Jane Talks Tech!

Setting up an external monitor to work with Ubuntu (Oneiric/11.10)

Jane O. Ullah — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:05:00 +0000

Summary: This post details a relatively simple way I got my external monitor (ASUS VH242H) to work with Ubuntu-powered notebook (HP dv7-3080us). Check out my xorg.conf or see the gallery of images if you are having trouble getting your setup to work.

I started my new year with a sick husband and installing Ubuntu 11.10 on my notebook. This isn’t my first time around this OS-switching rodeo but this time, there is more than just curiosity driving my switch i.e. *cough*grades*cough*. I’ve never really gone “all the way” with the Linux distributions I’ve tried for a host of reasons but with each version of my favorite distro (Ubuntu), a lot of my reasons for not staying have evaporated. One of those things is a pain-free external monitor setup. Well, I am here to report that, with a little trial-and-error, I now have my external monitor connected to my laptop!

Here are the steps I took to get my external monitor working on my Ubuntu laptop:

First, backup your xorg.conf file by typing this command into your terminal:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.bak{add-a-date}. That way, if you accidentally screw things up, you can go back to a working xorg configuration file.

Next, connect your external monitor with the HDMI cable (I guess you can use whatever cord you have but I don’t know if these same instructions will apply). At your terminal prompt, type: sudo nvidia-settings. Ignore the bunch of messagesyou’ll get in the terminal.

Click “Detect Displays” and your new monitor should show up as “Disabled”. Then, click on the discovered monitor and select “TwinView”. Your screen should temporarily flicker and/or display garbled output. You will be prompted to save your new settings (save them). Click on “Save to X Configuration File” and back this configuration up like in step 1.

Settings after Ubuntu detects the external monitor

Nvidia X Server Setting for Disabled Monitor

You may have noticed that before you added the external monitor, your laptop’s monitor configuration was set to “Separate X Server”. However, after adding the new monitor and saving the new configuration, my laptop’s monitor was automatically set to TwinView as well.

Open terminal again (Ctrl-Alt-T) and type sudo nvidia-settings again to get back in to the Nvidia X Server Settings application. The formerly disabled monitor should now display the max. resolution of the new monitor. Click on the new monitor and make sure TwinView is still the configuration selection for both monitors.

New X Server settings for the laptop monitor

New settings for the external monitor

Click on the rectangle representing your laptop monitor and confirm that the position for your laptop monitor is now “Absolute” with the value of “+0+0″. Then, click on the newly added monitor’s rectangle and make sure that the position for that monitor is what you want it to be i.e. to the right of your laptop monitor, to the left, etc.

I’m a bit leery of messing around too much with my Nvidia X Server settings but I’m glad I finally discovered a combination that works for my laptop + external monitor set up (even after rebooting ). Check out my current xorg.conf file on Pastebin.

Now for the bad part, if you are like me and tried other options like Separate X server or whatnot, be prepared to restart your computer to find your computer unusable i.e. graphics gone wild. The good news is since the problems were brought about by editing xorg.conf, if you have a backup of xorg.conf that works, you can simply drop to the text console instead of graphically logging in. Then, you can overwrite the bad xorg.conf. I believe the command to drop to the text console is: Ctrl-Alt-F2.

Let me know your experiences and workarounds to getting an external monitor setup in the comments!

Outsourcing Customer Service

Jane O. Ullah — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:38:17 +0000

Screenshot of Global Response's website

One thing I haven’t shared too publicly is that I worked as a part-time customer service agent for a telemarketing firm. It was a departure for any of the previous jobs I’ve held but I now hold a deeper appreciation for the work that telemarketers do. So, what has precipitated this change of subject matter? Several weeks ago, I was contacted about a nice lady (hi Lynn! ) about advertising on my site. (Yes, I accept advertising on this site. Hit me up!) I was (a) flattered at the attention and (b) intrigued because of my former job & just how big and surprisingly effective Global Response’s call center outsourcingis.

What Does Global Response Do?

The Global Response is a “3rd party outsourcing Catalog sales, Customer service and fulfillment.”

In plain English, that means companies like JC Penney, Puma, National Geographic, Blue Cross Blue Shield, David’s Bridal, MoMA, etc hire Global Response to handle things like customer service, sales, etc.

One of Global Response’s services is the provision of inbound call center services. An example of this could be if you’re having trouble buying an item on a website and there is a 1-800 number to call, chances are good that the party/person that picks up is a customer service agent working for a call center i.e. a center like Global Response. You know how you have to call a 1-8xx number to active your debit or credit card? Chances are you are calling into a call center much like Global Response. When you have trouble watching Netflix and that 1-866 number appears on the screen, Netflix can choose to hire people to handle those calls (in-house) or use an outfit much like Global Response (outsourcing). It is becoming increasingly popular for companies to outsource customer service to professional telemarketing organizations than handle them in-house.

In addition to providing customer service, they have fulfillment centers which means they help their clients with storing, selling and shipping goods to their clients’ customers. They also provide outbound calling services, one of the more recognizable duties of telemarketing agents. Global Response is able to be effective in their outbound calling services by providing training & quality assurance which is (to be fair) standard at call centers worth their salt.

In learning more about Global Response, I was really impressed at their client roster, case studies of their customers and their social media savvy. Let me count the ways:

Their website stands heads & shoulders above other call centers. The site is designed to be modern, loads fast and even makes use of simple & “pretty” URLs.
They put up case studies on their site which is something I haven’t seen on the other competitors that I’m used to. I like to read testimonials and these case studies provide prospective business some level of comfort that Global Response doesn’t trade in BS.
The first search I did was “Global Response call center sucks” and I was relieved to find that there weren’t any major negative issues either with clients or employees. Like my (former) employer does, they pay their employees weekly and here are 2 employee reviews of Global Response which are largely positive.
They have a blog written by several employees (David Cogan, Shane Slack, Bill Erickson, etc) which they use to put a personal touch on their company’s duties.
Contact information is prominently displayed on all pages of their site;

Global Response isn’t perfect; I did discover a typo on their site. Overall, I’ve been pretty impressed and while I haven’t had the pleasure of speaking with a Global Response call center agent, I’m fine with drawing attention to what appears to be a well-oiled operation that Global Response runs. Visit the Global Response website at http://www.globalresponse.com/

Disclosure: I was compensated for writing about Global Response.

About Android Gingerbread & Installing non-Market Android apps on the Motorola Atrix

Jane O. Ullah — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:22:42 +0000

TL;DR – Android Gingerbread on the Atrix features a slew of new/updated features and this article goes over some of the more memorable changes to Gingerbread on the Atrix (Installation of apps from unknown sources is now enabled, etc). Visit my Min.us gallery of Atrix Gingerbread screenshots.

I updated my Motorola Atrix to Android 2.3 a.k.a. Gingerbread. You, too, can simply update your phone by going to your phone’s Settings” page, clicking on “About Phone” and tapping “System Updates”. You will get a simple notification that an update is available for your phone and offered the chance to download it. After downloading is complete, you can install it now or later. If you haven’t backed up your precious photos or phone contacts, please do so before proceeding with the update. After a restart or two, you will have the latest update from Motorola (Blur_Version.4.1.83.MB860.ATT.en.US to Blur_Version.4.5.91.MB860.ATT.en.US). Read my earlier post about the earlier updates that have been pushed out for the Motorola Atrix.

Update Available on the Atrix

Download Complete; Install Update Notification

Version Info of Atrix Gingerbread

Straight from Motorola’s release notes, here are some areas you should see major changes:

Productivity Tools: Enhancements to business ready security features so you can get more work done on-the-go which includes robust VPN, device and SD card encryption, device management via 3rd party console and remote wipe ability. Adding Ability to install apps from unknown/3rd party sources e.g. XDA apks, the Amazon store (and its apps, etc).
Gallery: Enhancements to the picture Gallery allow you to aggregate all your photos, your friends’ photos and photo comments from social networking and photo sites like Facebook and Picasa in one place for easy viewing
Music: Enhancements so your Music player is now connected to a dashboard for music discovery. Plus, easy access to all your favorite artists, live, personalized recommendations for songs & videos and news and event updates
Dock Icons: Enhancement that enables easy access to favorite apps at bottom of each screen
Organized App Tray: Enhancement that helps you personalize and categorize favorite apps into groups so you can be more efficient
Location Based Recommendations: Enhancement that provides access to social content in one place so you can find out what is happening around you. You can use Yelp reviews and Facebook check-ins to find out what others are recommending
Task Management Tools: Enhancement that makes it easier to create, edit & delete tasks, and to assign priorities and reminders
Notification Tray: Enhancement that enables you to dismiss notifications one at a time
Faster Webtop Browsing: Enhancement to webtop application includes Firefox 4.0 so you can browse faster than with earlier versions of Firefox.
You can use the Webtop feature with optional accessories (Motorola HD Multimedia Dock, the Motorola Atrix Webtop Access Kit and the Atrix Laptop Dock). I may consider checking out the Atrix HD Multimedia dock or the Webtop access kit, but NOT the “laptop” dock priced at ~ $500.
User Interface: Updated user interface with simpler home screen design, including shift to use of white backgrounds in menus, enabling better viewing experience
HD Video Playback: Enhancement that now enables HD Video Playback in 1080p for better viewing experience
Multiple Recipient Emails: Create groups for multiple recipient emails so you can communicate faster
One touch conference call access: Enhancement that makes it easier to dial-in to conference bridges while you’re on-the-go

