PC Journal

Windows XP Boots, Shows Logon Screen, and Reboots Continuously

2011-01-25T05:59:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago my computer crashed. This problem was similar to what happened to my PC six months ago. Back then I was able to fix it by wiggling the hard drive socket—but doing the same fix this time didn’t work out. In fact when I turned on the PC, it booted, showed the logon screen, and when I clicked a program it crashed and rebooted. And this process just repeated over and over—sometimes the logon screen would appear momentarily and the PC would reboot itself.

I can’t pin down the usual suspects—malwares, spywares, and viruses—since I can’t open any program let alone my anti-virus program avast! I tried to repair Windows XP which went on successfully and I was able to open my browser but not for long; the symptoms came back even when running XP in Safe Mode.

Desperate for a solution, I searched in the Internet (from a different PC of course) and found the pages from Microsoft and Ask Leo! very helpful.

I reseated the memory modules and other wire connectors inside the computer case to make sure a loose connection is not causing the problem. Indeed it is not—when I turned on the computer, it refused to start and keeps on rebooting.

With a suggestion from a technician, I installed a video card (my PC uses the built-in video adapter in the motherboard). With a new video card, my PC is now working fine.

What is Wubi?

2010-10-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

What have I learned from all these unexpected occurrences in Ubuntu—such as when the OS refuses to boot? Finding for solutions to my predicaments in the Internet often made me discover new techniques or terms used in Linux. Take for example, Wubi, I didn't pay so much attention to it even if I have used it to install Ubuntu from a CD.

Wubi (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer) is an official Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application. Simply put, Wubi is the installer for those who want to experiment and get acquainted with Ubuntu without the need of disk partitioning or formatting—Wubi installs Ubuntu within a file in the Windows file system just like any Windows program.

Installing Ubuntu inside Windows XP using wubi.exe is fast and easy—unlike Windows XP which took me two hours—it only takes less than thirty minutes. I must admit though the first time it took longer than that to install because I was doing it the wrong way.

For more info:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_%28Ubuntu_installer%29
http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Install_Ubuntu_While_Running_MS_Windows_%28WUBI%29

Access Ubuntu Files From Within Windows XP

2010-10-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

If I can access Windows XP files from within Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, can I access Ubuntu files from within Windows XP?

My PC runs on a dual boot system with Ubuntu installed inside Windows XP—the former installed in an external USB hard drive with NFTS partitions, and the latter in the internal hard drive. With Ubuntu not booting all my files are gone. Fortunately, there are tools that can access Linux file systems from within Windows XP and with these tools a user can scavenge the files and salvage the usable materials.

Linux uses a different file system; it's called the extended file system. Extended file system is to Linux as NFTS (or FAT) is to Windows. The default file system of Lucid Lynx is ext4; ext, ext2, and ext3 are the other members of this system. One program that can read ext4 is ext2read. This is the software I used to recover Ubuntu files from within Windows.

Ext2read is an executable that runs on Windows and can read and view files inside an ext2, ext3, or ext4 file system, and save them inside Windows. A screenshot of the program is shown below.

You can get ext2read at the following:
http://ext2read.blogspot.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2read/

Error: unknown command 'loadfont', Error: file not found

2010-10-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Just as I thought my Ubuntu inside Windows was working fine and nothing could go wrong, as I tried to boot into Ubuntu the screen briefly flashed with

error: unknown command 'loadfont'
error: file not found

and the screen returned to the boot screen menu . Choosing to boot into Ubuntu again only repeated the process. What made Ubuntu to behave like this? Some users point to an update as the cause.

One solution to this problem requires editing the grub.cfg which didn't work for me since I couldn't save the file. I have tried all the solutions and suggestions found in Ubuntu Forums but nothing worked. There is only one way to resolve this problem and that is to reinstall Ubuntu which means discarding all my personal files. However, there are two ways to recover those files and these are:

Copy the root.disk file from the Ubuntu folder in Windows or
Use a software that can retrieve files from within Windows,

Installing Ubuntu inside Windows is easy using Wubi.exe, so I could copy the root.disk file, reinstall Ubuntu, and replace the new root.disk with the old one; this method is fine as long as the root.disk is not corrupted which already is since it wouldn't boot. The best option is explore the root.disk file from within Windows and copy whatever files I could save.

