Openoffice and JRE

Got problem to get OpenOffice to locate Java, and it turned out,

openoffice.org-java-common

was missing.

VC++ Runtime Error

I have been using AutoGK for a while now to convert my mpeg videos into AVIs. Everything works fine till yesterday. When I tried to convert my vidoes, I got VC++ runtime error. I was scratching my head for a reason since I had just used the program a week again, and nothing had changed. It turned out it was caused by corrupted VC++ runtime library ... don't know how it happened ... Anyway, after I have reinstall the VC++ runtime redist from Microsoft, everything back to normal.

Ubuntu 8.10

I have just upgrade one of my machine to from 8.04 LTS to 8.10 as I heard the new version brings in speed improvement. Although the upgrade went mostly okay, the problem is it broke my display setting. I am using a NVidia graphics card, and it didn't work in the new version.

Surely, if I am determine, I can edit the xorg.conf to get things to work. However, I am disappointed by the lack of graphical configuration tool for xorg. Since I am using a KVM switch, the auto detect function doesn't work. In the past, I can use displayconfig-gtk to force the setting. Unfortunately, Ubuntu decide to phase it out.

If you ask me an area which I really want Ubuntu to be improved upon, this is it, this is the one! A simple, working graphics setting utility similar to those found on a Mac or even on Windows

ATi Mobile Radeon LY6

I finally got my 3D acceleration back. The combination below seems fix my lockup problem when Xorg restart, especially this line

Option "BusType" "PCI"

Section "device" #
Identifier "device1"
Boardname "ATI Radeon"
Busid "PCI:1:0:0"
Driver "radeon"
Option "DynamicClocks" "True"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "DMAForXv" "OFF"
Option "BusType" "PCI"
Option "SubPixelOrder" "NONE"
# Option "DRI" "OFF"
Screen 0
EndSection

Windows XP and USB hubs

Yesterday, my work Windows XP machine decided to give up to cooperate with any USB hubs, and that includes my KVM switch. The problem seems to be a driver problem. It was solved by "borrow" usb.inf and usbhub.sys from another XP machine.

Windows and Locale

A friend of mine need to install a non-English locale, however Windows kept complain. It turned out the problem was caused by a corrupted intl.inf file in the windows/inf folder. To solve the problem, you simply get a health intl.inf file from a Winodws machine, and overwrite the trouble one.

overwrite standard set up computer's c:\windows\inf\intl.inf
to your problematic c:\windows\inf\intl.inf

Getting VLC to work with East Asian characters

VLC is a great media player as it plays most media files. However, it isn't perfect. Handling non-English characters seems to be one of its weakness. I always have problem with its play-list, as it displays symbols instead of proper characters. I alway thought it is the problem of VLC as other players handles the same file just file. Yesterday, I was playing with the appearance setting on Ubuntu, and change the default font to Deja-vu San, and to my surprise, this also fix my VLC problems. Now, files with East Asian characters are rendering as it should be.