Productivity

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Unknown/3rd party app installation sources

When I discovered that ATT/MOTOROLA had finally enabled the ability to install Android apps from unknown or 3rd party sources, I was over the moon with joy. The first 3rd party app I installed was the Amazon AppStore. Did you know the Amazon appstore gives you 1 “free” paid app a day? I, too, initially thought that Amazon gave the developers of the promoted apps 20% to compensate for making their app free for the day, but I soon learned that this was not the case. After feeling sympathetic, then I realized that Amazon not paying the developers were no different that Apple choosing to spotlight apps during their commercials. Ultimately, choosing to be featured is your business’s call and part of that decision involves figuring out if the increased work(load) is worth the popularity & sign-ups received. That said, being able to install 3rd party apps on the Atrix means that I can actually develop for my particular phone. Case in point, I was able go through the Hello Android tutorial & run the compiled apk on my phone.

I found a screen-grabbing application on XDA’s forums: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1009451. It works without needing root and the only permission required is SD card editing & storage. Boom.

This discovery reduces the likelihood of me needing to root my Atrix even more. If you have followed the instructions on installing Android SDk to your phone, all you need to do to install the app is: Open up command prompt and type: adb install path/to/the/apk/file. You should get a success message if all went well:

C:\Users\Jane\: adb install C:\Users\Jane\Documents\Coding\Android\Atrix\screengrab.apk
879 KB/s (52210 bytes in 0.058s)
        pkg: /data/local/tmp/screengrab.apk
Success

Please note: You will not be asked to okay the installation so please use this command with care. According to this Android Developer document, that adb install path/to/file only copies the file to a location on the phone, but I didn’t have to do anything else to get Screen grabber apk installed on my phone *shrug*. I can’t stress enough: don’t be rash and download random apks from the internet. If you want to verify the permissions required by an app, simply tap the “Options” button and select “Manage Apps”. Apps are now sorted alphabetically so scroll to the Screen Grabber entry and tap on it; the permissions required are at the bottom of that page and displayed below. The main difference I have found between the screenshots from the Screen Grabber app and those from the Android SDK method are: Screen Grabber’s method is easier, snaps taken by Screen Grabber have a greater bit depth (32) & thus, a larger file size than those by the SDK method.

Lastly, the Atrix now comes with the ability to encrypt personal data including data on the internal & external storage devices (good news for IT departments everywhere)! I turned on the personal data encryption on my Atrix and after rebooting, I got a message about my SIM card being removed or changed. Thanks to the encryption/security feature, you will need to enter your MOTOBLUR account/password combo every time you reboot. A little inconvenience for peace of mind is not too much to ask especially if you need it i.e. if sensitive data passes through your phone, a spy, etc. Also, please be aware that if you turn on SD card encryption, factory resetting your phone may result in total data loss.

Encryption on the Motorola Atrix running Gingerbread

Options for Screen Grabber app for Atrix

Screen Grabber permissions

Screen grabber method vs Android SDK method

Installin Amazon AppStore apk

Amazon AppStore permissions

Sign-in to Amazon AppStore

Downloading a 'free' paid app from Amazon Appstore

Permission request from amazon app

"Hello World" Android tutorial running on the Motorola Atrix

Refreshed Android Photo Gallery

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With Gingerbread on the Atrix, the photo gallery shows your friends’ galleries by default. The first gallery set has the “views” which are:

Camera roll: Pulls photos from the DCIM folder or where photos taken from the camera are specifically stored.
My library: Pulls photos stored on your internal and external storage systems on the Atrix.
Online: This hooks into my Flickr, Facebook and Picasa Web Albums and it’s pretty nifty.
Friends: This pulls photos from your friend’s public Flickr, Facebook and Picasa albums.
DLNA servers: Pulls photos from a media server you specify.

If you’re irritated by the default setting to show pictures from your Facebook friends, turn that setting off by going to the “Settings” page. You can also setup DLNA servers via the settings. See the gallery below for the revamped options in the photo gallery app.

Main Photo Gallery

My Library

Friends' online albums

My Online Albums

Browsing DLNA servers

Gallery settings on Atrix (Gingerbread)

Options for Photo/Video upload on Atrix (gingerbread)

Refreshed Music Listening Experience

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Motorola didn’t add anything too drastic to the stock Android Gingerbread music app. One of the things I noticed was a “Music Store” app which is from AT&T. I haven’t bothered to uninstall it; besides, I already have my Amazon MP3 app installed. On the first run of the Music app on the Atrix, you will be asked if you want to get “Live Music” recommendations which is the main change to the bundled Music app. Once you have gone through the prompts on the default Music app, little has been done to differentiate the MOTOBLUR-skinned music app from Android 2.2.

ATT Music Store App

Motorola Music App & Google Music app

First run of default music app

Home Screens for Music player app

The most obvious addition is that, by default, starting up the Music app (by MOTOBLUR) will display ‘live’ music recommendations to you and there is a tight integration with the (new) ATT music store. After you’ve set up the Music app, you will be presented with video, song & station recommendations. If you want a better music player, download the Google Music (beta) app which is pretty. I have used it as my main music player and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Plus, if you install the Music beta application on your computer and upload your music library to Google’s servers, you will be able to stream your music via the Android app. Check out the gallery of the MOTOBLUR music app:

Swiping on Music App - Atrix Gingerbread

Recommended Video/Song/Stations via Music app

"Now Playing" motorola music app

Options in Motorola Music App

The Google Music app is another effort from Google to learn more about you and your music listening habits. Because I had Google’s Music (beta) app installed when I upgraded to the Gingerbread release, I saw 2 music apps in my App Tray. If you haven’t selected a default music player and you tap a (supported – I specify this because WMA files are apparently not supported) music file, you get to pick which player you want to play the file with. Anyway, here are some screenshots for your viewing to see just how much nicer the Google Music app is compared to the built-in app on the Atrix.

Now Playing on the Google Music app

Viewing Album page on Google Music beta

Refreshed Dock Icons

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Here’s what the earlier dock icons of the Atrix (when running Android 2.2) looked like:

Old Homescreen (Android 2.2 wth MOTOBLUR)

Old Atrix Dock icons when scrolling

Old Dock Icons for Atrix

I didn’t know I was missing out but now that the icons on the dock have been revamped, I’m very appreciative. My only gripe would be that I’ve mistaken the dock icons for my home screen apps and I’m not sure if I like that or not. The distinction was clearer with the old dock icons. Nevertheless, I am pleased with MOTOBLUR’s second take on the dock icons see here:

New Atrix-Gingerbread Dock Icons

Refreshed App Tray

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Motorola added a shortcut to all apps installed to the Dock Icons. This has been incredible handy and better than the generic looking circle that was inflicted on us.

Tap the Circle to Access All Apps

Tap the leftmost icon to use all apps

App Groups

Then, when you get to the page listing all your apps, there are now options to group your apps! There is an “ATT” group by default and mine only shows 2 apps because I uninstalled much of the pre-installed ATT apps that the Atrix came with. Then, I was able to create a “Google” apps group which is pretty self-explanatory. If your apps are edging into the 100s like mine, this is pretty handy. Alas, there is a fly in this ointment: a not-so-welcome change to the All Apps screen is an extra step towards pinning apps to your home screens. When you press and hold an app now, a dialog box pops up and asks you whether you’d like to:

Add to Home: Adds the highlighted app to any of your Atrix’s homescreens
Share: shares the app to apps like Docs, Dropbox, email, etc.
Add to group: add the app to whatever group you’ve created earlier. If you haven’t created any special groups yet, you will be able to create one at this time.
Uninstall: self-explanatory. I like that uninstalling apps has become easier than ever.

