Schon seit längerem fällt mir die Meldung “Diese Website stellt keine Identitätsdaten zur Verfügung” in Firefox störend auf, sobald ich eine Webseite per drag+drop aus der Adreßleiste in die Bookmark-Leiste ziehen möchte.
Diese nervige Meldung verhindert desöfteren ein simples Bookmarken der Webseite, aber sie kann deaktiviert werden:

in der Adressleiste eingeben:
about:config

Im Feld für Filter folgendes eingeben:
browser.chrome.toolbar_tips

Im Fenster darunter erscheint dann diese Zeile, die man dann doppelklickt, woraufhin der Boolean Wert von True auf False geändert wird.

Firefox neustarten und weg ist die Meldung.

As described here I fought the problem for a long time, that mythtv sometimes just refuses to detect the TV cards, when two TV cards are installed.

I think I found the solution to the problem now finally – the problem appears when the loading order of the driver modules are mixed up, so that Card1, which normally is linked to /dev/video0 is linked to /dev/video1 and vice versa for Card2 – that seems to confuse mythtv.

So, the trick is to define in mythbuntu (or Ubuntu+mythtv), that it should load Card1 before Card2 so that the corresponding linking to the video-devs is done correctly.

As Ubuntu uses udev, which is not really easy, I just did the old dirty trick:
1) blacklist both TV card modules (in my case: ivtv and bttv):

sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

and add :

blacklist ivtv
blacklist bttv


2) Load the modules in your desired order:

sudo vi /etc/modules

and add:

ivtv
bttv


That’s it – I hope it finally really works and will test it in the next days.

I am running Mythbuntu 8.10 on my Asus A8V-VM SE with a Athlon 64 3200+ and faced severe problems. The most annoying one was the problem, that mythtv periodically wasn’t able to detect the tuner cards, although they were detected by the kernel and were configured correctly.

I tried several tips like moving the daemon call of mythtv-backend in /etc/rc5.d to a later position, from S25mythtv-backend to S99mythtv-backend – this didn’t really help. Until I finally got a setup, which works now in most cases or let’s say, nearly with all bootups.

So to help you preventing one or another headache, this is my setup wich works now really well:

In the Asus BIOS, you have to disable:
APIC
ACPI 2.0 support

and in Ubuntu, you have to add

noapic


in /boot/grub/menu.lst, so that it looks like this:


kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-11-generic root=UUID=xyz ro locale=de_DE quiet noapic


The next article I am planning will describe how to setup mythwelcome and acpi wakeup with Mythbuntu 8.10 on the crappy Asus A8V-VM SE – stay tuned.

Update:
I recently posted exactly here another socalled dirty tip, which should solve the problem – but as I have faced the same problem today again, that mythtv sometimes just refuses to detect the cards, I deleted it. But I think (and hope) I found the real deal today, the problem, why mythtv sometimes just doesn’t detect the cards, although the kernel detects it correctly.

The solution is posted in another post here:
Link

By default, the use of floppy drives is disabled in Ubuntu 8.10.
The reason for a not responding floppy under /dev/fd0 (standard device) is the deactivated kernel module for floppies. To permanently activate the module loading of the floppy, simply run in xterm:

gksudo gedit /etc/modules

and add this simple line to /etc/modules


floppy


The Floppy will be now available after reboot – to use it instantly, simply type into xterm:


sudo modprobe floppy


To mount the floppy, add a mountpoint in /media like

sudo mkdir /media/floppy


and mount it with:

sudo mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy


To permanently have the device linked to the mountpoint, edit /etc/fstab:

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab


and add this line:

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0


To secure wpa/wpa2 keys from brute-force or dictionary-attacks, it is evident to use strong, that means long and purely randomly generated keys, which are in addition generated with a strong algorithm.

WPA/WPA2 limits the length of passwords to 63 digits, including upper/lowercase and special characters – so that’s what we are trying to generate….

There is a versatile tool for Ubuntu available – apg.

Install it via

Now, let’s use the full length available for WPA2 and generate some passwords with apg using:

To parse the keys automatically into a file, so that you can store and copy&paste the password, use this command:

Both commands will generate 6 very strong and purely random passwords. You can use the file later to copy&paste the password into your network settings.

