyone, but it didn’t feel like Mr. Hastings or Netflix cares about deaf people.

—

I typed up a comment which I felt deserved it’s own post. This is in reference to the furor that has developed over Deaf Pundit’s objection to a vlog by Bard DiGiovanni as well as Aidan’s response to Deaf Pundit.

—-
I think everyone needs to remember all the great things that both Amy and Barbara have done for us all. They have dedicated a lot of their personal time and energy as advocates for Deaf people, and especially Deaf children. They both care deeply about the Deaf community and in order to do that, they must be “out” there a lot of the time and speak out.

They both have to assume a more public role than many of us would in order to have greater effect on people. When they do that, they have to be brave enough to put themselves at a greater risk of criticism from others. Moreover, they are doing it using the new medium of vlogs, which is still in its infancy and not fully understood so they are blazing a trail when they push the envelope of poltiical vlogging.

Never forget that they both are humans and should be allowed to make mistakes now and then. They both should not be demonized for making minor mistakes and we must remember that these mistakes does not completely invalidate their hard work they have done nor their dedication to the Deaf community.

Looking at the big picture, it serves no good cause to pull either one of them down. Not in this time and age, where the relentless technology advances if not coupled with greater acceptance and understanding of Deaf culture, will lead to diminishing of the Deaf community. Stop looking at the small picture and nitpicking on minor and human mistakes.