Depending on the app you are attempting to pin, you may only have the options to “Add to Home” or “Add to group”. I’m sure once I’ve spent a month with this change, I’ll grow to appreciate it, but for now, it’s taking me some time to get used to. The gallery below has screenshots of the me adding apps to a newly created “App group”.

Adding App to Existing Group

Addings Apps to New Group

Improved Location Recommendation tools

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The main location-related change I noticed was the addition of an app called “Rich Location”.

Rich Location App Icon

Opening up Rich Location app

Eatery listing and PIcking a Location

Adding Channels

Eatery Display page

Tasks Management & Notification Tray

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Notifications can now be dismissed on a per-item basis. App updates (if more than 3) are grouped into one and you can tap the new icon (a “Minus” sign) to dismiss those notifications. Otherwise, you can tap “Clear” to remove all notifications. Missed calls will be on top of any notifications (higher priority); Voicemail & Text messages are lower on the totem pole. Another new thing: when you ignore a call, you will be prompted (by default) to send a text message in return but I have since turned this feature off. Also, when you receive an incoming call notification, if your phone is locked, you get to slide-to-answer. If your phone isn’t locked, you get to tap-to-answer. The new Tasks app is underwhelming to me. I tried Astrid but it felt very “beta”. I will give GTask a try next. Feel free to read AndroidAndMe‘s brief overview of the top to-do apps for Android. The tasks app from Motorola doesn’t offer synchronization with Google Tasks or any other popular task management tool. So, if you don’t care that it’s completely local, then enjoy these screenshots:

Mixed noficiations on the Motorola Atrix

Incoming call notification states

Task app from Motorola

Task app open

Creating a task with extra options

Options for using the Task app

User Interface Changes

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The visual changes to Atrix are too many to list. The best way to find out is install the update and enjoy the eye candy! The icons for pretty much everything on the Atrix look newer (i.e. new icons), new color scheme which I’m slowly coming to terms with, the camera/camcorder app got digital zoom, picture/video modes & exposure features which is pretty cool, more options for saving contacts, etc. Overall, I’m been pretty impressed with Gingerbread and the stability it brings to the Atrix. For more screenshots of new features in Gingerbread (on the Atrix), visit my Minus.com gallery which should contain the screenshots in this article and more.

Why I Haven’t Rooted My Motorola Atrix

Jane O. Ullah — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:11:06 +0000

TL;DR – I haven’t needed to because the Atrix (custom Android skin – MOTOBLUR, generous specs, warts and all) is quite capable for me as a ‘regular’ user. Sys admins, serious tinkerers and people who yearn for a plain vanilla Android experience are probably not the target for this article. If you are in the market for an Android phone, I urge you to do your research and not leap for the cheapest deal.

My first exposure to Android was a rooted T-Mobile G1 I got off Craigslist in July, 2010. The performance on that phone was abysmal and it would be close to 7 months (& an ill-advised foray into Symbian with the Nokia N8 in October 2010) before I found a powerful phone that, for once, I didn’t need to fool around with to work. Not because I’m consciously avoiding or overlooking problems, but because this particular phone is great for my needs.

My two main reasons for not rooting are:

I have found nearly everything (apps) I need via the Android Market. Thanks to the apps on the Android Market, my phone nicely complements for my computer (really, things I use my computer for e.g. heavy browsing, Facebook/Twitter/News, sharing, etc). My bank has an Android app with which I can check my account balance or transfer money between my accounts or send money to another customer. For reading, I’ve got FBReader, Adobe Reader, Aldiko Premium and QuickOffice installed. Document creation is covered thanks to QuickOffice Premium & Google Docs and there are more apps for sharing (photos, text, video, etc) than I can count.
Amazon has an Appstore which, before the Gingerbread update, was unavailable because Motorola removed the option to install software from unknown sources. Now, that option is available on the Atrix with the Gingerbread update.
Performance on the Atrix has been great. Apps are snappy to use and with Gingerbread, the Atrix is more stable than ever. This point is relevant because many articles proclaiming the advantages of rooting tout the fact that you can install performance management apps or task managers and whatnot. The Atrix ships with a task manager but I can count the number of times that I have used it in the 4 or so months I’ve had the Atrix. In fact, the Atrix *also* ships with a battery manager app. I think my point is: doing your research and betting on a powerful phone is a good way to make sure you won’t need to worry about task managers or performance tweaks. I was able to uninstall many of the ATT pre-installed apps on the Atrix.

In researching online for the top/recommended apps for rooted phones, I’ve found several reasons for rooting phones but none compelling enough to make me up & root. Well, that and I haven’t found a solid unrooting procedure yet for the Atrix.

Full system backups of your phone e.g. using Titanium Backup. This comes in handy for backing up data from saved games, system files, etc. However, even when I had a rooted phone, I found that I didn’t really use this feature except to upgrade the custom ROM. Thankfully, the loss of this feature on my unrooted Atrix is mitigated by the fact that if you wipe your phone and you’ve elected to back up your data to Google’s servers, you can have your data (contacts, calendar, etc) restored when you reinstall. Right now, I also have Lookout Premium which also backs up photos, call history (Pssst, check your cellphone provider statements for this also) and contact details for me.
System tweaks like overclocking, louder volume hacks, battery conservation apps, etc. This is where doing your due diligence like testing the phones in stores, reading online reviews particularly on sites like Amazon and honestly assessing your uses for a smart phone comes in really handy. Again, I strongly recommend *against* picking an Android phone simply because it’s $1 or free with your 2 year contract. I blame manufacturers for churning out turds and then, I get to read articles about how someone’s mom’s Android phone sucked so she got an iPhone. With my kick-ass phone, the Motorola Atrix, which I have no problem pimping & promoting (sans sponsorship from the folks at Motorola), I have never strongly considered rooting because despite howls of how MOTOBLUR sucks, MOTOBLUR is actually … not bad. Is it because I don’t have an alternative (which admittedly rooting could cure) or because MOTOBLUR actually works? I’d wager that it’s the latter based on my experiences but it’s just a matter of taste. A quick trip to the store should give you a feel for the UI on the Atrix. I mean, ATT’s pre-installed apps can actually be uninstalled! Yes, I’ve kvetched about the Atrix’s somewhat beta feel but I’m greatly heartened by the Gingerbread update which makes the Atrix feel like a brand new device. Battery life on the Atrix is ~ 4 hrs which kinda stinks but I’ve become conditioned to automatically plug my phone into my computer when I’m on the internet or just leave it on the wall charger.
System tools like setCPU, root explorer, etc. If you know what these things mean and you need them, root, root, root. BUT going back to my key point about honestly assessing one’s smartphone usage, I haven’t graduated the halls of geekdom yet to even begin to appreciate these apps or why I need them.
Tethering and Screen Capture (screenshot or video recording): These features are arguably the biggest draws of rooting. For me, I care about hassle-free screen capture but I’ve resigned myself to going the route of installing the Android SDK tools and connecting my phone to my notebook to get a screenshot of my phone. I purchased a “No root” screenshot app from the Android market, but the instructions for getting the app working did not work for my Atrix. However, feel free to check that app out. Then, for recording your Android phone’s screen, there is the Droid VNC server (beta). Regarding tethering, please note that ATT is also cracking down on unauthorized tethering. Besides, where I live, many stores offer free WiFi so unless I happen to be in a developing country with limited internet access, this might be an issue.
Custom ROMs: For those yearning for Android’s “true” face, CyanogenMod is the gold standard in custom ROMs for Android. Most manufacturers add their own flavors to the Android User Interface. The best way to find out if you can live with a manufacturer’s spin on a phone you’ve been eyeing is to actually use the phone or watch videos of the device in action. My only experience with CyanogenMod was on the Google G1 and now, I’ve graduated to the Motorola Atrix. It would be unfair to compare the two but so far, I’m not complaining about MOTOBLUR. I do hate that my home screens are fixed in portrait orientation (pour quoi, Motorola?) but it’s not a deal breaker.
Apps from non-Market Sources: Stock android has a neat feature which allows you to install apps from “Unknown sources”. which simply means if an app isn’t in the Android market, you can still install it on your phone. Depending on the manufacturer of your Android phone, you may not have this option available. This was true of the Motorola Atrix until the latest Gingerbread update. Please don’t go crazy downloading random apps from the internet.

