I suspected that this was an issue with ChemDraw 12.0.2 (I’m using 12.0.1 and so are other CMLD members for the research lab I support). I suggested that he create a new user on his Mac and see if ChemDraw works correctly. I reasoned that ChemDraw was upgraded sometime in the past, and that there may have been some user preferences causing issues after upgrading, or some preferences settings were corrupted.

If a new user was able to use ChemDraw, then this would indicate that the installation is valid and working, and the issue is with the user’s preferences. If ChemDraw didn’t work, then the issue is probably with the installation, and we would need to install the application, and hunt down any remnants of the installation that may be in /Library or /System and then reinstall 12.0.1 to see if that would resolve the problem.
In this case, ChemDraw worked for the new user, thus indicating that the issue was not with the installation, but with the user’s setting. Deleting any files whose name started with com.cambridgesoft files in

/Users/[Your User Name]/Library/Preferences

resolved the problem.

Friday before I left work I kicked off the upgrade to Mac OS 10.6.3 on the MacBook Pro (MBP)  I use at work. I’d already upgrade my personal MacBook at home (that I got a deal on at MicroCenter) and I didn’t have any observeable problems or issues and I was confident that I could upgrade and not bork my work environment.

When I arrived back into work on Monday it looked like the upgrade had completed. I logged into the MBP and  my Bluetooth MagicMouse wasn’t working, and all  bluetooth settings were unavailable and grayed out (both on the status bar, and in System Preferences).

I figured something had gotten out of sync during the upgrade and I thought a reboot would fix the problem. Rebooting didn’t fix the problem, but manually reinstalling the upgrade did solve the problem and Bluetooth is active and settings are accessible.

You can manually get the upgrade at:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1017

However, when I tried to sync with my phone, a Sony Ericsson C902, the connection keeps dropping. So Bluetooth in 10.6.3 might be a bit flaky.

1. Download the RPM package and install using rpm (not advisable).
2. Download the RPM package and convert to a DEB package using alien
3. Download the ZIP file titled “Oracle SQL Developer for other platforms” and manually install
4. Use the make-sqldeveloper-package to convert the ZIP file into a DEB package

I used the make-sqldeveloper-package, which is available for Debian and Ubuntu and it’s derivatives. However, the man page and the instructions are little unclear on how to use it. You need to download the zip file available at Oracle’s (and not the RPM file nor any of the other packages) and then use the make-sqldeveloper-package to convert it to a DEB which you can then install using the dpkg command.

This is preferable to using rpm or alien as you can more easily manage the package using Debian’s and Ubuntu package management tools, plus it will integrate SQL Developer into Gnome’s Menu System . Plus, when Oracle updates their version you can use make-sqldeveloper-package to create an updated DEB package and easily update the version you have installed. The procedure outlined below works on Ubuntu Karmic and should also work on any Debian version that has the make-sqldeveloper-package.

As the man page states:

This utility will require you to download the “Oracle  SQL  Developer  for  other  platforms”  archive  from  <http://otn.oracle.com/software/prod‐ucts/sql/> to create the Debian package from.

1. Download the ZIP file from Oracle’s site

You will need to accept Oracle’s license agreement and download the ZIP file, titled “Oracle SQL Developer for other platforms”, from:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/sql/index.html

2. Install the make-sqldeveloper-package package

sudo apt-get install sqldeveloper-package

You will need Ubuntu’s multiverse software repository. See the instructions on how to do so.

2.a. Install the tofrodos package

sudo apt-get install tofrodos

Create symbolic links to the tofrodos commands to allow the sqldeveloper-package to work:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/fromdos /usr/bin/dos2unix

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/todos /usr/bin/unix2dos

Thanks to Miles for the tofrodos tip.

3. Convert the ZIP file to .DEB package

The format of the command is:

make-sqldeveloper-package -b BUILD_LOCATION LOCATION_OF_ZIP_FILE

In my example, I’m going to use /tmp/ORA as the build location and the ZIP file has been download to my Desktop (~Desktop).

make-sqldeveloper-package -b /tmp/ORA/ ~/Desktop/sqldeveloper-2.1.0.63.73-no-jre.zip

The command will create the build directory and remove it when the command finishes. If the command completes successfully you’ll see the following output after a minute or two:

make-sqldeveloper-package: Building sqldeveloper package in "/tmp".

