my random thoughts

I wanted to be able to setup a reverse proxy with nginx and apache but continue using Virtualmin GPL to manage my domains. The only reason I wanted a reverse proxy is that several of the domains I host utilize a very large amount of images. I wanted a efficient way to handle these images since apache uses the same process to handle everything for the domain user and thus its memory footprint continued to grow till the process was killed. Thus I had processes using 150+ MB of memory just to serve a picture.

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13 comments.

So, I had trouble getting my Epson Workforce 520 printer working on Ubuntu.  Ubuntu recongized the printer and even allowed me to install it recommending drivers, etc.  But whenever I tried to print something, the printer would just spit out blank pages.  Natty promised to download the propriatory drivers from Epson's website.  Well it does but unfortunately doesn't allow you to choose the new driver to use!!  

So, here's how I did it.  

First, download the driver from OpenPrinting and install it (download the appropriate 32bit or 64bit deb for your system).

Now, open a root terminal or become root (sudo su).

cd /opt/epson-inkjet-printer-workforce-525/ppds/Epson

gunzip Epson-WorkForce_520_Series-epson-driver.ppd.gz

Now, we are going to install the printer via Cups Web Interface so open a browser and browse to http://localhost:631.

Under the middle section, CUPS for Administrators, click Adding Printers and Classes.  

Click the Add Printer button.

After CUPS searches and finds your printer, choose the desired printer and click Continue.

Note: If you are installing the Epson via the network (wifi), there will probably be two printers listed that looks something like:
EPSON42B519 (WorkForce 520) (EPSON WorkForce 520)
EPSON WorkForce 520 (EPSON WorkForce 520).  

Choose the EPSON WorkForce 520 (EPSON WorkForce 520).  When you click Continue, the connection for the printer should be something like "lpd://192.168.1.25:515/PASSTHRU" (with the IP address of the printer of course).  If it is not, go back and choose the other.

Near the bottom, choose to manually select a PPD file beside "Or Provide a PPD File."  Browse to /opt/epson-inkjet-printer-workforce-525/ppds/Epson and choose the file, Epson-WorkForce_520_Series-epson-driver.ppd.  

Click Add Printer, set your printer defaults, and you're done!  The printer should now show up and be ready to use.

 

4 comments.

 I just upgraded my iPad to iOS 4.2.1.  As most have figured out by now, AirPrint is not available for printers outside of the chosen few HP printers.  So, of course I set out to find a way to make it happen with my Samsung multifunction printer.  To my delight, Ubuntu comes with all you need pretty much out of the box.  All I had to do was create a printer service file for avahi, make a couple changes to CUPS config, then restart cups and BAM, I'm printing from my iPad.

Okay, so here are the details.  This of course assumes that you already have an installed and functioning printer within Ubuntu.

First, let's create the service file for avahi.

sudo pico /etc/avahi/services/printer.service

Insert the following into the file and save by holding the control key then hit O

<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?><!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">
<service-group>
  <name>My Printer</name>
  <service>
    <type>_ipp._tcp</type>
    <subtype>_universal._sub._ipp._tcp</subtype>
    <port>631</port>
    <txt-record>txtver=1</txt-record>
    <txt-record>qtotal=1</txt-record>
    <txt-record>rp=printers/My-Printer-CUPS-Name</txt-record>
    <txt-record>ty=My Printer</txt-record>
    <txt-record>adminurl=http://198.168.1.4:631/printers/My-Printer-CUPS-Name</txt-record>
    <txt-record>note=My Printer</txt-record>
    <txt-record>priority=0</txt-record>
    <txt-record>product=virtual Printer</txt-record>
    <txt-record>printer-state=3</txt-record>
    <txt-record>printer-type=0x801046</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Transparent=T</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Binary=T</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Fax=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Color=T</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Duplex=T</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Staple=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Copies=T</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Collate=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Punch=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Bind=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Sort=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>Scan=F</txt-record>
    <txt-record>pdl=application/octet-stream,application/pdf,application/postscript,image/jpeg,image/png,image/urf</txt-record>
    <txt-record>URF=W8,SRGB24,CP1,RS600</txt-record>
  </service>
</service-group>

  

 

The things to change are in red. My Printer can be anything you want.  My-Printer-CUPS-Name has to be the name CUPS has assigned to the printer.  You can obtain this by going to System -> Administration -> Printing or browsing to CUPS web admin.  In  Ubuntu's printer manager, it will be whatever is listed underneath the printer image.  The IP address in the adminurl should be the IP of the computer that has the printer installed.  