One thing:

surprisingly, some passwords include (though ASCII) characters, which might give you some problems within the network configuration, especially those, which cause a special behavior of the bash. To be sure, that your generated password won’t cause those problems, paste the password in this command:

If the displayed password is different than the pasted or especially, if the bash displays a syntax error, then change the displayed errornous character with for instance #.

I recently found a quick and successfull way of installing Flash Player 10 RC on Ubuntu 8.04 running a 64 bit processor.

First, download this deb:

http://www.boundlesssupremacy.com/Cappy/getlibs/getlibs-all.deb

And install it via:

sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb

Then create a script somewhere, for instance script.sh.

gedit script.sh

Fill it with the following code:


#!/bin/bash
# Script created by
# Romeo-Adrian Cioaba romeo.cioaba@spotonearth.com
# Super minor updates by jason.melton[at]gmail[dot]com
# Released under GPL

echo “Stopping any Firefox that might be running”
sudo killall -9 firefox

echo “Removing any other flash plugin previously installed:”
sudo apt-get remove -y –purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*

echo “Installing ia32-libs and nspluginwrapper”
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs nspluginwrapper

echo “Getting libs”
sudo getlibs -p libcurl3
sudo getlibs -p libnss3-1d
sudo getlibs -p libnspr4-0d

echo “Installing Flash Player 10″

cd ~

wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
tar zxvf install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
sudo cp install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
sudo chmod +rx /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
rm -rf ~/install_flash_player_10_linux/
sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

echo “Linking the libraries so Firefox can find it.”
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/

echo “Done ”

Save the file and make it executable via chmod +x script.sh

Then run the script.

That should do it.

Run about:config in the address bar of Firefox which should point out now, that flash is installed and running:

Display of installed flash 10 in Firefox 3

The script was written and taken from:

http://meandubuntu.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/flash-10-rc-on-ubuntu-amd64/

Credits go to Romeo-Adrian Cioaba

UPDATE:Newer kernels (>2.6.22) handle wakeup alarms differently than in this howto, take a look at the official mythtv howto to cover newer kernels.

I am running an Epox 8rda+ (nforce2 chipset) with MythBuntu and will try to show, how to setup this mainboard with ACPI and mythwelcome, so that it starts with scheduled recordings and will shutdown automatically, when recording is finished.

Prequesites:
* A working mythbuntu installation with Backend and Frontend on the same machine
* Disabled acpi function in the BIOS
* BIOS runs in UTC
* Epox 8rda+ board (I can only somewhat guarantee the functionality of this howto with this mainboard ! )
* Mythbuntu latest (with fixes) – although this howto should work basically with other combinations too – but just basically
* use of /proc/acpi/alarm
* You simultanously look at the mythtv wiki
* You don’t expect this howto to be perfect or complete

1. Setup of ACPI
The information is well described in the Mythtv Wiki so I will only point out the most important information for the mentioned mainboard, the Epox 8rda+.
The current version of mythbuntu runs kernel 2.6.24-19 – although, in contrary to the WIKI and in combination with the Epox Board, it uses /proc/acpi/alarm rather than /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/wakealarm like mentioned in the wiki for kernels >=2.6.22.

First of all, make sure powersaved ist installed by invoking:

sudo apt-get install powersaved


You can check the successfull installation with the command

powersave -S


wich should display:

ACPI


Then modify your /etc/init.d/hwclock.sh as described in the mythtv wiki.

So far, so good. Next step will be to check, if ACPI wakeup basically works. Instead of the way the Wiki describes the function test, which won’t work with the Epox 8RDA+ because of malformed year string, we will first check the current system time:

date


Which also will inform us about, which timezone Mythbuntu is running at – in my case CEST – which is central european summer time. The BIOS itself normally operates with UTC – Universal time coordinated. This knowledge about the difference between your current mythbuntu system time and the UTC is very important as you have to include this information with your ACPI time settings.
CEST = UTC +2 !!!

