Firefox freezes on startup

Just updated to Firefox 3.5.3, expecting some more security fixes on my Windows XP desktop but darn! Every time I start Firefox, it freezes instantly. I killed the process but the next time, again. I tried running it in safe mode. You do it by running :

"D:\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode

What it does is starts Firefox like a fresh install, with all add-ons and extensions disabled. What can go wrong here? A lot. It will freeze again. This time I look for whats that is being shared in the safe mode as well? HISTORY!

I opened my Firefox profile, by running:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

I looked inside the folder, and found the size of my profile folder to be 450MB! Further investigation revealed this file called places.sqlite which had a size of 370MB, and what was it? It was my 9 months of history. One simple solution was delete the file, and firefox will rebuild it from scratch. But I could never afford to lose all those pages. So I downloaded the Firefox SQLite Manager. It helped me open up the file and edit the tables. So I deleted sorted the pages by last visited and let 5000 entries remain, out of the 85,000 that were there. It reduced the size of the file to 60 MB, and FF is now up and running. So, it was nothing to do with the update, I guess, although I have sent them a feedback. Oh God! How I hate all other browsers!

Yay! I have a Demonoid Account

The dream account for every P2P participant is to get a Demonoid account. Somebody tells you they have the most active and fastest trackers of all and you rush to their site to register for an account but wait, 'Registration is Closed'. You read the FAQ section on Demonoid and they say that registrations usually open for the first 2-3 days of the month, alternatively you can use a demonoid invitation. You wait for the 1st of the next month, probably visiting demonoid every day to see if registrations are on but they don't just seem to update the site!!

You look all over the net and find scores of sites which claim to be sending Demonoid invitation codes to those who register with them. WARNING!! They will sell your email id to some spammer. You already have enough spam so please don't bother them.

So you get all pissed off and forget it. Then you come across this noble and charitable group on Facebook called Demonoid. Even they claim the same but don't ask for your email id so you go on and join it. Within a week you get a message from the group owner that whoever wants invitations must contact him by replying. Half believing him you do the same and whoopeee!! in 2 minutes you see that the guy has sent you an invitation code, that WORKS.

Congratulations! Go Seed.

Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) - 1

Its been two full weeks since I installed Ubuntu inside Windows XP (click here to see how) and and I have booted into XP just once (Oh God! I love Windows' games). I'll say thats not bad for a person who has always been critical of non-Windows systems for the fact that the variety of software packages just can't be compared. I did miss Windows for two days, which I spent getting Xampp to a good working condition and I even pulled my hair at the mess wrong (too less or too much) permissions can create. After that, it was a smooth drive. Installing new software can't be easier - just one command. Startup and Shutdown speeds are also very impressive. Memory consumption is less (thanks to no Avast and no ZoneAlarm) and firefox performs better although I can't update it to the latest 3.5 as Firefox for Ubuntu is customised and it takes a few months for the latest version to be customised.

Games aside, Ubuntu is a brilliant OS to work on, whether you are a developer or a casual user. Whichever software you may have been using, there is an alternative available for free ("Free as in Beer, and Free as in Freedom") in the Open Source world. If you just can't work without MS technologies like Silverlight or the open source alternatives don't seem to fill the place of your expensive software, then its no compulsion (obviously!).

Now, let me see more of it to write more of it.

Using PHP from the Command Line (Terminal) in Linux with a xampp install

This is for those who are using the xampp server. If you are using the Generic Linux apache and PHP packages, use you package manager to download php-cli .

If you are using xampp, you already have the php-cli library. In the terminal, type:

/opt/lampp/bin/php {input file} {arguments}

Done! If you don't like using /opt/lampp/bin/php every time, you can set php as an environment variable for /opt/lampp/bin/php.

To do this, go to terminal and type:

php=/opt/lampp/bin/php
export php

if you are using Bash Shell (the default one in Ubuntu), you can use this shortcut:

export php=/opt/lampp/bin/php

and reboot.

now you can use

php {input file} {arguments}

Dual Booting Ubuntu Linux in Windows

It will not be wrong to say that installing Ubuntu in Windows is the easiest thing to do for anybody. All you need is Windows already installed, a CD of Ubuntu (which you can order or download from ubuntu.com) and I recommend atleast 12 GB of free space, How do we do it?

• Boot into Windows.
• Insert the Ubuntu CD. On autoplay, you will be given three options, select "Install inside Windows".
• Select the appropriate drive. For installation size, go for the maximum that your free space allows.
• Set the username and password and hit Enter.
• Installation takes 6-7 minutes and asks you to reboot.
• Reboot and there you go, select Ubuntu in the choice of OS that you get.
  

Drupal - Hiding post information in Acquia Marina

You decided that you don't want the author and date to be displayed below some particular node types but don't know what to do. Th standard way is this:

• Go to Themes on your Admin page
• Click on Configure on the top of the page
• On the right, you have a column 'Display post information on' , uncheck the content types you don't want the post info to be displayed on and click Save Configuration.

Most probably this will remove the post information, but there are chances that it doesn't. This is because what you just changed were Global Settings and you might be using your theme's custom settings. this is specially the case in Acquia themes which are highly configurable. In this case:

• Go to Themes on your Admin page
• Click on Configure next to the theme you are using
• Navigate through the fieldsets like this Theme-specific settings >> Node settings >> Author & date >> Default
• Uncheck the Check Boxes as required and Save Configuration. This will disable Author and Date from all content types.
• Now to make the change for select content types, navigate to the same place and you will find a CheckBox labeled "Use custom settings for each content type instead of the default above". check it and select your Custom Settings from the following Fieldsets.

Daemon tool pro error : -1

I just repaired my Windows XP, hoping that all minor errors will be gone but, when I opened the Daemon Tools panel all my virtual drives were gone. I tried creating one and got the error:

Daemon tool pro error : -1

Soon i was Googling to find a solution to the problem. I found none but figured out the problem. When you repair Windows, it rolls back all the drivers installed to the default ones and that is what caused the problem. to resolve, follow these steps:

• Right click My Computer
• Select Properties
• Select the Hardware tab
• Click on Device Manager
• Look for SCSI and RAID controllers - It will already be expanded and there will be a cross on its icon (not visible in image) which indicates that its not functioning.
• Right Click on ANNxxxxx IDE controller and select Update Driver
• Update using default options.

I you cannot see the SCSI and RAID controllers option in you Device manager, you need to reinstall Daemon Tools.