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Yum error when updating

This happened to me when trying to run yum update (its happened a few times on several different machines; see fix below):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ?
    yummain.user_main(sys.argv[1:], exit_code=True)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 229, in user_main
    errcode = main(args)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 145, in main
    (result, resultmsgs) = base.buildTransaction() 
...
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/sqlitesack.py", line 94, in 
_read_db_obj
    setattr(self, item, _share_data(db_obj[item]))
TypeError: unsubscriptable object

To fix this:

> yum clean metadata

Or if that doesn’t work, you can also try:

> yum clean all

Preserving Date time stamps on Directories When Copying in XP

I recently upgraded my computer and I had to transfer data from my old harddrives. The problem was, as you can guess from the title, is that XP would not preserve the modified date on directories (although I believe the Create time is preserved).

I was hoping for a program that would integrate into my explorer context menu, etc. I tried some other ones that had their own gui (and the ones that did integrate), and none of them would preserve the modified timestamps.

I tried xcopy but couldn’t figure out how to preserve the modified date.

Anyway, I’m back to using rsync in my cygwin shell:

cd c:\newdir
rsync -a -v --progress /cygdrive/e/Data .

or a simple ‘cp’:

cd c:\newdir
cp -a /cygdrive/e/Data .

I like rsync since I can run it over and over again and it will only copy changes (although it will still traverse the directory tree to compare files). Especially handy when you get errors that it can’t read certain directory etc. In my case, I had issues with it reading a directory that had url link with foreign characters in the filename.

And this method is probably little too high level for most home users. Cygwin can be problematic and seems complex to install. Also I think you may have to manually select rsync during install.

I’ll keep a look out for other programs, and will update this post if I do find it.

FiOS in Perris

This past Friday, I saw several Verizon trucks on my street, parked every few hundred feet. Went to talk to them and they informed me that they were installing fiber for FiOS service. The technician said that FiOS should be available in a month or so.

Well I’m fairly excited. I have Time Warner with 10mb down and 1mb up. About a year ago, though, I would have been even more excited. My speeds then were half of what they are now. I believe the speeds (although they probably vary by area) are at 20mb down and 20mb up for the same price I pay now. Whats really useful for me is the upload speed, as it helps with working from home.

Also, I heard that Time Warner is going to start testing usage caps on their internet access. I dont know if they are going to implement that or not. But it definitely helps to have a choice.

Banding on Canon S9000 Printer (Part 2)

I wrote earlier about banding on my Canon S9000 Printer. Here is an update, 2 years later.

I forgot to note earlier, that I use refillable ink cartridges. I bought them about 2 months after purchasing the printer, and going through about 4 or 5 sets of ink cartridges. So this update mainly concerns people that refill their cartridges.

About 5 months after I wrote that ‘article’, the problem started to happen again. I hadn’t used the printer in about a month and a half and two or three of the ink cartridges were totally empty. Cleaning the head didn’t help. So I tried using new empty refillable cartridges, and that worked great. The output was just like when I had bought the printer new.

The refillable cartridges have a limited lifetime. The cartridges I had problems with, I had refilled them about 15 or 20 times, and lasted over a year. If the ink runs out totally, there is probably a good chance that ink would dry up in the ‘foam’ part of the cartridge, and restrict the flow rate.

So if you’ve tried cleaning the print head, and that doesn’t completely fix it, then its probably that your refillable cartridges are toast. If both don’t work, then you will probably need to buy a new print head.

Trying to delete files that are "in use" under Windows XP

I’ve had this one issue where Windows XP would not let me delete couple of files in different directories. I found a cool little (and free) tool that called Unlocker that lets you unlock those files.

Basically, after you install it, right click the file, a group of files, or a directory, and select “Unlocker”. It will popup a window showing what program has a lock on that file. Really comes in handy.

I also use it to find out what programs have a certain file open. There is also a thing called Process Explorer This program is usefull to find out what files a program has open (as opposed to what program has a certain file open). But that might be easier in the current versions.

But the above won’t help if the reason you can’t delete a file because a file has invalid characters in the filename. in that case, visit this Microsoft KB article might help. I guess it should help in cases where unlocker might not be able.

Adding a FileType to RightClick -> New under XP

This is about when you right-click in a files area of Windows Explorer or right-click the desktop, and go to New menu. In my case my text file entry got lost (I guess while I was trying to install & uninstall different text editors).

Searched on the net, and found one answer. Didn’t work. Searched some more and found out that the first answer was only half the piece.

1. Save a new (or blank) file in SystemRoot\ShellNew (or C:\Windows\ShellNew\). Filename you give it will be used later
2. Start regedit (Start->Run->regedit->OK)
3. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and search for the extension (in my case .txt)
4. Create a subkey called ShellNew unless one already exists (RightClick->New->Key)
5. Inside ShellNew create a new String value. Name it FileName
6. Double-click FileName and enter the name of the file that you saved under the C:\Windows\ShellNew\.
7. Click on the extension key again (.txt) and note the ”(Default )” Value. Go to that value under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.
8. Repeat steps 4 to 6 for this key.
9. Not sure exactly, but I think you may be able to enter NullFile for the FileName and it will create a blank file (which will work fine for text file, but wont work for most other types)

I did not reboot for this to take effect. But YMMV.

Weird delay or lag with Openwebmail and Firefox

I use openwebmail for our webmail client. And only on my Laptop’s Firefox (my desktop and many others that I’ve tried worked fine) would run really slow and laggy when I went to my openwebmail web page.

Well I tracked it down to the default background ‘Globe.gif’ that I came configured. I tried copying another gif file that came with openwebmail, and that had the same problem. Converted the gif file to a jpg and changed the settings so it would use jpg, and voila! Problem solved.

Copied a random gif on the server (ones that came with Apache) and it worked fine. Also I converted the previously converted jpg file back to a gif and that also had no problem.

So not sure if its a problem with Firefox’s rendering engine. Maybe it can’t handle a certain type of gif file?

How to fix Vipul's Razor's "Invalid argument" error

If you are using Razor and you get the following error (which I received as well, on Redhat 8/i386):

Unable to connect to pride.cloudmark.com:2703; Reason: Invalid argument.
Unable to connect to wonder.cloudmark.com:2703; Reason: Invalid argument.
Unable to connect to thrill.cloudmark.com:2703; Reason: Invalid argument.
Unable to connect to pride.cloudmark.com:2703; Reason: Invalid argument.

I modified Razor2/Client/Core.pm (which will be somewhere in /usr/lib/perl5). You can either download the patch file or edit it yourself. Basically add a ‘Use Socket’ at the top. go to line 1733 (its right before the second use of ‘IO::Socket::INET’) and add:

my $ghbn = gethostbyname($server);
my $addr = inet_ntoa($ghbn);

Change the ‘PeerAddr => $server’ to ‘PeerAddr => $addr’. Also you can modify the log line (about 6 or so lines down) from ’$server:$port’ to ’$server:$addr:$port’ so it will also print the IP address in the error log.

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