Of course you can change the options such as Duplex, etc based on your printers features.

Now, you need to change a couple things with CUPS config.

sudo pico /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

Make sure you have the following:

ServerAlias *
Port 631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock

 

Now go back to System -> Administration -> Printing and click Server -> Settings.  Make sure "Publish shared printers connected to this system" is checked.  Click OK.  Restart the CUPS server.

sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

You should now be able to print from the iPad!

and tagged with ipad, airprint, ios, 4.2, apple, ubuntu, maverick, 10.10, iphone, CUPS

40 comments.

I've recently setup an Ubuntu server that uses suPHP.  I wanted to also use phpMyAdmin but found that there were some issues with getting it to work with phpMyAdmin.  I found some work arounds while Googleing but nothing definitive.  So this is how I did it.

The first problem I ran across was that suPHP would not allow phpMyAdmin to run because Ubuntu installs it into /usr/share/phpmyadmin rather than the default web document root /var/www.  So suPHP would return the error " File "/usr/share/phpmyadmin/index.php" is not in document root of Vhost "/var/www."  Some got around this by simply installing phpMyAdmin manually in /var/www but I'd rather let Ubuntu handle it.  (suPHP would not allow symlinks either).

The easiest way to get around this would be to tell suPHP to ignore that security restriction by editing /etc/suphp/suphp.conf and change

;Check wheter script is within DOCUMENT_ROOT
check_vhost_docroot=true

to

;Check wheter script is within DOCUMENT_ROOT
check_vhost_docroot=false

But that screamed "SECURITY BREACH" to me so that was not an option. 

So, what I did was make phpMyAdmin its own virtual host. 

Edit Apache's phpMyAdmin config file:

sudo pico /etc/apache2/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf

At the beginning of this file add:

<VirtualHost *:80> 

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost 
DocumentRoot /usr/share/phpmyadmin

At the end of the file, add

</VirtualHost>

Save by holding down the Control key and hit the o key.  Then ctrl-x to exit.

Then, tell suPHP that /usr/share/phpmyadmin is okay:

sudo pico /etc/apache2/mods-available/suphp.conf

Add the following  before "</IfModule>":

<Directory /usr/share/phpmyadmin>

               suPHP_Engine on

</Directory>

And in /etc/suphp/suphp.conf, add phpmyadmin's directory to an allowed docroot:

;Path all scripts have to be in

docroot=/var/www:${HOME}/public_html:/usr/share/phpmyadmin

Now, after browsing to http://mysite.com/phpmyadmin, I got a 500 Internal Error message.  Searching the logs, I found this message:

UID of script "/usr/share/phpmyadmin/index.php" is smaller than min_uid

Two issues.  One is that the Ubuntu's phpMyAdmin install is owned by root.  Easy fix:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/phpmyadmin

But, still get the same error.  So the second reason is that suPHP is configured to have a minimum UID of 100.  www-data's UID is 33.  So, edit suPHP's config to change the minimum to 33.

sudo pico /etc/suphp/suphp.conf

Change:

; Minimum UID
min_uid=100

; Minimum GID
min_gid=100

to:

; Minimum UID
min_uid=33

; Minimum GID
min_gid=33

Make sure you change the min_gid as well or else suPHP will still reject phpMyAdmin.  I guess this could be a potential security issue as well but less of a one than letting web scripts have free rein outside their designated directories.

Now we have suPHP and phpMyAdmin working together! 

 

15 comments.

I've had to play with this every time I reinstall Ubuntu and want to setup a VNC web client which is really handy when I'm work and need to access my PC at home for whatever reason. 

First, make sure you have remote desktop enabled by going to Menu -> System -> Preferences -> Remote Desktop.  Click "Allow other users to view your desktop" and "Allow other users to control your desktop."  For my use, since I VNC into my desktop from remote locations and thus will not be at my desk to accept my own connection, I uncheck "You must confirm each access to this machine" and check "Require the user to enter this password."  Make sure you use a strong password.  Of course, you may need to configure your router to forward incoming communication for ports 5800 and 5900 to your desktop you're wanting to connect into. 