On the next three or more posts I will write down how I experimented with reinstalling Ubuntu using wubi.exe the Linux-newbie way and how I was able to recover my files from the unresponsive Ubuntu.

Configure Firefox in Ubuntu to Highlight Entry in the Address or Search Bar in Single Click

2010-09-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu's Firefox default setting is just annoying: A single click in Firefox address or search bar does not highlight the entry.

Here are the steps to configure Firefox to highlight the entry in the address or search bar.

In Firefox address bar, type about:config and press Enter.
Click the “I'll be careful, I promise!” button.
In the Filter box type browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll.
Under Preference Name, double-click browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll to set it to “true” (or right click and select toggle).
Close about:config.

Note: If the address or search bar does not highlight on single click, restart Firefox.

Enable Number Lock Keys on Startup or Before Login in Lucid Lynx Gnome

2010-09-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

I am not comfortable with Ubuntu when changes are to be made through the use of the Terminal. Take for example how to enable the number lock in Ubuntu; to enable number lock you have to write codes in the terminal. Writing codes in Linux is my weakness; thankfully there are plenty of resources that can be found in the Internet to solve every Linux problem.

Here are the steps to enable the number lock key.

1. Click Applications > Accessories > Terminal. A terminal window opens.
2. Type the following code in the terminal and press Enter.

sudo apt-get install numlockx

3. Enter your password when prompted and press Enter.
4. A series of codes run through, wait till the line shows:

user_name@ubuntu:~$

5. Type the following code and press Enter. A gedit window should open.

sudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default

6. Add the following code before the line exit 0 which is at the end of the code.

if [ -x /usr/bin/numlockx ]; then
/usr/bin/numlockx on
fi

7. Click Save in the gedit, and close the gedit and terminal windows.

To check if this works, turn on the numlock key and restart Ubuntu. If you turn it off before restart, it will only be turned on during logon and turns itself off once Ubuntu is running.

Reference: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NumLock

GIMP’s Save for Web Plugin for Windows XP

2010-09-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Most of us are guilty of this: opening an executable (.exe) without reading the readme instructions for the file.

But there are .exe files that need no double-clicking.

This one made me looked dumb—GIMP’s Save for Web plugin. After extracting the zipped folder of its contents, I opened webexport.exe only to be greeted with a prompt that says that the application has failed because libgdk-win32-2.0-0.dll was not found. This kind of warnings in Windows always freaks me out.

The fact is that, the webexport.exe file needs only to be copied to a personal plugins folder in GIMP—there is no need to double-click it, hence the prompt. Copy webexport.exe and paste it to C:\Documents and Settings\\.gimp-2.6\plug-ins and it’s done.

The screenshot below shows the Save for Web option in GIMP’S File menu once webexport.exe is pasted in the plugins folder.

The Save for Web plugin can be downloaded from GIMP Plugin Registry.

Error: no such device: 658965p2-8fg5- . . . grub rescue>

2010-09-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

My PC failed to boot into Windows XP or Ubuntu after installing the complete update for Lucid Lynx Gnome (Ubuntu inside XP). With so many attempts to restart, I always get:

Error: no such device: 658965p2-8fg5- . . .
grub rescue>

The best solution
Internet search results showed that this issue of “deleted grub(?)” has been in Lucid Lynx since before it was officially released. To new Linux users like me with little understanding on writing commands, a boot failure is terrifying.

Fortunately, a discussion on restoring the grub bootloader can be found in Ubuntu forums. Ubuntu forums has solutions to restoring XP and Ubuntu—including Vista and Windows 7.

I followed the “How to restore the Windows XP bootloader” method. I booted the PC using the XP installation CD and waited to the part where it asks me to install or repair XP. The following is the procedure I took.