Example:

For instance, the current time is 10th September 2008 – 12:20:00 CEST
that means, if we want to add 5 minutes for a boot up in 5 minutes for testing purposes, we have to set 10:25 !!!


sudo echo "2008-09-10 10:25:00" > /proc/acpi/alarm


shortly after that you have to shutdown your computer with the following command:

sudo shutdown -h now


Now wait and see…..

If the system won’t come up, you either didn’t change the date and time in my example according to your current time and date , your wakeup in the BIOS is enabled or something else is wrong. In this case, use the comment function or ask on different mythtv or mythbuntu pages.

If it booted up, then let’s go on to section 2 …

2. Permissions for the user who runs the backend/frontend:

First of all, changing permissions for users lower than root is always a security risk. As my mythtv box isn’t reachable by the internet and my network is trustworthy, I never spent a second thinking about risks when playing around with permissions. Keep that in mind !

Permissions are very important for mythtv to be able to set the wakeup time through the backend / frontend. As you have seen above, when typing sudo echo xyz, you had to type in your root password. This is a problem as you won’t be able to give the backend the desired password, if it asks for.
So, we have to edit the /etc/sudoers file.

First, check which user is running backend and frontend:

ps aux | grep myth


In my case, backend is run by the user mythtv and the frontend by my user name, Rock.

So, let’s give em both a bunch of permissions:
The user Rock is part of the admins group in /etc/group:
admin:x:110:Rock

for the user mythtv, I gave him all I could think of:
%mythtv ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown, /usr/bin/MythWakeSet, /proc/acpi/alarm, /usr/bin/MythShutdownCheck, /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend, /usr/bin/mythshutdown, /usr/bin/welcome, /usr/bin/mythwelcome, /usr/bin/eject, /bin/mount, /bin/umount, /usr/bin/nuvexport, /usr/bin/nuvexport-xvid, /bin/sh

and for my user Rock:

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
rock mythtvbox = NOPASSWD: SHUTDOWN_CMDS,/usr/bin/MythWakeSet, /proc/acpi/alarm, /usr/bin/MythShutdownCheck, /etc/init.d/mythtv-backend, /usr/bin/mythshutdown, /usr/bin/welcome, /usr/bin/mythwelcome, /usr/bin/eject, /bin/mount, /bin/umount, /usr/bin/nuvexport, /usr/bin/nuvexport-xvid, /bin/sh


Again, this isn't very smart, nor is it anyhow somewhat secure, nor I am sure, that this is all of my privileges I have set when struggling with mythtv, but I don't care in my case - it is up to you to limit restrictions as you think, it would be smart.
Just remember, that all commands invoked by mythtv, starting, rebooting, shutting down, running scripts which have to be run via sudo should be listed with NOPASSWD
Whatever, just play around what you might need.

So, as your user is somewhat root in many operations, lets go to the setup section of mythtv:

3. Setting up mythbackend

As for mythbuntu, you have to go into mythbuntu control centre:
Frontend ---> Config --> Config --> Mythbuntu

Type in your passwd.
In the mythbuntu control center, go to --> Mythtv Configuration --> Start Mythtv-Setup:
Hit OK when it asks you, if it should close the backend.

In the mythtv setup screen, hit General.
Then press Forward till you reach the screen Shutdown/Wakeup Options:
Fill in like I have done in my setup:

mythbackend screenshot

Get out of mythtv-setup, you can answer No if it asks you to run mythfilldatabase.

Other distributions:
Just run mythtv-setup out of an xterm.

A quick word about the Pre-Shutdown check command:
There is a way to let the backend check, if for instance someone is connected through ssh or, I guess, vnc too - but it never really worked for me, so I have set it to return 0, which means, jepp backend, you can reboot.
If you want to play around, use instead:
mythshutdown --check
or if doesn't work:
sudo mythshutdown --check.

Now, you might have noticed a command such like MythWakeSet - we'll need that piece of script.

Make a file named MythWakeSet and fill it with the following content:


#!/bin/bash
#
# MythWakeSet
#
# set mythtv wake-up time with UTC-adjusted time
#

# set the alarm
echo $utcadj > /proc/acpi/alarm


Then copy the file to /usr/bin and make it executable:

sudo cp MythWakeSet /usr/bin
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/MythWakeSet


Again, this only applies to my board and the prequesites, that the BIOS runs UTC !
For other configurations, check other howtos.