Second, if you do not already have apache installed, install it:

sudo apt-get install apache2

Third, download the tightvnc-java package. I use the latest version at Tightvnc's website rather than the one in Ubuntu's repositories. Download and extract the java Binary *.class and JAR files in Zip archive (or Tar+Gzip) and extract the contents wherever you want.

Finally, open Nautilus as root by hitting Ctrl-F2 and typing gksu nautilus (or if you're a Linux pro, you can use a terminal to copy the contents to /var/www/vnc).  Browse to /var/www and create a folder named vnc.  Copy the contents of the java vnc viewer to /var/www/vnc. Open index.html and replace all the contents with this:

<HTML>
<TITLE>
TightVNC desktop
</TITLE>
<APPLET CODE="VncViewer.class" CODEBASE=classes/ ARCHIVE="VncViewer.jar"
        WIDTH="800" HEIGHT="632">
<PARAM NAME="PORT" VALUE="5900">
<param name="Open New Window" value="yes">
</APPLET>
<BR>
<A href="http://www.tightvnc.com/">TightVNC site</A>
</HTML>

And that should do it.  You can now access it via http://ip.address/vnc or use a dynamic DNS service such s DnsExit to create a domain name that points to your home IP. 

 

 

No comments.

Well, it never fails that when I upgrade Ubuntu, I run into a few issues.  Gotta love open source. :-)

The issue was with my ATI drivers.  I had initially installed them using ATI's script for the catalyst 10.4 driver which is suppose to have support for Ubuntu 10.04.  But after installing it, every little movement was super choppy and jerky.  So I decided to remove it.  Usually easy enough right?  Just a sudo apt-get remove fglrx and success?  Nope.

Removing fglrx ...
dpkg-divert: mismatch on package
  when removing `diversion of /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 to /usr/lib/fglrx/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa by fglrx'
  found `diversion of /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 to /usr/lib/fglrx/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa by xorg-driver-fglrx'
dpkg: error processing fglrx (--purge):
 subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 2
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 fglrx

It failed.  After searching for a long time, I finally came across a discreet page that gave me what I needed to make it happen.

sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2
sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1.2 sudo dpkg --force-all --purge fglrx

Success! Afterward, just make sure you reinstall either xorg's open source ATI driver or Ubuntu's fglrx package as you might find yourself in low graphics mode otherwise :-)  You may also need to do

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Later...I found this post which helped tremendously as well.

3 comments.

So, my well used WD 160GB portable drive started clicking.  I heavily use it to store my web development files and when the clicks started, I became very nervous.  So, I did a search for a new drive.  Well, as I often do, I impulsively bought the WD My Password SE 1TB drive from Amazon thinking, wow that much space, so portable and decently priced! (It was as much as my 160GB I bought two years ago).  I began nightly backups (wonderful tool rsync is) until my new drive arrived. 

It finally arrived yesterday.  I was so impressed with my slick, little drive with so much data capacity.  I quickly reformatted (to ext3 of course) and synced my files from the old to the new.  Then I had the wake up call.  I picked up the drive to move some cables around and bam, connection was lost and bye bye all unsaved data.  What the crap?  Turns out, the slightest little touch of the cable causes it to lose connection, and I do mean the slightest touch.  Wouldn't mind it so much if this wasn't a portable drive.  Who designed this thing?  They should be fired.

No comments.

I'm always on the search for a decent piece of software to help track the time I spend on various coding projects for clients.  Before I found Tasktop, I was already using Mylyn tasks to plan out items I needed to do for various projects.  But I used a timer no my phone, then manually recorded the time into another project tracker such as Zoho Projects, JForce, or Trac.  A pain in the you know what if you know what I mean.  As I usually do when I have had enough with my current method of doing things, I do a google search to see if anything new presents itself.  Well, this time my search led me to Tasktop and I was sold as soon as I tried the trial.

Tasktop is not the perfect solution for me.  The perfect solution is an all-in-one project tracker, invoice and quote manager.  The project trackers above fall short and/or are expensive for small-scale freelancers like myself.  However, Tasktop has solved my time tracking issues and has made it very convenient to code for clients within Eclipse and track billable hours.  And, if I use a supported connector, Tasktop will keep my tasks and time in sync with various project trackers! 