Press “r” for repair.
Type 1, when prompted which Windows installation to logon to (1: C:\WINDOWS).
Type the Administrator password. This was tricky. I typed my logon password but it was rejected. I hit Enter instead, which means the Administrator has no password.
Type “fixmbr” in the new command line. Ignored the scary warning that the current hard drive would become inaccessible.
Type “y” for yes to confirm to write a new MBR.
Type “exit” in the new command line after a new MBR is written.
Reboot PC.

Problem solved!

Reference: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1014708

Installing Lucid Lynx Inside Windows XP Taking So Long

2010-09-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

So I installed Lucid Lynx inside XP in an external hard drive. It took 24 hours for me to install Ubuntu Gnome. Not that I was able to install it in one go—Ubuntu was just taking so long to install. It took me about 10 attempts to install it and then cancel the installation because it would stall for no reason.

I wondered what made the installation to stall whenever it was at the part where it is downloading the lucid lynx iso.

Well, I got it right when I did what should be done in installing programs—closed all running programs. So to be sure I restarted my PC and closed all running programs that start automatically during start up, except of course for the anti-virus, firewall. and applications initiated by Windows. It was done in 10 minutes.

External Hard Drive — Can't Access

2010-09-04T04:58:00.000-07:00

As I turned on my external hard drive, the LED light came on. I clicked My Computer in Windows XP and to my horror, the USB hard drive is not there. I checked Device Manager, it’s there but it just shows that it’s a USB storage device and no details. Is this the moment I dreaded that an external hard drive is not reliable and I should have listened to a friend to attached it as an internal hard drive instead?

I checked Administrative Tools, nothing—it’s blank. No sign that XP has recognized it as a device. I restarted my PC, still nothing. Why! when in fact the LED light in the hard drive is turned on. I plugged the USB into a different port—still no success. This is beginning to be a puzzle. I started googling, nada, nothing that would solve my predicament.

But why is the LED light on? Were my files deleted by a hard knock on the hard drive, or did it just vaporize?

I put my hands over the drive’s enclosure. Hmmm . . . no vibrations, I couldn’t feel even a slight hum. Is it the power supply? And why is the LED light turned on?

So I tried to wiggle the female end of the power cord in the hard drive, I felt a whirring sound. Oh, the female end of the power cord is not properly seated. I adjusted it and how wonderfully it worked again! What a fool—all along it was the power cord not seated properly.

VLC Media Player Effects and Filters Not Showing Up

2010-08-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

You just installed VLC media player, played a DVD using VLC, and you wanted to adjust the color. You then clicked Tools, then Effects and Filters. Surprised? The Effect and Filters window did not show up.

Where is it? If you positioned the VLC main window at the upper-left corner of the monitor, the Effect and Filters window is actually unreachable—it is at the left side of the VLC main window. If only you could reach it with your hand. . .

Position the main window at the right side of the screen. Click Tools > Effects and Filters; you may need to click this option twice—to close and reopen the Effects and Filters window—and there it is!

Ever thought of buying a wider monitor?

Lucid Lynx Inside Windows XP

2010-08-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Four months ago my hard disk died—it had three partitions. COD—head crash—a term used when the read-write head scratches on the surface of the hard disk, thereby causing hard disk failure.

I was not able to boot Windows XP. Fortunately, I had Ubuntu - Hardy Heron installed in a different partition inside Windows and I was able to access and copy all my XP files to an external hard drive. This Ubuntu had been there sitting unused, never crossed my mind that one day it would be of service.

So I bought a new 500GB hard drive and installed Windows XP; and then installed Lucid Lynx Ubuntu on an 80GB external hard drive.

This time I want to get serious on Ubuntu—I want to see how to configure it and how to install software on it. From now on, I will document my Ubuntu experience by posting them on this blog.

Tabs Do Not Load When I Open Firefox 3.6.3

2010-05-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have noticed that when I open Firefox, the tabs do not load. I opened the Options window in Firefox’s Tools menu then to Privacy > Use custom settings for history and configured some settings making sure the Automatically start Firefox in a private browsing session check box is unchecked. My settings didn’t work.

