Today I had one of those days that turned out to be a good day after all. It started when I turned on my computer this morning and it booted normal but all of sudden the monitor started to flicker. Then the mouse and keyboard would not respond eventually my computer turned off. Yeah, one of those days that you wish you had not woken up.

My first thought was that it might be the motherboard or the monitor that where broken. I did not panic I stayed calm I pushed the power button again but no power to the keyboard or mouse. I kept dreading it was the motherboard. “Why me, I was thinking to myself. I was determined to remain calm! I unplugged the computer and started to remove the keyboard and mouse. I started the computer again but still no beeps coming from the computer.

I decided to open the computer and remove all the peripherals one by one. I started with the memory sticks. Yes, I had unplugged the computer first and grounded myself by touching the chassis on the computer (do this or you will die or injure yourself badly). I turned the computer on again it started to beep at me (always a good sign when a computer starts to beep at you). I put one stick back on the motherboard and turned the computer on again. It started like normal. I kept adding memory sticks until all where back in. It seems that they had gotten loose when I moved the computer around.

Thank God it was only loose memory sticks. I did not spend a dime fixing my computer just time. Please, before you start to work on your computer take precautions and if you don’t know what you’re doing leave it to the professionals. You don’t want to end up dead or injured. I hope this helps out others that might have the same problem as me.

Tags: Monitor | Keyboard | Mouse | Motherboard | Memory sticks

Open your browser and go to YouTube or any site with Flash Videos.
Next pick your favorite video and wait until it's fully loaded.
Next go to your /tmp folder and your video should be labeled Flash with some random letters and numbers.
Copy this file to another folder.
Ex. Your Desktop Folder.
That is it! You just saved your Favorite Flash Video.
Please do not copy copyright material. It is illegal and you can get fined or sued. It's just not worth it.

Tags: YouTube | Flash

Most video websites have Flash as there default player. If Adobe Flash Player / browser plug-in does not work you really don't have much of a choose on what to watch on-line. A lot of people are having problem with their Flash videos not having sound from what I saw in my search. I tried most things that where written online but nothing worked. Granted most were written towards Windows but not all.

First of all I want to make it clear that my sound card was working so if your sound card is not working you have a totally different problem then mine. Make sure Linux recognizes your sound card. Next go to:
Sound Mixer.
Raise the volume on: PCM (Pulse-code modulation)
and that is it.
Sometimes the hardest things are fixed the simplest ways.

This worked for me I do not guarantee it will work for you. I tried everything else and this was the only thing that worked for me. Hope this helps.

Tags: Adobe Flash Player | No Sound | Flash Videos

Would you like to try Linux before you install it permanently to your hard drive? Is there a way you can try it before you buy it (or in Linux case use it)? Well, there is a way to try Linux without installing it to your computer. It's called a Live CD. You can run Linux off a Live CD even on a computer that doesn't have an internal hard disk. A Linux Live CD runs Linux off the CD/DVD ROM.

Okay let’s get started. Go to:
Web Links → Linux Distribution Downloads and choose your favorite Linux distribution.
Try openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora.

Now you need to burn Linux on a DVD/CD.
To Burn Linux to a DVD/CD you need to burn the ISO image.
With Nero at the first command you have to select the “Disc Image or Saved Project”
Then “Image, Project, Copy” menu.
Now select the image.
“All supported compilation and images” is selected.
Open the file and click the “Next” button as many times as it is required…
You’re done.

Now you need to tell your computer BIOS to boot from DVD/CD.
Check your computer manual for this.
Try: ESC, Delete, F1, F2, F12, (Like I said check your computer manual)
Insert the DVD/CD to your DVD/CD ROM.
Now, you just have to follow the menu instructions.
Just answer a couple of questions and you will have a working Linux on your computer.
Play around with it and see what Linux has to offer.
If you fall in love with Linux just choose the icon to permanently install it to your hard drive.
Make sure you do a back up of your files before you install it to your hard drive.
Hope this helps all those that want to try Linux but where afraid to do so.

Tags: Live CDs

It seems Novell is in a roll they have just won another case this time with Red Hat against IP Innovation LLC, a unit of Acacia Research Corp. It seems that IP Innovation LLC accused Red Hat and Novell of infringing three patents that cover a computer-based graphical user interface that spans multiple workplaces, and lets users access icons remotely, according to court documents.

Red Hat had this on their web site:
RALEIGH, N.C., Apr 30, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, announced that today a jury in federal court in Marshall, Texas, returned a verdict in favor of Red Hat, Inc. and Novell, Inc. in a case alleging patent infringement brought by IP Innovation LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation and Technology Licensing Corporation. The patents at issue were found to be invalid and worthless.

"This is the result we expected and we are gratified that the jury recognized the tremendous innovative value of open source software. The jury knocked out three invalid patents that were masquerading as a new and important invention, when they were not," said Michael Cunningham, Executive Vice President at Red Hat. "We appreciate the jury's wisdom and remain committed to providing value to our customers, including through our Open Source Assurance program. We also remain stalwart in resisting bogus shakedown tactics."

Congratulations to Both Red Hat and Novell for not backing down when they knew they where right.

Tags: Red Hat | Novell | Patents

Today March 30, 2010 a U.S. District Court jury has said that Novell not SCO owns Unix copyrights. Without the copyrights, SCO has nothing. SCO no longer has a significant claim that can be made against Linux. After seven years of legal wrangling and after a three-week trial that pitted the two companies over the question of which owned the copyrights the Federal jury has said that SCO never owned Unix's IP (intellectual property) in the first place.

This case had its roots in 2003 when SCO sued IBM for allegedly using Unix code to make improvements to Linux. Novell then said it, not SCO, owned the copyrights to Unix. Novell retracted that statement after SCO showed it an amendment to the sales agreement but then restated its ownership claims a few months later and said SCO had no right to pursue IBM.

All the Linux and Open Source Community can rejoice that the good guys won again.

Tags: IBM | SCO | Novell | Linux

Start by opening a terminal:
1. rpm -Uvh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
2. yum install flash-plugin nspluginwrapper.{i386,x86_64} pulseaudio-libs.i386 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i386 libcurl.i386
3. mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v

Once again I make no guarantee this will work for you. Also one more point I like to make. There are so many Linux distributions that come preinstalled with Java and Flash Player (PCLinuxOS, Mint, etc). Why not use those distributions to make your life easier.

Tags: Flash Player | Mint | PCLinuxOS

I was trying to install Java on CenOS but had a very hard time doing so. I found many tutorials but none worked. Most tutorials did not say you need to download compat-libstdc++-296 compat-libstdc++-33 so that made it more frustrating. This worked for me. I make no guarantee it will work for you. Be sure to switch to root for this to work and download to your /tmp folder.

Download jre-6u17-linux-i586-rpm.bin ( http://www.java.com/ )
su
yum install compat-libstdc++-296 compat-libstdc++-33
cd /bin
sh /tmp/jre-6u17-linux-i586-rpm.bin
cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
ln -s /usr/java/jre1.6.0_17/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so .

Close and reopen Firefox.

Tags: Firefox | Java | CentOS | Linux