I'm not going to layout all of Tasktop's feature as you can head over to Tasktop.com to see and experience it for yourself.  However I will layout a couple of my favourite features.  

1) I love the feature that opens all the windows you were working on when you deactivated a task.  This makes sure that only windows (editor or built-in browser) that are pertinent to the task are open.  It is such a convenience and a time saver!

2) I live off Google calendar and Tasktop allows syncing tasks as calendar events to my calendar!  It will even display the current events in the bottom left hand corner of Eclipse.  It gives you the option to sync the due date/time and or scheduled date for the task. 

3) Of course my most favourite and the reason I found Tasktop to begin with, is the time tracker capability.  I can add/edit/remove time items to be billed.  The ONLY thing I do not care for and have communicated to Tasktop is the way the "No Task Active Time."  Basically it tracks the time that Eclipse is open but a task is not activated.  However, I'm bouncing back and forth between items for clients and I have not found a way to tell it to divvy out  no task active time between the clients appropriately.  So, I'm forced to just ignore it.  Myabe I'm configuring it wrong, I dunno.  I hope I am and will be enlightened soon ;-)

 

Anyway, Tasktop pro is $99 bucks but for me, it is well worth it.

No comments.

I like it.  Looks much more professional and not so "bright and bubbly."    I like the label drop down where I can select as many labels as I want by selecting or deselecting the check boxes then clicking Apply.   Rows look more tight as well.  The colors are more tame and appealing.

I was looking forward to themes but I like the new look so much, now I really don't care.

Do you like the new look?  Why or why not?

No comments.

I recently came across jFusion, a powerful and revolutionary Joomla component to bridge Joomla with various softwares.  I started testing out its plugin for vBulletin (the forum software used on this site).  After posting some questions, hacks, and suggestions, I offered to help out in developing the vBulletin plugin.  I was soon afterward invited to join the team!  I, along with another gentleman named Haythem, will be maintaining the vBulletin plugin.

 We have already made huge leaps in getting the vBulletin plugin working well with Joomla!  The next release of jFusion (set for December 25th) will include the newly enhanced vBulletin plugin!  But if you can't wait, check out our SVN at http://code.google.com/p/jfusion.

1 comments.

UPDATE 2010 May 23: For Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid), it is no longer required to download and install the individual 32bit libraries.  Just follow step number 2 and 9-12.

 

I decided to upgrade my version of Eclipse to the latest, 3.4.  I have a 32bit laptop and a 64 bit desktop.  I hate having to maintain two copies of Eclipse so I maintain one 32bit version of Eclipse on my jump drive.  Obviously, this poses some problems with my 64bit desktop.  There a ways to get a 32bit version of Eclipse fully functional on a 64bit OS.  With 3.3, I had no problems doing this.  But with 3.4, I ran into some new issues.  Specifically with getting the Aptana plugin to work properly.  Nothing in the aptana perspective would display and it would crash with errors relating to it not finding a suitable xulrunner.

 This is how I ended up doing it.  I used parts of the how to found here on the Ubuntu forums posted by linuxed.

1)  I downloaded the following packages: 

Eclipse
libnss3-1d 32-bit
xulrunner-1.8 32-bit
libnspr4-0d 32-bit
libstartup-notification0 32-bit
libhunspell-1.1-0 32-bit

2)  Install the following via apt

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs ia32-sun-java6-bin

 3) Create a temporary folder lib32

mkdir lib32

 4) Extract the above packages, then extract data.tar.gz in each of the library packages.  

5) Copy the following files from the corresponding packages' data.tar.gz to the lib32 folder you created

libnss3-1d: usr/lib:

• libnss3.so.1d
• libnssutil3.so.1d
• libsmime3.so.1d
• libssl3.so.1d

libnss3-1d: usr/lib/nss:

• libfreebl3.so
• libnssckbi.so
• libnssdbm3.so
• libsoftokn3.so

Copy all the files in usr/lib for  libnspr4-0d, libstartup-notificaton0 and libhunspell-1.1-0

6) Place the entire xulrunner folder in the lib32 folder

7) Place the entire eclipse directory wherever you want to run it from.  For me, it was my jump drive.  For you it may be /opt, /usr/lib32, or whatever.