The culprits, I found out running Firefox on Safe Mode, are two of my add-ons. Disabling either the WebMail Notifier 2.4 or Torbutton 3.6.2 or both of them allows Firefox to load its tabs when opened.

Are these add-ons really the cause of tabs not loading or there is something to be configured in the about:config settings?

How to Embed Multiple Calendars in Google Sites

2010-03-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

You are probably here because you cannot embed multiple Google calendars in Google Sites. I will show you how I did it or how I found it.

An example of two Google calendars embedded into one can be viewed at Arnel Dy’s Math Webpage.

The iframe tag and origsrc="domainname.org_############### methods
There is a link in Google Calendar, (Settings > Calendars > yourCalendar > Customize the color, size, and other options) that directs you to Google Embeddable Calendar Helper. Copying and pasting the HTML provided in the Calendar Helper—after configuring the calendar’s settings—on your webpage’s HTML window (click the edit HTML button) will not work even though the preview displays your multiple calendars into one.

Also, copying a part of the HTML code provided at Google Embeddable Calendar Helper and then pasting them after origsrc=" somewhere in the page’s HTML will not work. This method returns an error when I tried this.

What works?
Steegle.com provides the best way to embed multiple calendars in Google Sites. A word of advice: Use Your Keyboard to Copy and Paste the HTML Code.

The title of the article at Steegle.com is: Google Sites - Embed Multiple Calendars (and other things)!

How to Create an Image Map in HTML

2010-02-18T02:38:00.000-08:00

One day, after discussing coordinate geometry with my class, a student asked me about the application of coordinate geometry in HTML. She said she was having trouble finding the coordinates of a link in a clickable picture—the mouse pointer just wouldn’t turn into a hand! So I advised her to right-click the page and find that picture or image if there is a <map> tag in the HTML code.

The following day I gave her a sample on how to create an image map. I am reprinting it here with some modification.

What is an image map?
An image-map is an image with clickable areas. For example, in the image at the right, the head, the left shoulder, and the left fingers are clickable areas. These areas are called hotspots and acts as a hypertext link. Any time the user clicks on a hotspot, the hypertext link is activated. These links could activate an html file, mp3, video file, text file, or any other files.

Let’s create an image-map of the image at the right.

The syntax for a hotspot
The shape of a hotspot could be in the form of a rectangle, circle, or polygon. This hotspot’s area is defined by the <area> tag.

The syntax for a rectangular hotspot is:

<area shape="rect" coords="x₁, y₁, x₂, y₂" alt="text" href="URL" target="value" />

where x₁ and y₁ are the coordinates of the upper-left corner of the rectangle and x₂ and y₂ are the coordinates of the lower-right corner.

The syntax for a circular hotspot is:

<area shape="circle" coords="x_c, y_c, radius" alt="text" href="URL" target="value" />

where x_c and y_c is the center of the circle and radius is the radius of the circle.

The syntax for a polygonal hotspot is:

<area shape="poly" coords="x₁, y₁, x₂, y₂, x₃, y₃, . . ., x_n, y_n" alt="text" href="URL" target="value"/>

where x₁, y₁, x₂, y₂, x₃, y₃, x_n, and y_n are the coordinates of the vertices of the polygon.

The area element is always nested inside a <map> tag.

If the shape attribute has a value equal to default , the entire region of the image becomes the hotspot.

The value of the coordinates are in pixels and if the area has no associated link then use the nohref attribute instead of href.

Take note that the target attribute is optional.

Step 1: Define an image-map hotspots in the image
To determine the coordinates of a particular point in an image-map, open the image in Windows’ Paint. The coordinates can be obtained from the right portion of Paint’s status bar. Another way to determine the coordinates is by opening the image in an image editor like GIMP.