Altering Your Site’s Permalink Structure

Jane O. Ullah — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:34:38 +0000

I made a rookie move while on Habari: I switched to using only post titles i.e. janetalkstech.com/%postname%. After I migrated from Habari to WordPress, I decided to keep that post structure i.e. janetalkstech.com/%postname%. Unfortunately for me, WordPress developers strongly recommend against setting up sites this way. After several days of seeing intermittent 500 errors and general site sluggishness (which, in hindsight, are likely attributable to WordPress having to do more work to figure out what post type the URL is referring to), I got the message and changed my site’s URL structure to janetalkstech.com/%year%/%postname%. Straight from the WordPress Codex:

For performance reasons, it is not a good idea to start your permalink structure with the category, tag, author, or postname fields. The reason is that these are text fields, and using them at the beginning of your permalink structure it takes more time for WordPress to distinguish your Post URLs from Page URLs (which always use the text “page slug” as the URL), and to compensate, WordPress stores a lot of extra information in its database (so much that sites with lots of Pages have experienced difficulties).

Changing my site’s URL structure was as simple as updating my permalinks options page, but with over 120 indexed posts, I needed to make sure that I:

Didn’t annoy my visitors: For sites with less than 100 visitors daily like mine, I was not going to lose any money or get irate messages. However, I didn’t want to chase away the few visitors I have by throwing up a bunch of 404 – URL not found” messages. Instead, I needed to make sure I had a way to let them know that there would be a temporary break in “transmission” (so to speak). To do this, I needed to perform the change at a time when I had the lowest traffic volume. Again, I don’t make much money from this site, but if I did, it would not be smart to change my site’s links during the times of heaviest traffic!
Had a plan for a seamless redirection: This was the biggest issue I needed to take care of before pulling the switch on my site’s structural change. I needed to make sure that the old posts were properly redirected i.e. a 301 redirect which tells Google/Search Engines that the old stuff is now at a different site. This is what Google recommends when you change a site or page’s url.

This time, I did the grunt work myself instead of going the Amazon Mechanical Turk route I used during my switch from Habari to WordPress. To make sure I didn’t leave my visitors in a lurch, I did the following:

Exported my site’s contents in the WordPress WXR format and backed up my site’s database for good measure. It’s just good practice to have backing up data as a first step.
Typed out an entire listing of my site’s posts by looking at my site’s Archives, grouped them by year and with a simple “search and replace” command in gedit, added the year (in which the post was written) to the URL so that janetalkstech.com/the-motorola-atrix became janetalkstech.com/2011/the-motorola-atrix.
Manually created the redirections and a set of redirect rules with the Redirection Plugin. Instead of entering each redirect rule under the Redirection plugin’s “Redirects” tab, you can import a CSV, XML or RSS file into the plugin with the redirects you want and the plugin will do the rest of the work. Of course, the tedious part was entering the data into the CSV spreadsheet. The format for creating the CSV sheet is simple:
- For each cell, enter the source/bad url, add a comma and then enter the target/good url.
- Move on to the next cell below; Rinse and repeat.
- You can verify the correct syntax for creating the redirect entries manually by exporting your current redirects from the Redirection plugin‘s “Modules” tab.
- Double-check your work to make sure you have the correct redirections in your CSV sheet before importing!
- I ended up with 122 cells containing redirects to the new URLs e.g.
Installed the WP Maintenance mode plugin for WordPress and turned it on. Make sure you change the “Settings” for the Maintenance Mode plugin to “True”.
Then, I changed my site’s permalinks by going to “Settings” and “Permalinks” while in the WordPress Administrative backend and entering “/%year%/%postname%“. I didn’t want trailing slashes at the end of my posts so I left out the trailing slash at the end. In my naiveté, it seems the current recommendation *is* to have a trailing slash at the end of URLs although that article is over a year old although Matt Cutts says the trailing slash doesn’t matter as much as picking the desired url style and sticking with it.
Checked my CSV file for typos before importing into the Redirection Plugins’s “import” section. Creating a bulk CSV file to import your redirects is as simply as firing up Google Docs and creating cells in a Spreadsheet with the following information:
1. source url which is the old/bad link e.g. http://janetalkstech.com/the-motorola-atrix
2. literal comma
3. target url which is the new links e.g. http://janetalkstech.com/2011/the-motorola-atrix
4. Each cell of your spreadsheet should contain 1 redirect and be in this format:
```
janetalkstech.com/the-motorola-atrix,http://janetalkstech.com/2011/the-motorola-atrix
```
I verified that all my links were being properly redirected by clicking on old links and casually inspecting my site’s HTTP headers (using Wireshark). So, I was reasonably satisfied that my links and corresponding link juice were being passed on to the new URLs.
GET /using-habari-from-a-users-perspective HTTP/1.1
Host: janetalkstech.com
Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/12.0.742.100 Safari/534.30
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:16:07 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Pingback: http://janetalkstech.com/xmlrpc.php
Expires: Wed, 11 Jan 1984 05:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=x; path=/
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
Last-Modified: Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:16:13 GMT
Location: http://janetalkstech.com/2009/using-habari-from-a-users-perspective
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 20
Keep-Alive: timeout=2, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
………………..GET /2009/using-habari-from-a-users-perspective HTTP/1.1
Host: janetalkstech.com
Connection: keep-alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/12.0.742.100 Safari/534.30
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: PHPSESSID=x
Turned off the WP Maintenance mode plugin and closely monitored my logs for any unusual drops in traffic.

Overall, thanks to the excellent Redirection Plugin by Urban Giraffe, I’ve been able to reliably handle the worst 404 errors that Google Webmaster Tools alerted me to. If you use this plugin, don’t forget to donate! I’ve got a long way to go (see image below) but baby steps. No more switching CMSes for me, that’s for damn sure.

Disqus Generates an Imaginary /forums link on websites

Jane O. Ullah — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:17:23 +0000

Update #3: I performed a Google search on WordPress forums and found other people with the same issue:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-disqus-comment-system-crawl-errors-with-plugin
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-disqus-comment-system-disqus-comment-system-showing-weird-code-on-my-page.

Update #2: Disqus says the script below isn’t generated by Disqus. I’m guessing the Disqus plugin is not created by the folks at Disqus:

@janetalkstech Those are not Disqus urls. @giannii

June 9, 2011 9:53 pm via Assistly ReplyRetweetFavorite

@disqus

DISQUS

Here’s the actual universal code for enabling comment counts on Disqus-enabled websites (from Disqus.com) which is different from what the Disqus plugin generates:

Update #1: There’s an update to the Disqus commenting plugin right now. Not sure if this release is related to this matter, but I’ll be downloading to find out!

Disqus generates phantom /forums links

Since my switch from Habari to WordPress, I’ve come to love Google Webmaster Tools as a tool for hunting bad links out in the universe. I have Disqus commenting enabled on my site and I love the service, but I discovered something quite weird.

The Disqus commenting (java)script embedded in my site’s pages apparently generates a /forums link on the fly which Google crawls. Since I don’t have a forums page anywhere on my site, Google dutifully files that ‘bad’ link away and it’s on *every* page of my site. As of today, Google says there are over 100 pages on Jane Talks Tech (tag pages, post pages, category pages, archive pages, author pages, etc) that link to the non-existent janetalkstech.com/forums page. Granted, I could redirect that to something else as regular visitors don’t see the /forum link. However, this strikes me as odd behavior and I hope that Disqus will respond to my inquiry.

@disqus can you explain why the commenting script dynamically generates /forums link which is crawled by Google? http://t.co/rPuLXN3

June 9, 2011 6:12 pm via webReply RetweetFavorite

@janetalkstech

Jane Ullah

Here’s the “offending” script:

The particular link that generates the nonexistent janetalkstech[dot]com/forums link is this:

 s.src = 'http://' + disqus_domain + '/forums/' + disqus_shortname + '/count.js';

So get to checking your Crawl reports in Google Webmaster Tools, get to redirecting URLs and you’ll thank me later.

The Motorola Atrix

Jane O. Ullah — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:42:35 +0000

Where do I begin? Less than 5 months after living with the Nokia N8, I jumped ship to an Android device, the Motorola Atrix. Following a botched repair, I earnestly began shopping for an Android phone. This post will attempt to explain my thought processes in selecting the Motorola Atrix, describe some awesome features of the Motorola Atrix and moan about the downsides.

Being with ATT, I was limited to the devices in their stable of Android phone and based on my criteria, my choices (1st quarter of 2011) were: the Samsung Captivate and the Motorola Atrix. I was going for a device that would be ‘future-proof’ but good enough to satisfy my tastes now. For tinkerers, Motorola’s Android phones are a major turn-off because the company made the decision to “sign” the bootloader for a good number of their Android phones, including the Motorola Atrix, to prevent the loading of custom ROMs a.k.a. custom/homebrew phone operating systems. This means you won’t be able to load CyanogenMod on your Motorola Atrix. However, I was not too concerned about this because up to this point, my *only* experience with an Android phone was the painfully slow Google G1. So, I was more than eager to run the phone with Motorola’s custom “skin” i.e. user interface (UI) replacement for Froyo (Android 2.2.x) which is called MOTOBLUR.

