RYNOP

So I’m trying to make some simple screencasts, but was running into problem after problem trying to get the mic input working on my Sound Blaster Audigy SE (sb0570) working in ubuntu 9.10. After running down multiple ratholes (like removing pulseaudio) and even trying my on-board sound card. No dice.

So what was the solution? good ‘ol old school alsamixer (v 1.0.20). My card and chip are CA0106. Simply configure alsamixer to look like the following:

Note: if you want to use gtk-recordmydesktop, specify ‘pulse’ as the audio recording device.

I was looking for an easy way to display a message to users stating that they must have javascript enabled to use a page. I stumbled across this:
http://blog.blazed-designs.com/2009/05/05/jquery-javascript-detection/comment-page-1/#comment-821

However, the above method will show the no javascript warning on slow computers (and probably pervasive devices with slow parsers).

Anyways, I came up with this trick. Not the best looking, but supports all browsers AND has no load lag. They way I see it, if a page is not going to work without JS, having it look good is not a priority.

<noscript>
<h3 style="color: yellow;">ATTENTION: Your browser must have JavaScript enabled to report scores on-line</h3>
<p style="font-weight:bold; margin-bottom: 500px">Please enable javascript or <a href="http://www.getfirefox.com">click here to download Mozilla Firefox.</a></p>
</noscript>

Sort of

They have a deb for linux (ubuntu 8.04 or higher) that will install and keep its self up to date

http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel#TOC-Linux

I finally got around to updating my resume.  Once every few years isn’t bad is it?

My new venture – leaguelogix.com is starting to gain popularity. In short its software used to manage and run every aspect of sports league administration. Its a great tool for both players and league administrators.  Check it out – www.leaguelogix.com . I still am working on updating the homepage for the web app – I’ve been spending most of my time aquiring customers and making my product better…

On 1/9/09 I became the proud father of a 8lb 7oz baby boy. Ethan James is his name.  He is quite the stud I must say.  He has blond hair (like I did when I was a kid) and a cool dimple.  Cant wait til he has enough hair to give him a mini-hawk

You can check out some pictures of him here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.pendergast

This app has been out for a few years, but I just found out about it yesterday. Helps me a great deal @ home and @ work – so thought i’d pass it along for others that may not know about it.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/synergy2/

basically it lets you use 1 mouse and keyboard to control X number of computers. Drag your mouse off your screen and it will show up on the monitor of the other computer.

For example I have 2 boxes in my office, and 1 monitor that has 2 inputs. I can use 1 keyboard and mouse to control both, i drag mouse off monitor on box1, press input on my monitor, and mouse shows up on box2.

Shares clipboard which is very handy if u’ve ever messed around with vnc. Has unix,win and osx port.

nother cool use – i have projector at home with comp hooked up to it. i now can control it while sitting on my couch with my laptop. no more wireless mouse/keyboard needed.

Of course it requires a window manager (X in unix).

I should probably add a note about security here. Synergy out of the box is not secure, sends raw data over TCP. You can set it up to communicate over ssh if you like, but i’d suspect it would be a bit slow (have not done it b4).

I’d highly recommend only using this over your LAN and over a private router/switch if u can.

I clean installed ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid), and added an existing xp virtual image (.vdi file) to virtualbox.  When I went to startup the image, I would get a blue screen of death followed by a reboot of windows. I could not figure how to get out of this loop.

Turns out, all you have to do is:

Go to General Settings for the guest machine and under the Advanced tab, select PIIX3 for the IDE Controller Type.  It uses PIIX4 by default (which would not boot). I changed it to PIIX3 and it worked fine.

1. Open Terminal, type sudo gedit /etc/fstab
2. Add:
   none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=46,devmode=666 0 0
3. Save then run ’sudo mount -a’.
4. Then goto System > Administration > Users and Groups
5. Click Manage Groups buttons, find ‘vboxusers’, select and click Properties
6. Select checkbox by your login.
7. Restart Virtualbox and enjoy

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