sudo update-alternatives --config editor

This command will present you with a menu of all the possible options.

FATAL: Error inserting vboxnetflt (/lib/modules/2.6.32-22-generic/updates/dkms/vboxnetflt.ko): Invalid module format

Here’s the workaround until there is a proper set of updates:

sudo modprobe vboxdrv
sudo insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/updates/dkms/vboxnetflt.ko
sudo insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/updates/dkms/vboxnetadp.ko

The answer I found is relatively simple.  PortableApps.com will let you install a good number of applications onto a thumb drive, each modified so that it keeps all of its information on the thumb drive, leaving no traces on the host computer.  Sounds great, and it is.  Works like a champ.  I run Chrome, Pidgin, Skype, Notepad++, and other applications from it.

Of course this introduces another potential issue.  What happens if I lose my USB flash drive?  Now it’s in the wild with all of my information, keys, passwords, etc on it.  Obviously we need to encrypt that drive.  For me, however, the IronKey and similar products were price prohibitive.  I don’t need that data secure forever, I just need enough of a lead time after losing the drive to be able to change my passwords.

Enter TrueCrypt.  TrueCrypt is an open source product that allows you to run it directly from your USB flash drive as well, and has a native client for Windows, Linux, and OSX.  Using TrueCrypt you can create AES256 encrypted volumes and mount them using the host machine.  This means that your data is highly encrypted on the drive and any would-be hacker is going to need to figure out your password.  As long as you use a good password, this should take a long, long time.

So, the quick and dirty how-to for those who can’t figure it out for themselves:

1. Grab TrueCrypt for your OS and install it.
2. Install TrueCrypt to your flash drive as well.
3. Create a volume on your flash drive.
4. Mount the volume.
5. Install PortableApps.
6. Install any apps you want from the PortableApps web site.
7. Unmount the volume.
8. Take your stuff with you.

Once you’re on site at the customer location:

1. Insert your thumb drive.
2. Run TrueCrypt.
3. Mount your volume.
4. Run PortableApps all day.
5. Unmount your volume.
6. Eject the flash drive.

The performance is quite acceptable, and the security more than adequate.  And all in all it’s a fantastic way to take your stuff with you.

I finally noticed that when the beeping would start the screen would show an error from modem-manager, a “code 15″. I don’t have a modem or use a modem. So I ran the following command to remove modem-manager:

sudo apt-get purge modem-manager

So far, so good. I’ve rebooted about a dozen times with no beeping. I’ll keep everyone up to date.

1. Open Dolphin
2. Click Settings -> Configure Dolphin
3. Select Trash on the left
4. Uncheck the box that says “Limit to maximum size”
5. Click OK

Now, this will improve the speed of being able to trash files, but at the expense of KDE being willing to fill up your drive for you.  Be sure to manage your trash if you’re going to disable this option.

The good news is there is a workaround for both desktops.  For Ubuntu you’ll need to switch out your clipboard manager as described in the bug.

For KDE the process is simple.  Right click the Klipper icon in your System Tray and select “Configure Klipper”.  Uncheck the box next to “Prevent empty clipboard” and you’re good to go.

Sometimes when I’ve been accessing my laptop remotely via VNC my number pad will quit working.  The number lock is on, I can see the indicator right there.  The alternate functions of the keys aren’t working either, though.  So what’s up?

Accessibility is what’s up.  For some reason unknown to me Ubuntu chooses to turn on what it calls “Mouse Keys”.  Basically when you try using your number pad you’ll notice your mouse cursor moving ever so slightly with each press of a numeral.  Here’s how to make it stop.

1. Go to System -> Preferences -> Assistive Technologies.
2. When the Assistive Technologies Preferences screen opens, click the Keyboard Accessibility button.
3. When the Keyboard Preferences screen opens, select the Mouse Keys tab.
4. Uncheck the box labeled “Pointer can be controlled using the keypad”.
5. Close out of all dialogs.

That’s all there is to it.  Your keypad is now functional again.