Without further ado, here are some criteria I looked at in picking the Motorola Atrix:

No less than 16GB of internal memory with ability to add a microSD card. Adding this requirement essentially removed several Android phones offered by ATT because smartphone makers are being chintzy. The reasons I am insistent on having this much space on my phone are:
- I won’t worry about not having enough space on my phone for apps or map data if I chose to pay for a mapping application like NDrive or Copilot, etc. Living with the G1 for several weeks made me vastly appreciative of a phone (like the Nokia N8 and the Motorola Atrix) which had a lot of space. With the Google G1, I got so sick of the “apps to the microSD” option because my apps would become inaccessible when I mounted the card to get *any* files off. Then, when space got low on the G1, I would end up not being able to receive text messages or get mail delivered. So, I say to you: don’t settle for less when it comes to space!
- I have a ton of data, music & video files that collectively occupy over 4GB of space and growing. By starting out at 4GB, you are already operating at a “space deficit”. By heading out of the gate with that much space in my pocket, you can delay for the eventual need for a microSD card. Nevertheless, I already got a 16GB microSD card which I store my documents and miscellaneous downloads on.
Decent processor speed to help with multitasking and to take advantage of increasingly technically complex and console-like games on the Market. Living with a low-powered Android device in 2011 (like the G1) is torture; For full disclosure, even though the Nokia N8 has 256MB of memory, I understand that the Symbian operating system is engineered to require fewer resources. With the Motorola Atrix, I rarely experience delays in launching apps or playing any of my HD games. In fact, the Atrix boasts an Nvidia Tegra 2 chip for gaming and has 1GB of RAM.
Sharing as a feature: I use this word to loosely describes features that are ‘enabled’ on this phone to help get data on/off the device, to either the internet or elsewhere.
1. HDMI-out is always a nice plus to have with smartphones. This feature was one of the draws of the Nokia N8 for me. Going with my future-proof theme, I can already see myself doing presentations or sharing contents through my Motorola Atrix to an external screen thanks to HDMI-out (HDMI accessory cable is provided with the Atrix). Pairing the HDMI out feature with your documents stored on Dropbox or Google Docs can mean you won’t ever have to carry a USB stick with that Powerpoint presentation with you all the time.
2. Front-facing camera for IM chatting and a decent 5 mp camera on the back. There are hundreds of photo editing & sharing apps on the Android Market and my current favorite for sharing & editing is PicPlz. In second & third place, respectively, are the Adobe Photoshop Express app and PicSayPro. My husband doesn’t believe in the smartphone gospel, but I’m still working on him. I have no doubt that he’ll be blown away by this feature if I’m ever able to “FaceTime” with him. Technically, I can’t FaceTime with him (it’s an Apple protocol), but I can rattle off 3 Android apps that support video calls using the front-facing camera: Qik, Fringe, Yahoo Messenger, etc .
3. Widgets & Skin: MOTOBLUR is a custom “skin” by Motorola for their Android phones including the Motorola Atrix. This skin comes with several cool features & widgets which allow you to add popular services to your phone & thus, cut the need (in my opinion) for mods or hacks. The images below show the options. MOTOBLUR does a great job of supporting the major social networking sites; In fact, private messages on sites like Facebook & LinkedIn are viewable through the “Universal Inbox” which is a really cool concept; For networkers/connectors, you will find the integration of your social media contacts to your phone book (which can be filtered out!) to be really cool.

Overall, I’m really digging this phone. However, this powerful phone is not without its glitches.

One of the biggest problems with the Atrix is the Atrix has a random reboot issue.

I haven’t been able to duplicate the problem on demand, but this problem takes away from the Atrix’s otherwise awesome qualities. I’ve had the Motorola Atrix randomly reboot when receiving a call, making videos, playing games, etc so I haven’t been able to duplicate this issue. The only thing I know is: it’s a recurring problem & dealbreaker for people.

Since the release of the Motorola Atrix, there have been 2 software updates issued. The first update for the Atrix updated the phone to version 4.1.57 and fixed a slew of issues such as:

Bluetooth: Improved multimedia experience with Bluetooth devices as well as the ability to use phone with other headsets
Fingerprint reader: Improved fingerprint reader performance
Battery: Improved battery performance for longer battery life
Screen: Display will turn off automatically now while charging directly on wall charger
Phone stability: Improved stability resulting in fewer occurrences of touch unresponsiveness and/or programs quitting unexpectedly.
Car dock: Improved performance of car dock and 3.5mm jack

The second OTA update upgraded the Atrix to 4.1.83 (Android 2.2.2) and fixed a bunch of issues like:

Data Speed: Increased potential data speed.
Data Connection: Improvements to limit interruptions to data connection.
Screen: Improvements to prevent screen from freezing.
Email: Improved ability for users to receive email notifications so you know when you have a new message. Also, improvements were made so that you are now able to use the same email login to get access to both MOTOBLUR™ and YouTube.
Skype: Improvements to call audio function so it is easier for the person you called to hear you. Please note this application is not pre-loaded on the phone, but is available for download from the Android Market.
Wi-Fi: Increased functionality by enabling Yahoo Email to be sent over a Wi-Fi connection.
Display: Improved International Roaming Warning Message by simplifying user notification so that it only appears on the screen when you move to a new network.
Happenings Widget: Improved Happenings Widget to ensure that you receive the latest updates across the social networks you are connected to such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.
Calling: Improvements were made to incoming and outgoing call functionality to ensure a more seamless experience.

I’m happy to report that these updates actually worked and fixed some of my problems with the Atrix 4G. I’ve also been impressed with the update process for the Motorola Atrix which has remained drama-free meaning I haven’t inadvertently bricked/damaged the Atrix like I did with the Nokia N8 for attempting an update.

The update process goes like this:

AT&T sends you a notification when the update is ready and you can choose to download them or postpone later.
After downloading, you are also offered the chance to install the update then or postpone the update.

#ProTip: you should never attempt an update without ensuring your phone is 100% charged or on AC power. Here are some screenshots showing what the update process for the Motorola Atrix looked like:

Another area the Atrix needs polishing is in the camera app. Tapping the Camera icon brings up the screen for taking photos in anywhere from 2s to 5s. Then, tapping the Shutter button & saving the snapped shot takes anywhere from 2s to 5s depending on the phone’s mood. The lag definitely takes away from the spontaneity of just whipping out my phone to take pictures because I can never tell if I’m going to have more trouble with the phone rather than just worrying about the scene in front of me. Hopefully, the Motorola folks are working on an update to make the built-in camera feel less like beta.

Lastly, if you haven’t heard, the Netflix app for Android is available for select Android phones but not the Motorola Atrix. If you can’t wait to watch Netflix movies on your computer or TV, then keep this limitation in mind. No word on whether Netflix is actively working with Nvidia/Motorola to make this happen on the Atrix.

My next post about the Motorola Atrix will have images of the phone, accessories, software and more. Stay tuned and don’t forget to subscribe.

Without further ado, here are some criteria I looked at in picking the Motorola Atrix:

No less than 16GB of internal memory with ability to add a microSD card. Adding this requirement essentially removed several Android phones offered by ATT because smartphone makers are being chintzy. The reasons I am insistent on having this much space on my phone are:
- I won’t worry about not having enough space on my phone for apps or map data if I chose to pay for a mapping application like NDrive or Copilot, etc. Living with the G1 for several weeks made me vastly appreciative of a phone (like the Nokia N8 and the Motorola Atrix) which had a lot of space. With the Google G1, I got so sick of the “apps to the microSD” option because my apps would become inaccessible when I mounted the card to get *any* files off. Then, when space got low on the G1, I would end up not being able to receive text messages or get mail delivered. So, I say to you: don’t settle for less when it comes to space!
- I have a ton of data, music & video files that collectively occupy over 4GB of space and growing. By starting out at 4GB, you are already operating at a “space deficit”. By heading out of the gate with that much space in my pocket, you can delay for the eventual need for a microSD card. Nevertheless, I already got a 16GB microSD card which I store my documents and miscellaneous downloads on.
Decent processor speed to help with multitasking and to take advantage of increasingly technically complex and console-like games on the Market. Living with a low-powered Android device in 2011 (like the G1) is torture; For full disclosure, even though the Nokia N8 has 256MB of memory, I understand that the Symbian operating system is engineered to require fewer resources. With the Motorola Atrix, I rarely experience delays in launching apps or playing any of my HD games. In fact, the Atrix boasts an Nvidia Tegra 2 chip for gaming and has 1GB of RAM.
Sharing as a feature: I use this word to loosely describes features that are ‘enabled’ on this phone to help get data on/off the device, to either the internet or elsewhere.
1. HDMI-out is always a nice plus to have with smartphones. This feature was one of the draws of the Nokia N8 for me. Going with my future-proof theme, I can already see myself doing presentations or sharing contents through my Motorola Atrix to an external screen thanks to HDMI-out (HDMI accessory cable is provided with the Atrix). Pairing the HDMI out feature with your documents stored on Dropbox or Google Docs can mean you won’t ever have to carry a USB stick with that Powerpoint presentation with you all the time.
2. Front-facing camera for IM chatting and a decent 5 mp camera on the back. There are hundreds of photo editing & sharing apps on the Android Market and my current favorite for sharing & editing is PicPlz. In second & third place, respectively, are the Adobe Photoshop Express app and PicSayPro. My husband doesn’t believe in the smartphone gospel, but I’m still working on him. I have no doubt that he’ll be blown away by this feature if I’m ever able to “FaceTime” with him. Technically, I can’t FaceTime with him (it’s an Apple protocol), but I can rattle off 3 Android apps that support video calls using the front-facing camera: Qik, Fringe, Yahoo Messenger, etc .
3. Widgets & Skin: MOTOBLUR is a custom “skin” by Motorola for their Android phones including the Motorola Atrix. This skin comes with several cool features & widgets which allow you to add popular services to your phone & thus, cut the need (in my opinion) for mods or hacks. The images below show the options. MOTOBLUR does a great job of supporting the major social networking sites; In fact, private messages on sites like Facebook & LinkedIn are viewable through the “Universal Inbox” which is a really cool concept; For networkers/connectors, you will find the integration of your social media contacts to your phone book (which can be filtered out!) to be really cool.

Overall, I’m really digging this phone. However, this powerful phone is not without its glitches.

One of the biggest problems with the Atrix is the Atrix has a random reboot issue.

Since the release of the Motorola Atrix, there have been 2 software updates issued. The first update for the Atrix updated the phone to version 4.1.57 and fixed a slew of issues such as:

Bluetooth: Improved multimedia experience with Bluetooth devices as well as the ability to use phone with other headsets
Fingerprint reader: Improved fingerprint reader performance
Battery: Improved battery performance for longer battery life
Screen: Display will turn off automatically now while charging directly on wall charger
Phone stability: Improved stability resulting in fewer occurrences of touch unresponsiveness and/or programs quitting unexpectedly.
Car dock: Improved performance of car dock and 3.5mm jack

The second OTA update upgraded the Atrix to 4.1.83 (Android 2.2.2) and fixed a bunch of issues like:

Data Speed: Increased potential data speed.
Data Connection: Improvements to limit interruptions to data connection.
Screen: Improvements to prevent screen from freezing.
Email: Improved ability for users to receive email notifications so you know when you have a new message. Also, improvements were made so that you are now able to use the same email login to get access to both MOTOBLUR™ and YouTube.
Skype: Improvements to call audio function so it is easier for the person you called to hear you. Please note this application is not pre-loaded on the phone, but is available for download from the Android Market.
Wi-Fi: Increased functionality by enabling Yahoo Email to be sent over a Wi-Fi connection.
Display: Improved International Roaming Warning Message by simplifying user notification so that it only appears on the screen when you move to a new network.
Happenings Widget: Improved Happenings Widget to ensure that you receive the latest updates across the social networks you are connected to such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.
Calling: Improvements were made to incoming and outgoing call functionality to ensure a more seamless experience.

The update process goes like this:

AT&T sends you a notification when the update is ready and you can choose to download them or postpone later.
After downloading, you are also offered the chance to install the update then or postpone the update.

#ProTip: you should never attempt an update without ensuring your phone is 100% charged or on AC power. Here are some screenshots showing what the update process for the Motorola Atrix looked like:

My next post about the Motorola Atrix will have images of the phone, accessories, software and more. Stay tuned and don’t forget to subscribe.

Network Manager applet crashes periodically in Ubunty 11.04 / Natty Narwhal

Jane O. Ullah — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:11:30 +0000

Since I’ve been using Natty Narwhal a.k.a. Ubuntu 11.04, I’ve increasingly run into a scenario where the Network Manager applet crashes. Now, any old app crashing on Ubuntu doesn’t catch my attention quite like nm-applet‘s does because the crashing of nm-applet TAKES THE INTERNET WITH IT!

It’s maddening because I’m typically crash-surfing 10 sites at once and all ten of them suddenly have those “server” errors. Before, I cottoned on the the fact that nm-applet was having a crappy day, I would do the troubleshooting dance of making sure whatever proxy I was using didn’t time out on me or that Firefox hasn’t automagically started surfing in “Offline mode”.

Once I noticed that my Ubuntu wireless notification icon was gone, restarting is was as easy as:

Firing up terminal. Do this by hitting the Windows/Super key and start to type “term”;
Enter the words, “nm-applet” and it should bring back the notification icon. The only pitfall with this approach is that closing the terminal ends the nm-applet process you started from that terminal. My advice is to consign that particular terminal to your 4th workspace to avoid accidentally closing it.
```
jane@Jumanji:~$ nm-applet
** (nm-applet:4258): DEBUG: old state indicates that this was not a disconnect
** (nm-applet:4258): DEBUG: foo_client_state_changed_cb
** (nm-applet:4258): DEBUG: foo_client_state_changed_cb
```

By starting up nm-applet through the terminal, one persistent message I’ve been getting is:

** Message: Caught signal 15, shutting down...
** (nm-applet:13167): WARNING **: _nm_object_get_property: Error getting 'WpaFlags' for /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/AccessPoint/194: (19) Method "Get" with signature "ss" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't exist

In conclusion, as of 05/24/2011, nm-applet on Ubuntu 11.04 is pretty crashy, get in the habit of Ctrl-C-ing whatever post/email you’re handcrafting so you don’t lose any work. Cheers and see the associated images:

Moving Back to WordPress from Habari :(

Jane O. Ullah — Tue, 24 May 2011 02:35:59 +0000

Over the course of 7 days, I completed the migration of this site from Habari 0.7 to WordPress 3.1.2. I ultimately came to realize that I needed to spend more time writing my blog posts and less time fiddling with my site or theme. In the end, I needed a fully baked CMS as Habari was still a little too ‘rare’ but the Habari CMS will always be on my radar. I knew this sad day would come and I already talked not-so-seriously about it with my post about navigating with Habari. Here, I will talk about the little issues that made my decision to switch somewhat easier, what it took to move my site from Habari back to WordPress, automating the process, more caveats as well as as some interesting things I miss about Habari!

Why?

My case with Habari is probably skewed by the fact that previously,Jane Talks Tech! ran on WordPress. Then, I switched to Habari. At the time, I had several comments on the site, I wasn’t using the Disqus commenting system then and I don’t even think they had the feature to migrate your existing comments to the Disqus servers. I didn’t have the foresight to do as much testing as I did in this reverse switching scenario so I switched to Habari, I experienced several issues that were later corrected/forgotten about or unfixed. In any case, here are some of the issues with Habari I’ve experienced or was experiencing:

Trackbacks/Pingbacks: With Habari, trackbacks/pingbacks behaved very unexpectedly. I would write a post and link to a different post I’d written; More often than not, the trackback/pingback would be truncated i.e. would be missing the closing [/a] tag for links which would then cause the comments box & any associated text to be hyperlinked! I eventually went through *all* my trackbacks and manually edited them to either add the missing [/a] tag or remove the hyperlink all together. This would come back to bite me as I discovered during my migration back to WordPress but I had no choice! I know there’s a difference between a trackback & pingback but for my purposes, all I cared about was that:
- Jane publishes a post and links to 1 or 2 more posts written by her.
- Jane may edit published post and through changing post title, may inadvertently change the slug for the post.
- As Jane discovers during her migration back to WordPress, there are several broken links in pingbacks/trackbacks that could only arise as a result of post title/slug change.
Post title/slug problems: Every webmaster or blog owner should have a Google Webmaster Tools account. You will discover important things about your site in Google’s eyes such as broken links, search queries, etc. I didn’t login to my Webmaster tools account as often as I should, but for my migration back to WordPress, I finally took a look at what was going on with my site. To my horror, I discovered dozens of broken links to several internally linked posts. Majority of these broken links came from the realization that at some point, I had changed the title of certain posts which (and I’m not clear about this point) presumably changed the slug which would alter the URLs for those posts. In fairness, Habari doesn’t claim to be all that and kitchen sink. Habari is blogging software (first & foremost) and any work to extend the functionality of Habari is via plugins. However, I can see now that I need assistance in form of plugins and that since I cannot code a plugin, I need to go somewhere where plugins are already available. I cannot explain why I had so many bad/truncated URLs but I do know that the trackback/pingback issue with truncated URLs contributed. Whose fault (mine or Habari’s) that is doesn’t matter anymore. I encourage anyone who experienced this same problem to leave a comment. The moral lesson of this bullet point is:
Be careful in changing the titles and inadvertently changing the slug for already published posts because your pingbacks/trackbacks may not be updated.
Threaded comments: When I switched from WordPress to Habari, I lost the threaded comments I had but I wasn’t too broken up about it. I kept the Habari commenting system and after a couple of months, I enabled Disqus commenting on my site. Unlike the Disqus plugin for WordPress, there was no feature in the Habari Disqus plugin to migrate existing comments to the Disqus system so comment management for my site was a little split between checking Disqus.com for moderated comments and checking on my Habari comment management page (because on posts containing existing WordPress/Habari comments, the Disqus commenting box did not appear which was intended behavior). I got over this but I sorely missed having the fully fledged Disqus plugin for WordPress. This would NOT be an issue for someone starting a brand new blog without comments. For someone with an established blog & comments, I would definitely recommend LOTS of testing before migration.
Theming/Themes: With Habari 0.6, there were 2 gorgeous themes I’d found and absolutely loved. They were Dark Autumn by Ali Dmondark and Georgia by Thomas Silkjær. More importantly, they displayed fine without me needing to dive too deeply into CSS. With Habari 0.7′s release, it was trial & error to find out which themes worked OOB (out-of-box). There is a distribution hub for Habari themes but it is a work in progress. Habari is a labor of love and I can empathize with plugin or theme developers who do not have time to work on updating their themes/plugins with either bug or feature requests. Even Dark Autumn and Georgia weren’t without their quirks, but I was able to bend those themes to my will. With 0.7, those themes didn’t work for me (Dark Autumn was updated but I still had niggling issues I couldn’t fix and life got in the way) and with everything else going on, I figuratively threw up my hands and left the default K2 theme. I suspect the lack of themes is probably hurting the adoption of Habari. It probably doesn’t help that the only *definitive* post on creating themes with Habari is over 2 years old (it actually refers to porting WordPress themes) and that needs to change. There was actually a thread on Habari’s user mailing list where a Habari user was quite confused by reading the Habari Wiki page for creating custom Habari themes! After twittering about my switch back to WordPress, a Habari dev reached out to me and I told him one of the major reasons for leaving was the themes.
@chrismeller 1 shallow reason: themes. Couldn't find one to match Dark Autumn for 0.6. Will experiment on 'lesser' sites.
May 20, 2011 6:46 pm via TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite
@janetalkstech
Jane Ullah
Habari Plugins: I like to compare my switch back to WordPress from Habari to my switch to Android from Symbian. Is Habari powerful with cleaner code, etc? Yes. However, the theme & plugin ecosystem for WordPress is huge which makes it the default release for several newfangled web services on the market and reminiscent of how apps are typically released on the iPhone first before Android. Nevertheless, there *are* plugins for the major sites for Habari and as a testament to the dedication of the Habari developers, a good number of these working plugins were written by them. For instance,
1. Photosharing: There are plugins are available for viewing/inserting photos from: Flickr (bundled by default with Habari), Smugmug written by Colin Seymour, Picasa silo written by web development firm, Second Variety, Photozou, etc
2. Social media: There are plugins available for viewing/inserting tweets, sharing blog posts, etc.
3. Code sharing: There are plugins for embedding source code in blog posts, and many other plugins on the Habari distribution hub.
However, WordPress wins out when it comes to the amount of customization that is possible with the help of plugins and I have truly come to appreciate the more mature plugins for services like Google Analytics, SEO, etc which keep me in my dashboard and help me continue to write.

@bigbrovar couldn't tough it out anymore. Good or bad, WP is like iPhone, default release DOR several web services with crazy good themes.
May 22, 2011 8:37 am via Twitter for Android ReplyRetweetFavorite
@janetalkstech
Jane Ullah

How?

Now, let me dive into the really cool details of how I managed my switch from Habari to WordPress without losing my sanity or (hopefully) not ruining my site’s ranking in Google’s eyes! Over a year ago, Chris Meller (a Habari developer) whipped up a small script to aid anyone who wanted to move back from whence they came i.e. WordPress. He used a beta version of WordPress 2.9 but WordPress is now at version 3.12! Currently, Chris Meller’s WordPress migration script will move the following:

Posts – published or draft
Pages – published or draft
Comments – approved only
Tags (Note: The script didn’t import my tags for some reason. This is an important warning that, depending on your setup, could be time-consuming work. I talk about how I got around this so keep reading. )

So, here are the first steps I followed to get my posts, pages, & comments imported into the test WordPress 2.9 installation and getting to a base installation:

Create a new directory on janetalkstech.com.
Downloaded a copy of WordPress 2.9 from the WordPress release archives as I saw no reason to tempt the gods by attempting the migration with a version of WordPress *he* didn’t use.
Installed WordPress; This version will use the default “admin” username so I made sure I created the same username I had with my Habari installation and made that username an “Administrator”.
Updated the WP Migration script with the database details for the new WordPress installation per Chris’s instructions:
Well, you dump it in your Habari root directory, edit the array at the top so it can connect to the MySQL database your WordPress instance is installed in, and you load it up in your browser. You should see a bunch of junk about things it finds – and hopefully no MySQL errors along the way.
Uploaded the edited WP migration script to my Habari installation at janetalkstech.com and *hopefully* no major errors in your case. In my case, a ‘major’ problem was the fact that my tags weren’t imported but I was just euphoric that I didn’t run into any “showstopping” bugs.
Upgraded the test site to WordPress 3.1.2, blocked search engines from accessing the test site to prevent duplicate content problems, turned off commenting/pingbacks/trackbacks because this was a test site and installed tracking code (Google Analytics & StatCounter) to keep tabs on the visitors to the special test install site.
Installed the WordPress DB Backup Plugin and User Role Editor plugin. These two plugins will save you heartache. Just do it now and thank me later.
When I started the move, I had exactly 1, 111 tags in my Habari database and over 150 posts. The WordPress migration script did not import my tags and accordingly could not associate the posts with the tags. This was depressing because I was looking at *hours* of copying & pasting and doing tedious data entry. So, what did I do?

OutSource The Tedium

Elance: Before all of this began, I initially created a job on Elance asking for a developer to take care of the mess for me. I got bids ranging from $200 to $300 from non-US based workers. As I was able to get my posts/comments/pages imported, I then created a new job asking for data entry work to add tags & associate the posts with corresponding tags. I got bids for this job ranging from $50 to $250. I wasn’t happy with the workers that were bidding on my jobs so I eventually canceled my jobs and decided to give Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program a try.
Amazon MTurk: The website to sign in as a “Requester” is https://requester.mturk.com. The website is rather confusing so I recommend you skip straight to “create a hit individually“.
1. You will be asked to pre-pay for your HITs so make sure you have your credit card info on hand or on your Amazon account.
2. Err on the side of too much information. I created 2 jobs: one was asking for the creation of my 1, 111 tags based on the live site at Jane Talks Tech! for $10. I created screenshots showing how to create a tag, properly create the slug and submitting the new tag. The other *very* important thing I did was install the User Role editor plugin for WordPress. I didn’t have any extremely sensitive information in my drafts or blog posts so I wasn’t too worried about granting someone access to my test site. However, the User Role Editor allowed me to make sure the new user was was only able to create tags! Once the tags were created properly, the worker was paid. This worker was able to complete the job in less than 3 hours so I wasn’t left in limbo.
3. The other job was for updating the posts with the created tags based on the archives at Jane Talks Tech! After Worker #1 was done, the next Worker to accept my HIT was to work on adding the tags to each post on the test site. Again, I created screenshots showing exactly how to do this and the worker was able to complete this task in less than 24 hours!In summary, for less than $25, I was able to get the 1, 111 tags created and added to the correct posts via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program.
4. I also ended up removing ~ 150 tags that were incorrectly added but thanks to the excellent “search tags” option in WordPress, I was able to find a common phrase within the bad tags and bulk-delete them.
One important thing I did (& kept doing) after major steps like:
1. running the WP migration script successfully
2. upgrading to WordPress 3.1.2
3. creating tags thanks to an Amazon Turk worker
4. updating posts with correct tags thanks to an Amazon Turk worker
5. removing invalid tags from posts (done myself) was:
backing up my WordPress database files via PHPMyAdmin where I downloaded the entire database and via the WordPress backup plugin three different ways: email, server and download. It is also a good idea to export your content using the built-in WordPress exporter which outputs a WordPress eXtended RSS file. The idea being: if something goes wrong, you can always fire up another WordPress instance and get going without having to start from a blank/fresh WordPress install.