The DEB file will be created in the current directory. In my example I had changed directories to /tmp and that’s where the DEB file will be:

/tmp/sqldeveloper_2.1.0.63.73+0.2.3-1_all.deb

See the man page for more information about the tool:

man make-sqldeveloper-package

4. Install the package

sudo dpkg -i sqldeveloper_2.1.0.63.73+0.2.3-1_all.deb

5. Run SQL Developer

After installing there should he an entry in Gnome’s menu to start the SQL Developer. It’s located under:

Applications->Programming->SQL Developer

Note: You will need a JVM installed for the tool to run.

Obligatory Screen Shot:

Oracle SQL Developer

Updated September 27th 2010. Added instructions from Miles on installing dos2unix alternative for Ubuntu Lucid. The dos2unix command is not available in Ubuntu Lucid.

Ubuntu Jaunty is the new beta version of Ubuntu. It comes with a new version of X.Org and the ATI drivers have been incompatible with this version of X.Org. ATI recently released drivers that support X.Org 1.6. If you have problems with X not starting follow the instructions here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/FglrxInteferesWithRadeonDriver

For me what happened is that X wouldn’t start properly and cause my Lenovo T400 to freeze and lock up. The laptop would boot but when X would start (when the login screen appears) I’d get a black screen with red lines at the top. To solve this I booted to runlevel 1, also known as failsafe mode. If your using a laptop with wireless, I suggest you connect directly to your router using a network cable, otherwise you may have to configure wireless manually (it’s not that hard).

When your system starts, select failsafe mode, on the next screen to appear choose the option to go to a “root shell with networking”.

Next remove the install ATI drivers and install from scratch the ones you need:

sudo apt-get remove –purge xorg-driver-fglrx xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo apt-get install –reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri
dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

If this doens’t work for you see the Ubuntu page mentioned above.

Yup, that might have been it. Some weird caching issues (even after clearing out the regular cache) or Google Gears was out of sync, and woudn’t sync properly, with the upgraded version WordPress. I’ll reinstall Google Gears at some point in the future and see what happens

The problem I’m having is that on the “New Post” page, where the categories sections should be is instead an embedded (maybe an iFrame) of the WordPress Dashboard. When I try and type in the editor the pages changes to a near blank page with only the editor buttons showing. Grrrr …

I’ve tried the following steps (recommended on various sites and forums) to no avail:

• Disabled all plugins
• Disabled Google Gears
• Cleared the browser cache

However, it works fine in KDE’s Konqueror browser. When I get the time, I may compare the generated HTML, and see if I can determine what’s causing the problem. Here’s a screenshot … sheesh now I can’t even insert a screenshot using Konqueror gotta do it manually. Look at the “Categories” section on the right-hand side:

It was up last week.

To install Ubuntu, you have to make sure you edit the BIOS settings and change the graphics to use one of the 2 build in graphics cards. If you want to save the Vista bootloader and access to Lenovo’s restore partition, you must not install grub on the MBR (Master Boot Record). Instead, install grub on the same partition as where the kernel resides. (This will be either /boot or / ) Then install EasyBCD¹ on Vista and add Ubuntu to Vista’s bootloader.

I was going to install Debian on the laptop, but I went w/ Ubuntu Intrepid instead as it has a 2.6.27 kernel which (supposedly) has better support for some the hardware on the T400 (and for my new Sony MP3 Walkman). I could have installed Debian and compiled my own 2.6.27 kernel, but these days I couldn’t be bothered spending ages compiling, testing, and debugging my own kernel.

¹For instructions on how to use EasyBCD see: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu

http://timony.com/mickzblog/2009/01/22/got-a-t400

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=d

It’s good to support coming from a major vendor, and Dell even offer’s a repo so you can get BIOS updates for support hardware:

http://timony.com/mickzblog/2008/02/05/dell-bios-updates-using-linux/

However, I’m still partial to getting Lenovo’s T400 over a Dell.

The big thing for me is do they work with Linux (for me specifically Debian or Ubuntu).

For anyone interested in either laptop, looks like the the U330 works (near) flawlessly with Ubuntu. See this posting on this thread for an enthusiastic comment:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5741753&postcount=5

And with the T400 you’ll have some work to get everything working smoothy. Such as the dual-graphics cards which is how Lenovo get’s up to 10 hours of battery life from the T400.

However, if you don’t mind using breaking stuff, the new Beta version of Ubuntu appears to work reasonably well on the T400. See this blog posting and this thead on Lenova’s forums for more details.

I’m torn between either, the small size of the U330, versus the better battery life of the T400 (and the fact that both are a weeeeee bit dear).

OK, I’m tired as I write this, and I find sometimes when I “blog while tired” that my grammar/spelling/ability to make sense suffers, so maybe I’ll rewrite this in the morning.