Just one information:
For newer installs, the command described in the mythtv wiki:
mythshutdown --setwakeup $time
won't work - as the command has changed a little bit throughout 0.21. How it will work though - no clue

Now the backend should be correctly set.
Let's give it a try:
Program a show which starts lets say in about 15 minutes - just to be absolutely sure !
Keep in mind, that the user mythtv has to be set as NOPASSWD for the command /usr/bin/MythWakeSet in the /etc/sudoers file plus full access to /proc/acpi/alarm !!!!
Shut the box down and wait, or drink a coffee, smoke or whatever you intend to use during such unexpected downtimes.

If it comes up correctly withtin 15 minutes - congrats, let's proceed to the next step - if not, again comment function or whatever you do to solve issues.

4. MythWelcome

As you have successfully finished part 3 of this howto, you might have noticed, that the box did boot up correctly, recorded the show - and then - yepp, stood there idle. But, this isn't the way we want mythtv to act, we want it to shutdown after recording - imagine a recording while you're away - the box will run till you come home and push the shutdown button - for this problem, there is a neat tool named MythWelcome, which basically acts as decider, whether it should shut down or not.

So, lets configure it.

Go back to the desktop (which means, close mythfrontend) and open an xterm, and type in:

mythwelcome --setup


Set it up like in my screen:

mythwelcome setup

For mythbuntu only:
Mythbuntu uses xfce so we have to exchange the startup of mythfrontend with mythwelcome.
So, get into your home directory, into the directory .config/autostart and edit the mythtv.desktop file as following:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=MythTV Frontend
Comment=A frontend for all content on a mythtv-backend
GenericName=MythTV Viewer
Exec=/usr/bin/mythwelcome
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Icon=/usr/share/mythtv/themes/blue/myth_tv_logo.png
Categories=GNOME;Application;AudioVideo;Audio;Video
X-Appstall-Package=mythtv


For other distributions, check forums, howtows ....

This will start mythwelcome instead of mythfrontend - but don't panic, mythfrontend is still available and will run with one click (or push on the remote).

So, reboot or restart gdm - you'll see mythwelcome, whining about, that it will reboot in 120 seconds.
That should do it now - mythwelcome should count down from 120 seconds (you can set the time in mythtv-setup - > look at the screenshot under 3) till it shuts down - enough time for me personally to hit the RETURN button or the OK on my remote to start mythfrontend - as mythfronted is running, mythwelcome won't shut the box down.

That means, and this isn't somewhat perfect, you have to get into mythfrontend within 120 seconds when you start up mythtv manually, or mythwelcome will again shutdown the box. I haven't figured out a solution for his problem, but as I don't really care, I really didn't put much effort in it.

Program a recording, close mythfrontend - mythwelcome will appear - and the box will shutdown in 120 seconds after that - then wait till it boots (hopefully) up for recording - mythwelcome will show you, that it will record and after that, it will shutdown.

That's it for now - this howto is far from perfect as I have played around months to get it working - so I might have left out some particular interesting and important information. This is just meant to help you, if you are stuck like I was.

In one of my previous posts I mentioned how to download flash videos, for instance from youtube, via plugin.

My standard Plugin for Flash downloading with Firefox 2.x, which wasn’t compatible with 3.x, has been released now in an updated , Firefox 3.x compatible version.

More info about the Plugin:

Download helper Website

Recently I described how to convert videos to .mp4 for your mobile phone using the avidemux2 gui.

But there is a faster, easier and more comfortable way to do this. With the following solution, you are able to convert a whole directory containing video files automatically to a phone-readable .mp4 format with just one click.

As in the previous Post, we still are using avidemux but now are invoking a job script to avidemux, so that we don’t need to configure the different settings manually. Along with a bash script, the conversion is done just with one double-click.