Cleaning Up & Watching Out!

This part cannot be outsourced, in my opinion. So plan on having 2 – 4 hours to spend on fixing and getting things just right. My major concerns once I had my posts, pages, tags and categories set up properly were making sure: embedded/linked image paths were updated, internal/external urls were updated & functional, updating my sitemap and migrating my comments to the Disqus commenting system.

Updating Image Paths: WordPress’s standard URL for uploaded files is: http://sitename.com/wp-content/uploads/whatever while Habari’s standard URL for uploaded files is: http://sitename.com/user/whatever/. So, I:
1. Copied over my pictures & screenshots from /user/files to one folder in /wp-content/uploads/ and installed the Search Regex plugin for WordPress. I then performed a simple search for the “/user/files” string and replaced it with my WordPress folder path. Again, please backup your database files several ways before running this plugin. It is very powerful and done wrongly, can cause serious problems. So before running this, backup; after running this, backup.
2. Installed the Broken Link Checker plugin for WordPress which alerted me to more broken image paths and I was able to use the Search Regex plugin to replace the links if there was a pattern. As I’ve become accustomed to, I backed up my database files before and after running this plugin.
Update Links: The Broken Link Checker plugin was invaluable during this process particularly because it let me update the link without manually editing each post! This link checker works on all internal and external links so make sure you don’t constantly ask the program to crawl your links. There are more ways to check your site for dead/bad links but for immediate results or a snapshot of how bad things are, you cannot beat this simple plugin on small sites like mine. Another useful feature of the Broken Link Checker plugin is that it also detects redirected links. That was how I discovered over 200 internal links which had a slash at the end. This is probably a WordPress-related matter, but with the Broken Link Checker plugin, I was able to update the links with the canonical urls and avoid the extra slash.
Thanks to this plugin, I was able to weed out several dead external link and discover several bad pingback/trackbacks that were hold-overs from my Habari days of broken trackbacks/pingbacks.
Updating Your Sitemap: With the help of Yoast‘s WordPress SEO plugin, I was able to make sure that my site was verified with Google Webmaster tools, Bing Webmaster tools and Yahoo Site Explorer. I was also able to regenerate a sitemap of my site and resubmit that to the search engines. The WordPress SEO is a very polished plugin that does more than generating a sitemap; It helps you optimize your site and each post or pages for select phrases/keywords!
Switching Comment Systems: This was probably the easiest part but nonetheless still nerve-wracking for me. As I alluded to, the official Disqus plugin for WordPress automagically imports your comments into your Disqus profile. I absolutely love Disqus because it allows you to get a fuller picture of your commenters and they’ve proven themselves honest by allowing you to export your Disqus comments back to your WordPress database or exporting all your comments to an XML file (which I am reasonably certain will be supported by whatever other CMS usurps WordPress’s throne).

Missing Habari Already

Media Management: Habari has a unique method of managing uploaded media (like photos, documents, etc). In the developers’ words:
To assist in the management of media, such as images, video and audio, Habari provides a mechanism for defining virtual filesystems for media, called Media Silos. A silo provides a consistent interface for dealing with media.
This made browsing through my Flickr/Smugmug albums an absolute pleasure and I still have not found a comparable Flickr/Media managing plugin for WordPress.
Speed/Errors/Timeouts: The Admin backend for Habari loads drastically faster than WordPress’s. Oh, and don’t get me started on the errors I get even when trying to view my Admin page in WordPress!
I’ve already had more 404 errors in the course of saving or doing anything in the WordPress backend this week than I have in the year of using Habari.
Crazy, but again, I am aware that I’ve made some stability trade-offs in moving to WordPress because I want in to the WordPress plugin/theme ecosystem. In fairness, WordPress is now a fullblown CMS whereas Habari can be called a minimalist blogging system.

The TL;DR version of this post is:

Jane Talks Tech! now runs on WordPress.

Overall, I’m very pleased that my migration from Habari to WordPress went smoother than I imagined. I didn’t have to visit IRC once or send flares into the digital universe. If you have any questions/comments, drop a note & I’ll do my best to answer.

Nokia N8 Repair Saga – Part 1

Jane O. Ullah — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:33:16 +0000

I sent my Nokia N8 (sometime around the last week of February) to a Nokia Care Center for repairs. Ostensibly, the problems were: bad screen flicker and trouble installing Ovi Store after an apparently botched PR 1.1 update Over-The-Air. On 03/16/2011, I received my Nokia N8 and spent much of my lunch break working on setting the phone backup up when I noticed several things going wrong at once. First, let me give you some background on what the repair process before I whine about the new problems my Nokia N8 returned with and Ovi Store drama …

Once I realized my N8 had reached the point where all the “Googling” didn’t yield any new insights, I decided to call the Nokia Customer Care line. This number is pre-programmed into the Nokia N8 when you first boot it up. After the techs at the Customer Support line had me do the customary troubleshooting techniques, it was determined my N8 was truly borked and would need a trip to a Nokia Care Center for repairs. Once you have reached this conclusion with the techs, the technician should send you a shipping label which will let you drop your phone off at a UPS Store without being charged. #ProTip: Spell out your email address so you won’t wait in vain for a shipping label that will never arrive. Make sure you also spell out your address which will be printed on the shipping label in case the package needs to be returned as undeliverable.You will also be required to fill out a “Repair request” form. But before you can fill out the form, you’ll need to verify your warranty status at an interstitial page by entering in your device’s IMEI number and your zipcode. Once you’ve been verified as being “in warranty” and you’ve filled out the repair request form, you should take note of the requirement that if you should ship out your phone within 10 days of verifying your warranty status, you won’t need to attach your proof of purchase.

However, if you ship the phone after 10 days have passed since you verified your warranty status, you would need to attach your proof of purchase. Once you dropped off your UPS package, all you can do is wait. Make sure you package the phone properly (formatted, with bubble wrap and sans your microSD/SIM cards) and I would recommend taking photographs of your phone’s physical condition if you can. You’ll never know if you need to provide proof of your phone’s condition if it comes back tarnished. When filling out the repair request form, you can request email updates of the phone’s repair status. I selected this option, but I found myself checking the site daily anyway. I had wrongly assumed I would be getting a new phone when I saw this update:

Well, color me surprised when I received my N8 only to find out that it was still the same phone I shipped to them. It turns out they must have replaced a defective component for my phone. Moral lesson: don’t read too much into the status updates. But hey, I wasn’t complaining. After being without my N8 for ~ 3 weeks, I wasn’t complaining.

I began the task of copying my files to my microSD, setting up my Google contacts & calendar with the Nokia N8 and reinstalling my Ovi Store-bought apps. The first two tasks were completed in no time. However, I ran into one major problem with installing my Ovi Store paid apps:

You need to update this application to a newer version that is compatible with your current phone model.

Virtually, *ALL* of my paid apps were showing this message whenever I navigated to their Ovi Store app page. I’ve invested over $60 in Ovi Store apps so I was quite peeved as this new turn of events especially as I’ve had the same phone brand since December! I did my usual dance of pinging @NokiaUS on Twitter who then contacted @NokiaCareUS who, in turn, contacted me with instructions to send information to an email address. This matter is still ongoing and it was beginning to sound like it would need some research so I moved on to the important task of setting my music playlists, etc. That’s when I lost my mind: I discovered that the sound system on my poor Nokia N8 mysteriously developed a highly irritating stuttering effect while playing my music files and had a near-constant ‘hiss’ to it while playing.

At this point, I was choking on my disappointment and pissed that I was going to have to send my Nokia N8 for a second time to the Nokia Care Center. Right now, I’m torn between my feeling of extreme annoyance “I fucking hate Nokia’s QA” to being understanding about the matter (“Shit happens. Like receiving a bad unit. Or Sending your unit for repairs and coming back with bigger problems.”) At least I can be thankful that the support technician spared me the rote “troubleshooting” steps of reformatting my device or doing the “go to Ovi Suite and check for updates” routine as I told him I had just reformatted the damned thing and checked for updates (there were none; remember, the Nokia Care Center was supposed to have flashed the PR 1.1 firmware and fix lingering issues).

In any case, there’s an Android device in ATT’s online store with my name on it. At this rate, it’s beginning to look like I won’t have my Nokia N8 for another month. I’ve read horror stories of people having to send their phones to the Care Center more than four (4) times before finally getting a replacement device. Un-believable.