Archive for September, 2010


Roll Your Own Xmarks Server

Filed Under: Tech Help by Dave — 11 Comments
September 28, 2010

With the impending closure of Xmarks this January I decided to look for a way to keep using the service. Since I still used Firefox as my primary browser and I remembered that you could host your own bookmarks with the Xmarks BYOS Edition I decided to head down that path. Xmarks BYOS is only available as a Firefox add-on. I don’t expect development to extend to Chrome, IE or Safari.

You will need to have access to a FTP server to host your own Xmarks files. You can host your own FTP server with Filezilla Server or use space on a web server if you have FTP access to it. (Setup of Filezilla is beyond the scope of this post. I may add a tutorial on this in the future.)

Here are the steps we will follow to use Xmarks BYOS:

  1. uninstall Xmarks
  2. create a folder on your FTP server
  3. install Xmarks BYOS
  4. configure Xmarks to use your FTP site

Step 1: Uninstall Xmarks

  • Open Firefox
  • Click on Tools
  • Click on Ad-Ons
  • Highlight Xmarks
  • Click Uninstall
  • Reboot Firefox

Step 2: Setup your FTP server

  • Create a folder on your FTP server called “Xmarks”

Wow that was easy wasn’t it?

Step 3: Install Xmarks BYOS

  • Head here for the installer
  • Click on the Continue to Download button
  • Click the Download button
  • Accept all prompts and reboot Firefox to complete the install

Step 4: Configure Xmarks BYOS

  • Enter your FTP site username and password in the appropriate fields.
  • Enter the URL to your FTP site
    • i.e. ftp://ftp-server-address/xmarks/bookmarks.json
    • i.e. ftp://ftp-server-address/xmarks/passwords.json
  • Click Synchronize now
    • If you want to sync your passwords click on the Sync tab and check the passwords check box
    • Enter the password you want for your passwords file. This cannot be the same as your Xmarks BYOC password.
  • Click OK to finish

You can repeat steps 3 & 4 on as many computers are you require. Just make sure the settings are exactly the same or sync will not work.

If you’re using your own FTP server make sure to make backup copies of your .json files.

UPDATE 29/09/10:

Thanks to Jonathan & Alicia we see that BYOS will not work with Firefox 4.0, whenever it is released. However, Alicia reports that these instructions do work with the latest Xmarks release, which you can find info on here.

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Xmarks Closing Up Shop

Filed Under: Tech News by Dave — 2 Comments
September 27, 2010

Xmarks LogoThe wonderful cross browser bookmark sync tool, Xmarks, is closing up shop on January 10th, 2011. According to the Xmarks blog, they just couldn’t find a business model to keep the lights on.

I’ve been using the service for years and it will be missed. There is nothing like installing a browser add-on, filling in your user info and having all your bookmarks and passwords available to you in less than 5 minutes.

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Duluth Vacation

Filed Under: Life by Dave — Comments Off
September 25, 2010

In August Kris and I packed the family into the car and headed on a mini-vacation to Duluth, MN to see the sights and do a little shopping.

Since the weather was nice on our 1st day there we ventured to the Duluth Zoo. It was a quite impressive collection of animals for a small city. After spending most of the day there we headed to The Grate Lakes Aquarium. It wasn’t the hit the Zoo was, but it was the end of a long day and some of the fish were quite scary. Once the kids are older I’m sure it will be a place to revisit.

On day 2 we woke to torrential rains. Since we had hit the 2 major outdoor activities the day earlier we headed to The Depot. The Deport has 4 museums within it and is contained in the old Duluth train station. Keely loved the Duluth Children’s Museum. We also took a ride on the North Shore Scenic Railway and looked through the many historic trains in the Lake Superior Railroad Museum.

Duluth 2010
Duluth, MN
249 photos
 


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Videos Of The Kids

Filed Under: Life by Dave — Comments Off
September 25, 2010

Something is very funny

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What’s All The Fuss About?

Filed Under: Life, Music by Dave — Comments Off
September 24, 2010

Katy Perry’s appearance on Sesame Street with Elmo has generated quite a stir, about her breasts. After an outcry from concerned parents the producers pulled the segment.

Katy Perry sings with Elmo

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Perhaps it was the running scene that caused the little kids excitement?

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Jose Blasts 50!

Filed Under: Sports by Dave — Comments Off
September 23, 2010

Way to go Jose!


Jose Bautista hits 50th HR

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Some of Keely’s Favourite Cat Videos

Filed Under: Life by Dave — Comments Off
September 22, 2010

A collection of Keely’s fav cat videos.


Super Fast Cat Strikes

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More will be added in the future.

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Security Essentials Free for Small Business

Filed Under: Tech News by Dave — 1 Comment
September 22, 2010

This is great news for Small Business owners.

We have more good news to help keep your Windows 7 Professional PC secure. If you haven’t already seen it, today we announced that small businesses will be able to download and install Microsoft Security Essentials on up to 10 PCs for free. Microsoft Security Essentials is a no-cost antimalware service that provides real-time protection to address the ongoing security needs of genuine Windows PCs, helping to protect from viruses, spyware and other malicious threats.

I’ve been using Microsoft Security Essentials on my home systems and as my free AV installation of choice for all client PCs needing anti-virus protection. Now I can recommend it to Small Business owners too. Kudos to Microsoft for this decision.

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Huge wp_options table

Filed Under: Tech Help by Dave — Comments Off
September 15, 2010

I’ve been having issues with the automatic update of plugins and the WordPress core files for some time now and I could never quite track it down until today.

I was at my wits end with the updater and was contemplating exporting the WordPress MySQL database and installing it on to a new install folder. My best guess was that the issue was related to a core file that wasn’t overwriting correctly from my FTP upload, as it has happened before but with other side effects. After I exported my SQL file I noticed it was 6.3MB, which is huge. I dug into the SQL table and noticed that wp_options was about 6MB alone. Further inspection showed a bunch of RSS files that turn out to be cache files that are supposed to be purged. There were also lots of references to old plugins that I no longer used. My initial thought was to manually delete these entries but there were 300+ of them and that would have taken way too long. It could have also lead to me deleting an entry that was needed. A quick Google search turned up this plugin. I deactivated my current plugins so I could activate the Clean Options Plugin (internal server errors after enabling plugins were another symptom I was seeing) and ended up cleaning up over 350 orphaned entries! The wp_options table is now down to 50KB.

Now my plugin and core updates all work correctly. My dashboard also is able to load more than just a couple widgets and in general the admin interface just works better.

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Acer Aspire One Won`t Boot

Filed Under: Tech Help by Dave — Comments Off
September 13, 2010

A friend asked me to take a look at their Acer Aspire One as it wouldn`t boot for them. They would press the power button and it would light up but nothing would happen after that. I haven`t had too many net books in the shop, and I dislike the form factor so I don`t own one of my own, so I was light on ideas. A quick search lead me to a post that had the same issue my friend was seeing.

The Fix:

The Aspire One has a built-in BIOS recovery routine, making it possible to flash the BIOS even if the system doesn’t boot anymore. It’s only meant for emergencies and may void your warranty, so use at your own risk.

  • First format an USB stick with FAT.
  • Download the latest BIOS, and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD, that’s important.
  • Insert the USB stick into the net book.
  • Turn the Aspire One off, make sure both battery and AC adapter are connected.
  • Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on.
  • Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking.
  • Press the power button once. The Aspire One will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. After a while the power button will stop blinking, and the AA1 will reboot shortly after.
  • The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default.

I followed the process and the Aspire One did exactly what it was supposed to do. I`d day the entire fix took 20min, from beginning the search to finishing the boot into XP.

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