I have taken this script from the avidemux forum, credits go to the user gruntster.
Here is an example of a jobscript for a mobile phone having a display resolution of 320×240px, for instance the Sony Ericsson K770i.


var app = new Avidemux();
var dirSearch = new DirectorySearch();
var srcDir = "/directory/of/videos"; // pathOnly(fileReadSelect());
var dstDir = "/directory/for/videos"; // pathOnly(fileWriteSelect());

if (dirSearch.Init(srcDir))
{
while (dirSearch.NextFile())
{
if (!dirSearch.isNotFile && !dirSearch.isSingleDot && !dirSearch.isDoubleDot)
{
app.forceUnpack();
app.load(srcDir + “/” + dirSearch.GetFileName());
app.audio.scanVBR();
app.rebuildIndex();

// Resizing
var targetX = 320;
var targetY = 240;

var rX = app.video.getWidth() / targetX;
var rY = app.video.getHeight() / targetY;
var newX;
var newY;

if (rX > rY)
{
// resize by X
newX = targetX;
newY = Math.round(app.video.getHeight() / rX);
}
else
{
// resize by Y
newY = targetY;
newX = Math.round(app.video.getWidth() / rY);
}

// resize to multiple of 4
newX -= newX % 4;
newY -= newY % 4;

if (newX != app.video.getWidth() || newY != app.video.getHeight())
app.video.addFilter(“mpresize”, “w=” + newX, “h=” + newY, “algo=0″);

// Black bars
var barX = targetX – newX;
var barY = targetY – newY;

if (barX || barY)
app.video.addFilter(“addblack”, “left=” + (barX >> 1), “right=” + (barX >> 1), “top=” + (barY >> 1), “bottom=” + (barY >> 1));

//** Video Codec conf **
app.video.codec(“XVID4″,”CBR=250“,”500 06 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 fa 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 1f 00 00 00 1f 00 00 00 1f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 96 00 00 00 64 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 “);

//** Audio **
app.audio.reset();
app.audio.codec(“aac”,64,4,”80 00 00 00 “);
app.audio.normalizeMode=0;
app.audio.normalizeValue=0;
app.audio.delay=0;

if (app.audio.getNbChannels(0) != 2)
app.audio.mixer(“STEREO”);

app.setContainer(“MP4″);

// Clip off source extension and save to destination with mp4 extension
var srcFile = dirSearch.GetFileName();

app.save(dstDir + “/” + srcFile.substring(0, srcFile.length – dirSearch.GetExtension().length) + “mp4″);
}
}
}

Copy and paste this code snippet into a file called for instance “k770.js” and make sure you are changing the red marked entries for your system. Especially the “var srcDir =" and the "var dstDir =" have to be changed according to your directories, where srcDir should be the directory, where your raw videos are stored (those which have to be converted) and dstDir ist the directory where the converted videos are stored to.

Change targetX and targetY to the resolution of your mobile phone, typically 320 and 240 for phones with 320×240px resolution, or for the K530i, 176×220.

var targetX = 320;
var targetY = 240;

The last thing you could change is the bitrate of the video, the higher it is set, the better the quality, but also the size of the video. I found out, that 250-300 is more than plenty for the small screens of mobile phones. It depends on the quality of the source video too.


CBR=250

Same for the audio quality:

64 means 64kbit/s, you could choose a higher bitrate, like 96 or 128.

When you are finished with editing the file, save it as k770.js (or whatever) and create a bash file in the same directory where the k770.js resides.

Put this into the bash script:

avidemux2_gtk –nogui –run “k770.js” –quit

change k770.js to the filename of your created job script and save the bash script to for instance runme.sh.

Make the script executable:

chmod +x runme.sh

If everything went well, double clicking runme.sh should start converting all your videos in srcDir to dstDir to the format .mp4.

That’s it.

UPDATE: a better plugin for flash downloading has been released. Read more about it here.

As the recently released Ubuntu stable version Hardy Heron 8.04 comes with Firefox 3 (beta), my previous used plugins to download videos from Youtube aren’t currently supported, as they are mainly written for Firefox 2.x.

Therefore I had to use the Flash Video Resources downloader to be able to download those videos, which works flawlessly.

Clicking this blue symbol in the bottom right corner enables you to download the video you currently loaded via youtube:

A new page will popup after clicking the symbol, which is self explaining. Just hit the “Get Video” button, right click on the appearing “Get Flv” Field and hit “Save as” in the menu popup of firefox.

It is important, that you rename the video according to the desired name, following the type .flv.

That’s it.