mount.cifs issue in Ubuntu 10.04

mount.cifs not letting normal user to mount, the fix is:

sudo chmod +s `which mount.cifs`
sudo chmod +s `which umount.cifs`

Slow Firefox in Karmic Coala

Found this to help:
Install sqlite 3 from command line (in terminal):
sudo apt-get install sqlite3

then (make sure you close Firefox) type this in terminal:
for f in ~/.mozilla/firefox/*/*.sqlite; do sqlite3 $f 'VACUUM;'; done

After this, seems that Firefox behaves faster.

Westell 327W Hard Reset (Verizon)

I was at the friend's house. They have this wireless router/modem model Westell 327W. It was behaving badly with the connection being up and down constantly. Of course, they forgot their admin username and password. We needed to do a hard reset on it.
Hard reset is done by pressing the reset button and holding it for long time pressed (like a minute or two as said by Verizon support). It actually did reset after around 30 seconds. The admin username password was reset to admin/password pair.

To check this you connect via cable to it and go to http://192.168.1.1 address. There you can set new admin username and password, which is desirable as you do not want anyone else to access your router via wireless connection. Another thing to set is your wireless security (such as SSID name and WEP password).

In this particular situation, The connection to Internet did not work. The Verizon page would be showing up saying offering option "reconnect after resetting modem". That required Verizon online username and password.

Alternative, path to enable this was to got the address:
http://192.168.1.1/verizon/redirect.htm
and click on disable button. After that, the Internet connection was allowed.

Viewing CHM files in Gnome (Ubuntu)

I came across several ebooks in CHM file format. In order to view/open those in Linux you need a CHM file viewer.
In default Ubuntu install with Gnome, you install gnochm package. In KDE (Kubuntu), there is Kchmviewer (have not tried it).

Command:
sudo apt-get install gnochm

Checking PDF Colour base (RGB or CMYK) on Ubuntu

RGB or CMYK
I needed this thing for sending out a PDF file to printers (ad in a magazine). These are some notes for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic):

• Install imagemagick package, which contains identify command:
  sudo apt-get install imagemagick
• Run identify command on a PDF file to check if it contains RGB or CMYK colours:
  identify -verbose MyPdfFile.pdf

Additional comments

• Ran into some Gimp plugin package, but was not sure how to use it
• In Scribus, when exporting to PDF, one can select "Printer" in the colour tab. That created CMYK PDF file. Was not sure if it was the best quality though. Some experimenting needed.
  

Fiat Abarth 850 (Scale 1/43)

Built-in Mic Issue with Linux Mint 7 (Ubuntu 9.04) Vostro 1400

Issue
Built-in digital mic does not work in Ubuntu 8.10 and newer. Similar situation with recent Fedora and OpenSuse. It was located as PulseAudio issue, but I never managed to fix it. Recently playing with Linux Mint 7 XFCE and standard GNOME I started looking for a fix and had luck with the following:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/275998/comments/109

Fix
I followed the directions and here are some snapshots:

• First, edit or create /etc/asound file. Add the following text displayed in the picture below to add a new device called "alsaboost". Use command:
  sudo gedit /etc/asound
  

• Then edit /etc/pulse/default.pa file. Insert the following two lines where shown in the picture below. Use the following command:
  sudo gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa
  

• Reboot computer here for new settings to take place

• Go to Volume Control... and click on Preferences, then select +50db Mic
  

• Then in the Volume Control, you should see a slide bar for +50dB Mic

• This can also be adjusted from Terminal using command alsamixer:

Skype

• In Skype, in Options for Sound Devices, select Sound In to be new "alsaboot" component, and Sound Out and Ringing to be "pulse"

References
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/275998/comments/109