8)  Copy the entire lib32 directory to /usr/lib32

sudo cp -R lib32/* /usr/lib32/

 9) Create the following file:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/eclipse

 10) Place the following into the file and save it

export PATH=/direct/path/to/eclipse/installation/:/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/bin:/usr/lib32/:$PATH
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib32/xulrunner/ cd /direct/path/to/eclipse/installation/
./eclipse $*

11) Make it executable

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/eclipse

 12) Run eclipse from either the application launcher or a terminal

To get Aptana installed and working, do the following

1) Open Eclipse and intall the SDK.  Click Help->Software Updates.  click on the Available Software tab and type in"eclipse sdk." Click on "Eclipse SDK" and then install.

2) Once installed, restart eclipse.  Then go to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Capabilities  and check "Classic Update"

3) Go to Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install. Select " Search for new features to install" and click next.  Click "New Remote Site" and add "http://update.aptana.com/update/studio/3.2/site.xml"

4) Click Ok then Finish.  Install Aptana.

5) Restart and you should be good to go!

Comment below if you have any questions or run into roadblocks.

2 comments.

So I stumbled upon assembla.com back in the early stages of phpScheduleEm and instantly fell in love.  At the time I was hosting my own SVN/Trac server but was a pain because of issues with my ISP.  I did a search to see if there were any services out there to host svn/trac for me.  During that search, I happened to stumble upon assembla, a feature rich site full of tools for the software developer.

At the time, assembla was completely free.  But just within the last week they are beginning to roll out a subscription based service and making all future free acounts public.  They are charging $2 per user and $3 per gigabyte of space used.  I immediately bought a $100 dollars worth of subscription credits.  The price was absolutely unbeatable for the services I get.

It is at assembla.com where I keep track of all my tasks, bugs, and features and host the latest code.  Users do not report bugs here, but I put the bugs into the trac system once they are confirmed for this is strictly my development workspace.  (Bugs should be reported using this site.)  I use eclipse to develop my applications which has a mylyn trac connector which allows me to easily manage my tickets as I'm developing.  Eclipse also allows me to manage my svn repository.

Anyway, I digress.  I highly recommend assembla.  It not only provides svn and trac but a slew of other services such as Mercurial, Git, time keeping, wiki, milestones, tickets, files, chat, and other to collaborate between users developing the same project.  The space interface is customizable giving it the look and feel of however you want.  I have not had any problems with it thus far except for the minor detail of not being able to edit a comment of a svn commit.  I've contacted support and will hopefully get this worked out soon.

Check them out!

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Yahoo!  I received my 16gb microSDHC card today.  It doubles the capacity of my ATT Tilt.  I now do not have to be so picky as to what music to place on the Tilt.   I can now adequately test  if I like TomTom or CoPilot better because I can fit both sets of maps on the card.  And best of all,  I only spent $86 bucks which includes shipping by ordering it from the UK because it isn't available in the states yet :-)  (And when it does, it is suppose to retail at $99 bucks.)  I spent $120 on the 8gb when it came out.  Crazy.  Will the 32gb card be cheaper when it comes out :-)

No comments.

I've launched http://www.hartlessbydesign.com.  It will be where I host the web applications I release.  I created an application for work to streamline the scheduling of our employees.  We haven't had a chance to use because of Ike but hopefully we will within a couple months.  Anyway, check it out!

No comments.

So Garmin released his new ROM which works perfect on my tilt.  All my SIPs (soft input panels) are now working.  The ROM is fast and more stable than any other I've used.  Great job Garmin! 

No comments.

So today Google FINALLY came up with a solution to keep your contacts clean and uncluttered.  Traditional Gmail auto added email addresses as an email conversation took place.  This was really annoying since email addresses for mailing lists, Blog posts, forum posts, etc were all added to the contacts thus adding hundreds of unwanted email addresses to the list.  

 They wrote on their blog:

My Contacts contains the contacts you explicitly put in your address book (via manual entry, import or sync) as well as any address you've emailed a lot (we're using five or more times as the threshold for now).

Suggested Contacts is where Gmail puts its auto-created contacts. By default, Suggested Contacts you email frequently are automatically added to My Contacts, but for those of you who prefer tighter control of your address books, you can choose to disable usage-based addition of contacts to My Contacts (see the checkbox in the screenshot above). Once you do this, no matter how many times you email an auto-added email address it won't move to My Contacts.

