Mac OS X 10.6.8 wireless issues

I had been having some trouble with wireless networks after updating to 10.6.8. There are numerous posts on the internet about this. I did install the combo update, but my system would still sometimes drop connections for no reason. Tried resetting the SMC, tried deleting all the networks and adding them back. But still the same. Today morning my macbook pro just refused to connect altogether. (Seemed like it finally gave up! :) ). Anyways, after a lot of search and figuring out that it was connected and able to ping servers (Ip) outside the network, I finally deleted the SystemConfiguration file under HD/Library/Preferences (I did take a backup of the folder just in case!). Mac is supposed to rebuild these preferences from scratch if you delete it. And it worked!! Well my mac connected instantly to the internet and has not dropped connection yet. Lets see how it goes. Will post the details in a day or two.

Disclaimer
Please do the above at your own risk. And always ALWAYS take a backup. What worked for my system might not work for yours. 

Google Annotated timeline - good example

Anyone interested in using the Google Annotated timeline should go through this code:

The examples provided by google are quite simple and does not provide much information about the methods and events of the timeline. The code provided above uses most of the methods and might come in handy while integrating this timeline in a bigger project.

Cheers!!!

Error calling method on NPObject

Recently got this error while trying to a Motion Chart (Google Visualization).

Went through quite a few webpages to find the issue. It seems it was a flash security issue.

Solution:

The google api which is called using https://www.google.com/jsapi
should be changed to unsecure using HTTP.

Not sure about the security issues related to it, but for my application functionality is the primary concern now :).
More stuff related to JS and Google visualization on its way !!!

Setting up ASU gmail on outlook

http://help.asu.edu/sims/selfhelp/SelfhelpKbView.seam?parature_id=8373-8193-436&source=Selfhelp&cid=9265

Follow the above link. Make sure you set the IMAP password separately using the link provided in the above page.

Also in case you are not able to connect even after all the settings are in place, make sure to visit this site to unlock your username

https://www.google.com/a/asu.edu/UnlockCaptcha

Dropbox Speed Troubles

Recently had some issues with dropbox download speeds. First thoughts were that some network bandwidth settings (not the preferences in dropbox, those were already set to "don't limit") on my mac. But the same issues occurred 3 more systems.

I was trying to sync around 49K files. Dropbox performs a hash check on each file before uploading/downloading. And hence the slow download/upload speeds. Solution: Zipped the folder. Started sync again. Done in less than 2 mins.

Cheers!!!

Windows 7 64 installation - Cannot find CD/DVD drivers

Encountered this "amusing" error message few days back, while trying to install Windows 7 64 on a inspiron 1525. After booting up from the DVD, Windows threw the error

"Cannot find CD/DVD drivers" !!!

I do not remember the exact error message. The DVD drivers were present and was working fine. I know that because, the installation was done from the DVD. It had to read the DVD to throw that message!!!. Kinda reminds you of the famous error message "cannot find keyboard, please press any key to continue" :)

Well it turns out the ISO image I downloaded (legally :) ) was corrupted and consequently the Win 7 DVD which I had burnt was also corrupted.

Lessons Learnt:

--> When downloading an ISO image, always check the HASH to make sure you have the correct ISO. HASHCALC is a good software to check the hash of iso images. More information on how to use hashcalc and also some of the hash and md5 of windows iso images can be found in this thread. The official hash can be found on MSDN, though you might have to be registered with MSDN to access it.

--> Also make sure that you select the lowest write speed. (I selected 4x) .

IMGBURN is good image burning software.

Hope this saves time for someone who gets this confusing error message...

Cheers!!!

Bluetooth Stereo on Windows 7 64 bit - Dell Inspiron 1525

I recently got a Arctic Sound P311 Bluetooth Stereo Headset (which btw is awesome!!!).

I tried connecting this to a inspiron 1525 laptop running windows 7 64 bit. Had some trouble and had to do a bit of googling to figure out how to use it. So here are the steps:

1) Get proper drivers. This thread provides names of the drivers which are required to get Windows 7 working properly on Inspiron. (for some reason, dell does not provide win 7 drivers for inspiron, so most of the drivers you see are still from dell, but are for Vista 64!!!)

For bluetooth we need the following drivers (and install them in same order)

R159805

R140135

Google up the terms above and download it from the dell link.

2) Once both these are installed, ADD a Device in Bluetooth and add your bluetooth headset. Windows will search for the correct drivers now and install them.

3) Once connected and configured, right click on the sound icon, select "playback devices" . Here you should be able to see two bluetooth devices "headset earphone - bluetooth hands-free audio" and "headset earphone - bluetooth stereo audio" . right click the latter and "test" it . Once you confirm it plays well, right click again and select "set as default communication device".

Enjoy wireless stereo audio from your laptop.

Cheers!!!

Lisp installation on windows 7

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This was supposed to be posted 5 months back :) . Better late than never. Might post some more stuff related to LISP if I get time.

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LISP installation on windows 7

I am currently doing a course on AI, which required me to work with LISP. (From what I read in the first tutorial, once you learn LISP, everything will be clearer. Well honestly as now I have not done much work on LISP and am still doing basic programming. So NEO is yet to see the code!!! :)

I tried working with LISPBOX which as the name suggests, packages everything you need for LISP (SBCL, EMACS and SLIME) into one box. Download it and run the lispbox.bat file which fires up the EMACS editor. Its the easiest way to run LISP for a beginner. BUT for some reason, it will not evaluate even common expression sometimes (Just goes to the next line, and i am still not able to figure out how to "quit" from it without killing the entire EMACS editor.)

Which brings us to the installation of SBCL and SLIME separately. Found a tutorial which explains installation of SBCL, EMACS, SLIME on windows xp. I tried using the same.

There were a few hiccups. I do not remember the issues exactly but will try to list them down.

--> follow the procedure given in the tutorial as much as you can. I did not understand the use of the folder info, docs etc under the HOME directory.

--> Do restart your system as mentioned in the tutorial. Else you might get the error "Spawning child process: invalid argument". Read this post for more info.

--> In windows 7 the emacs file is located at C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Roaming. Well there is no need to physically locate the file since you can always access the file by searching it. use C-x C-f and then search for "~/.emacs"

--> The folder mentioned in previous step is important since for some reason I am able to load my lisp files only from this folder. (Have to look into it further and I might post a way to change the settings so that it lisp files can be accessed from other folders also.)

Settings in EMACS file.

(setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl")
(add-to-list 'load-path "c:/home/bin/emacs/site-lisp/slime/")
(require 'slime)
(slime-setup)

I will try to post detailed tutorial explaining the steps for installation. But as of now (quit) . :)