2009-04-24 Update:

Shift-Number Lock is a shortcut for turning this ‘feature’ off and on.  For some reason mouse keys do not honor the setting that determines if accessibility features can be turned on and off with keyboard shortcuts.

1. Don’t expect a candidate to pick up the phone. There’s a good chance they’re working during the day.
2. Don’t expect a candidate to call you back. For every publicized job, a qualified candidate might hear from fifteen or twenty different agencies in three days.
3. Leave a voice mail explaining that you’ll email details of the contract position. You might be a phone person, but there’s a good chance that your candidate isn’t. By supplying an email with the details in it, you’re giving the candidate time to mull over the opportunity and respond with well formed sentences and coherent thoughts, which, of course, is opposite of a people person. The phone call isn’t even really necessary except to let them know there’s an interest and to make sure your email doesn’t end up in the spam pile.
4. Don’t be audially pushy. Yes, it’s a weird way to express this phenomenon: A recruiter calls twice a day every day for a week, just trying to get some contact. The candidate is working during the hours the recruiter calls and so forwards the call to voicemail. The candidate calls back after business hours, but the recruiter is gone. Then, at the end of the week, the candidate has ten voice mails and no written communication from a recruiter who keeps saying the same thing over and over again. It’s not pretty. Now, multiply this by the fifteen or twenty different agencies.
5. Use the email. Candidates who might be currently working may be able to check personal email within the cubicle confines; this is not the case with a phone call. Emails allow free-flowing communication between the recruiter and the candidate without divulging any personal information to the cubicle walls…which may put a current job in jeopardy, regardless of the outcome.
6. If you want to fill a position bad enough, you will make yourself available after 5 PM.
7. Be different. If you think fifteen other agencies are hiring for this position, you need to sweeten the deal. Sometimes little things make a big difference, like contract completion bonuses, work from home options, hardware, software, flex shifts, parking spots, driving out of the sun versus into the sun, paid parking, health insurance, dental insurance, retirement plans/savings deferment options, referral bonuses, and long-term working relationships. If you want to nurture a long-term working relationship with a contract candidate, consider maintaining weekly contact with him; tell him corporate news; describe how you’re helping him find his next contract; suggest skills training that would help him along the way, and how you’ll pay half.
8. When you say you’ll keep them in mind for other opportunities, keep them in mind for other opportunities. Name recognition is much like branding; when they’re looking for work or when they have friends who are looking for work, you want that name recognition at the top of their minds. I know you’re busy, but it’d be worth a short lead list and personal weekly email to that lead list for you to have a pool of candidates that will follow you to whichever agency you choose.
9. When you say you’ll keep them in mind for other opportunities, they know you’re full of bullshit. You lose credibility unless you follow through.
10. Be first. It’s a cutthroat industry.

Finding Candidates Outside of Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com: Ten Places You Never Thought To Look

1. Ask your current contractors. Hence, the newsletter.
2. Ask questions and post jobs on LinkedIn. This is such an overlooked avenue.
3. Craigslist. Don’t be cute, just put the job title in the title; otherwise, you must be in a pyramid scheme. Make sure you give all the details you can.
4. Local Interest and Hobby Groups: If you need a programmer who work in Linux, try the RedHat support group. If you need a designer, try the Arts Association. Better yet, join it so you can get some credibility.
5. Talk to your personal insurance agent. If anyone know the gossip, it’s the office staff who works for him.
6. Make an arrangement with a local resume-writing service. Ask around to find out who the resume aficionados in the area are, and talk to them about finding candidates. People only work on resumes when they’re looking for work.
7. Colleges. Check with job placement boards and meet with professors and GTAs in the fields in which you’re hiring. Frequently they’ll make announcements in class and might pass out cards.
8. Other recruiters. Have you contemplated sub-sub-sub contracting? Maybe the two can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
9. Barnes & Noble. People hang out in the stores that interest them. “Hi, I’m Joe Recruiter, I work for Agency, here’s my card, please call me about a C# position.” Then walk away. Any more words than that and you must be in a pyramid scheme.
10. Ask your teenage babysitter. Offer her a cut. She knows which kids’ parents are unemployed and what they do for a living. Or her friends will. Or she’ll pass it to her friends for a cut.