 

Hooray for Google!  I am a happier Google user.

Now there are just two more things that would put me in Google bliss.  The first, a TASK LIST MANAGER.  This has been asked for since they released Google Calendar but of course still no go.  They posted in a Google Calendar Help Group,

Hey everyone - thanks for the loud and very clear feedback on your desire for a to-do/task list feature. We're pretty passionate about to-do lists here as well, and we've got something in the works. Of course, we're working to add our special Google secret sauce to the to-do lists space (which can take some time to get right,) so we don't have something to announce just yet, but the entire team is listening to these threads closely.  

 

Well that was in October of last year and still no Task List.  

And of course after the task list has to come a complete Google PIM sync with mobile devices.  Then, I'll be in Google bliss.

No comments.

So I just upgraded to the best ROM I've played with for my Tilt.  Garmin's Garmin.DK.1 WM 6.1 Premium has been the most stable, best performing, unbloated ROM I've tried. I'm sticking with his ROMs! I love it.

But...at no fault of his, WM6.1 has apparently made it a headache to get third party SIPs (Soft Input Panels) to work properly. I've had gone round and round and round trying to get TouchPal v3.5 (my absolutely favorite SIP) to work. As a matter of fact, I can't get any third party SIP to work. I asked in the xda-developer forums:

Skatdawg (or anybody), could you enlighten me as to why it is so important for the sip to be installed first? I'm just curious because does that mean when (if) I can get a sip to actually work and I want to add a new one or change it later down the road, I have to hard reset, install the sip, get the sip working, and then totally re-setup my device? I don't remember having this problem with wm5 or wm6.

Skatdawg, a very active member in the forums, stated the following in response:

It's unfortunate but true that wm6.1 doesn't seem to play will with SIPs, though you may be able to install them later on, it doesn't always work. WE just recommend the mentioned method because it gives you the highest probability of success. The reason you don't remember this problem from wm5 or wm6 is that it probably didn't exist, but SIP issues are becoming increasingly more common, and accordingly the senior members around here are recommending the "best practice" which is not a requirement, but probably a good idea. Hopefully that helps clear it up a little.

The mentioned method is to install the SIP first before anything else. Then use IMselector or sipchange to make it default. I've tried that, numerous times, and to no luck. I'm not for sure why I'm having such a difficult time with this. I'm quite aggravated. This is my only issue and if I could just get it fixed, this ROM would be the most perfect one yet!

No comments.

No comments.

So, Google added Gmail Labs which is a play ground for Google's employees to place their 20% projects.  (Google gives their employees 20% of their time to create whatever they want. Pretty cool).  I like this idea and hope some useful things get incorporated into Gmail.  Right now, there are only 13 features which are not very useful. 

 At first, Gmail Labs was not enabled in my Google Apps account even though I have the setting enabled in my Gmail control panel to add new features as they are available to general Gmail users.  I found that Labs appeared when I created a new user.  

Now if Google will only give the option to disable auto add of contacts!!  My contacts are extremely cluttered with email addresses I don't care to keep!

No comments.

Microsoft is wipping out some crazy technology. I read an article by Bill Gates in a magazine all about robotics at Barnes And Noble (I can't remember the name of the magazine.) Mr. Gates was talking about how great it would be and how close we are to running our household with robots. The Microsoft Home in Redmon, Washington is the play ground for Microsoft's new innovations to making the home advanced with amazing technology.

 I just read an article on CrunchGear and watched a video about Microsoft's new TouchWall which is a touch screen technology. It is pretty cool. It is made up of lasers, cameras, a projector, a flat surface (any flat surface), and software named Plex which runs on standard Vista. You can zoom in, zoom out, watch videos, flip through word documents, flip through pictures, annotate, and more. If you have a red pen in your hand, the camera will pick that up and allow you to annotate with red pixels on the screen. If you have a digital camera on the surface, then it will recognize the camera and begin to download the pictures. Quite amazing. Check it out:

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPrfqdl55D0]

Back to my title. With Bill Gates' dream regarding the future of robotics and with the obvious financial backing and innovation to make it happen, will Will Smith's sci-fi movie I, Robot become a reality to us in the year 2035? And will Microsoft be the cause of it?  Dum dum dum.

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