With the image example at the right, the coordinates for the rectangles as determined from GIMP are:

x₁ = 25, y₁ = 0, x₂= 60, y₂ = 30

For the circle:

x_c = 23, y_c= 50

For the polygon:

x₁= 58, y₁ = 35, x₂= 80, y₂= 45, x₃= 65, y₃= 60, x₄= 68, y₄= 55

Step 2: Plug in all the values in the HTML code
Plug in all the values in the HTML code and assume a radius of 7 pixels in the circular hotspot.

Make sure that the <area> tags are nested inside a <map> tag and the <img> tag is written before the <map> opening tag.

<html>
<body>

<img src="myimage.jpg" width="94" height="93" alt="myimage" usemap="#mybody" />

<map name="mybody">

<area shape="rect" coords="25, 0, 60, 30" alt="head" href="http://cnn.com/" target="_blank"/>

<area shape="circle" coords="23, 50, 7" alt="hand" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands" target="_blank" />

<area shape="poly" coords="55, 35, 80, 45, 85, 60, 65, 55" alt="shoulder"
href="http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b58/kittymimi90/lovely/12-EdgeandRydiaFinalFantasyIV.jpg" target="_blank" />

</map>

</body>
</html>

Open Firefox in Chrome, IE8, Safari, and Avant

2009-12-29T04:01:00.000-08:00

Google's Chrome opens sites faster than my default browser Firefox. For now I cannot leave Firefox for Chrome because of the availability of extensions (add-ons) for the former which the later lacks.

I only use Chrome when Firefox is having a noticeable difficulty loading pages. Although I have exported my Firefox bookmarks to Chrome, it is cumbersome to export them whenever a new site is bookmarked in Firefox.

I have discovered one way of viewing my Firefox bookmarks in Chrome: click and drag a bookmark into Chrome's page and the page will load in Chrome. A bookmark can be exported too into Chrome's bookmark toolbar by the click and drag method.

Likewise, the method above is possible if it is done the other way—from Chrome to Firefox. In fact, the exporting method can be done also from Firefox to IE 8 and vice versa but is not possible for the Opera browser.

Of course there are Chrome View and Safari View add-ons for Firefox but the fact that it can be done into IE8 (Avant and Safari, too) makes this method handy for those who uses more than one browser.

In Avant and Safari, bookmarks from Firefox can open into these two browsers but not the other way around.

The Pythagorean Triple Generator

2009-11-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

For those who are interested in a Pythagorean Triple Generator you may fetch it from my geometry class website.

This program is written in Just BASIC language and it is free.

USB Flash Drive Not Appearing In My Computer

2009-09-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

I plugged a USB flash drive into my Windows XP PC and it did not appear in My Computer. It used to appear as Drive G: two months ago. When I checked Disk Management the flash drive is there with a drive letter J: and I can open it in the Computer Management window.

It took me a while to figure out the real culprit. I changed the drive letter of the flash drive to Z: in the Computer Management window but it did not solve the problem.

The only hardware I connected to my PC for the last two months was a three-partitioned external hard drive which is currently assigned the drive letters G, H, and I.

Would unplugging the external hard drive enable the USB flash drive to appear in My Computer? No, it did not.

Suddenly a thought came into my mind: Tweak UI. I have this Powertoy and I remembered checking boxes for drive letters.

So there it was the culprit. All the checked drive letters have been assigned to my internal and external hard drives and DVD drive. No drive letters were assigned for new removable storage.

I opened Tweak UI, checked the drive letter J: in the window and click OK. And that solved the problem—although I have to change the flash drive’s drive letter to J: again since I changed it to Z: earlier.

The Pythagorean Triple Generator

2009-09-13T04:03:00.000-07:00

I was practicing how to write programs one day learning how to create a line in Liberty BASIC when it came to me that I could create a triangle. One thing led to another that I thought I create a Pythagorean Triple Generator and at the same time draw the triangle in scale. The result is a program written in Just BASIC language.

The program is available at this website, CST Geometry. You may download the program free.