If you have hardware volume controls on your keyboard or laptop you probably don’t agree with the default 6% increase/decrease in your volume every time you turn the volume up or down using the hardware volume keys.  Changing this stepping is easy and safe.

1. From a console run ‘gconf-editor’.
2. Navigate through the tree to ‘/apps/gnome_settings_daemon’.
3. Change the value of the ‘volume_step’ setting to a whole integer between 0 and 100.
4. Quit the Configuration Editor.

The volume_step setting is stored as a percentage.  The default is 6 (or 6% of the volume with every button press) though this seems high in my setup.  3% works much better for me.

This fix allows your on screen display (OSD) and the system tray volume control to continue to work as expected.

I’m still searching for a realistic solution for Kubuntu users.

We’ve all been subjected to this scourge of the Internet over the last several years.  As you’re filling out an online form you come to the sudden realization that the form is asking you to put in your email address twice.  The first time I saw this I was dumbfounded.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, in this day and age, we, the self proclaimed enlightened Internet folk, were taking cues from the worst the insurance industry had to offer.

I fumed slightly, but accepted that I would just have to cut and paste what I typed (or, more than likely was auto-filled by my browser) into this second field.  Then recently I found a site that was using javascript to block me from being able to cut and paste into the second field.  So now you’ve gone from making me duplicate information to jacking with how my input devices work?  Really?

Oh, I’ve heard a few excuses from people about why they put two email fields on their forms.

1. The email address is very important, it’s how the user will receive (insert notification here).
2. Their email address is their user id, it is critical it be right.
3. Bad addresses clog up my spam, err, mailing lists.
4. It was on the best practices list at xxxxxx.com.

Let’s start with reason #4 (because it’s my blog and I can do them in whatever order I want to).  First, you shouldn’t believe everything you read, especially if you read it on the Internet.  Second, and more importantly, is that every best practices list of any value in the world will tell you to eliminate duplication.  This reason is a non-starter.

Reason #3?  Also hooey.  If your mailer software was well done it would dispose of invalid email addresses.  Asking every user of your system to double up forever on part of their work so that you don’t have to do work once to correct your problem should never be the answer.

So let’s examine the first two reasons.  In these two instances it is important that you get the user’s correct email address.  However, let’s examine the reality of asking for their email address twice.

First of all, you’ll have the people like me who cut/paste it.  If I screwed it up in the first box, the second one will be identical.  You aren’t helping me.  The people who cautiously type it in to both boxes?  They were being cautious and would have gotten it right anyway.  So you didn’t really accomplish your goal there.

Additionally I believe you are missing the real point.  Your goal is to establish that the user is receiving emails at the address provided, not to see if they can type the same thing twice.  The only way to do this is to send an email to that address with a link or some other registration verification device and require the user to act on it.  So the form might go as follows:

1. Ask the user for their email address, then explain that the system will email them a code that they will enter on the next screen.  The user enters their email address and clicks the submit button.
2. On the second screen we ask the user for all of the information we want.  First name, last name, dog’s maiden name, whatever is pertinent.  The final field, just before the submit button, should ask for the registration code we emailed to the user.
3. The user submits their form, with a proper registration code, and all is right with the world.
4. In case the user did submit the wrong email address on the first form, we should provide a link on this second page for them to click and re-enter their email address, pre-populating the field from the information previously entered.

By asking for the registration code at the end of the form it gives our email time to arrive in the user’s email inbox and keeps them busy while we wait for it to do so.  This allows us to verify that the user can in fact receive emails at the address provided.

The next time you’re considering making your users work twice as hard, ask yourself if it is really worth it and if it will really accomplish your goal.  In most cases it isn’t and won’t.