Learn To Program Free

2009-09-08T06:25:00.001-07:00

One of the activities that I did when I bought my PC was to learn programming. There are many programming languages that can be learned free in the Internet. One is Liberty BASIC which is derived from the traditional BASIC language, and then there is Just BASIC. Although the later is a watered down version of the former, the fun thing about Just BASIC is that you can create a .exe file from that language for free, i.e., a stand-alone program. The two languages above works on Windows XP.

If you are adventurous enough there are free tutorials for Java and Python languages. To be honest I have learned the basics of these two object-oriented programming languages in their websites, Java Tutorials, and Python.org. Java is a complex language but I was surprised with the way Python’s syntax are written—the syntax is much more like BASIC and reads like English. I have learned from Internet forums, Python is a very powerful programming language. You might like to try to download the free pdf Think Python (note this pdf discusses python 2. Latest version is 3).

Going back to Just BASIC, I have written a program called The Pythagorean Triple Generator.

Crazy Gadgets

2009-08-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

Not crazy as in mentally unsound but insanely entertaining. I found this website where amusing gadgets can be downloaded and added to my blog's sidebar.

The hamster at the right is an example. And don't feed him too much by the way.

The website is aBowman. Check it out.

External Hard Drive

2009-08-23T05:51:00.000-07:00

A year ago I changed my 80GB hard drive with a 500GB. Both were Seagate SATA. I was thinking of utilizing my old hard drive as an external hard drive and use it as a backup.

Today, I just did that. Much to my surprise as soon as I run the external hard drive, my old data were still there except for my own (administrator) My Documents folder which is now empty and cannot be opened. But the other data, they are still there; documents of limited accounts, mp3s, and video files can be opened and played. I thought that unplugging the hard drive from the motherboard will automatically delete the files.

A warning to all with hard drives they want to sell—wipe out your files for good!

Animated GIFs in Google Sites

2009-07-22T03:24:00.000-07:00

I have a website at Google Sites for my geometry class in high school. Last week, I wrote a piece about the difference of the terms congruence and equality. What a nice way I thought to create an animated GIF to support my article. But don’t look now; Google Sites does not support animated GIFs (nor Javascript), well not directly. I was surprised that Google Sites converted automatically my animated GIF files to PNG. With a couple of Google searches later I found out that Google Sites blocks animated images.

However, there is a workaround for this predicament. Every search I made in the Internet suggests uploading the file into Google Docs or creating a gadget. For me, I did what I always do in my blogs; upload the animated GIF files to Photobucket. It works!

Here’s my website with the animated GIFs, Geometry.

Change Folder Icons in Windows XP with Folder Marker

2009-07-05T06:28:00.001-07:00

Changing the colors of my folders I thought would look nice in my PC; what I didn’t realize was that it would speed up my work. With customized folder icons, I can quickly pinpoint the specific folder I want to open.

With so many folders colored yellow in my PC, sometimes searching for a particular folder is like searching a needle in a haystack. One way to change the folder icon is to right-click the folder and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box, click the Customize tab and click the Change Icon button. A Change Icon dialog box opens and select from the list of icons or you can browse to the folder where your icons are saved. Take note that only icons with .ico extensions can be used.

I have these icons with .gif extensions and what I did was to convert them to .ico using GIMP.

Another way of changing the folder icon is to simply change its color. With this method I use a free software called Folder Marker. Folder Marker is a helper which can mark folders by priority (high, normal, low), by degree of work complete (done, half-done, planned) and by the type of information contained in the folder (work files, important files, temp files, private files). When installed, you can customize or colorize—if this is the right term—your folders by right-clicking a folder and choosing Folder Marker among the options.

Options Grayed-Out with GIF Files in GIMP

2009-06-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

I was trying to add a drop shadow on an image using GIMP and was surprised that some options in the menu were grayed-out when working with GIF files. First, I thought GIFs do not work on GIMP. Searching on the Internet, I found out that GIF uses indexed color and not RGB.

For those who have this kind of concern, fret no more. When working with a GIF image using GIMP, choose Image > Mode > RGB. This will enable the options.