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I had struggled with a very frustrating problem when printing to my USB HP Deskjet printer using Ubuntu. The printer would sometimes print an entire job then refuse to print any more after that. The documents would show in the queue but you could not cancel or release them. 
 
Another symptom of the problem would be tasks on the machine, owned by a user lp, that you could not kill. These were USB print jobs that also caused a high load average although the machine performance was not affected. These conditions would sometimes persist between reboots. 
 
The cause of this was a conflict between the CUPS USB implementation using libusb and the Linux kernel's USB printing module usblp. You can read more about the conflicts here.
 
To fix this, you just need to add:
 
blacklist usblp
 
to the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and reboot. This worked perfectly for me, but the wiki referenced above does mention problems with some printers and blacklisting this module.

Topics:

• ubuntu
• linux

In being so busy and wanting to achieve so much, I have managed to find more time to work towards my goals without sacrificing time with my family who are the most important to me. 

Time management is an art and a habit. Rarely can I take time to type up a blog or watch TV, but I have never been so productive and so filled with purpose. Of course it means cutting out activities like Facebook, Google+, blogging, some home improvement, most TV, and playing my Xbox but I do not miss them.

With so many goals, a full time job, a business, and most importantly, a family, it's easy to say no and easier to get things done, moving closer to my goals. 

Your greatest asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is your time. - Brian Tracy

All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose. - Brian Tracy

 

 

The latest Firefox update broke the kioskfox plugin. Well, not really broke it, but Firefox says it's incompatible and it cannot find an updated version. It's an easy fix that seems to work well.

If you are using the kiosk build from this website, use the command:

$ sudo nano -w /home/kiosk/.mozilla/firefox/obw0c5n2.default/extensions/{24731AD7-300A-4c5a-A4AC-F8599DA482E2}/install.rdf

Change the line that reads <em:maxVersion>3.6.*</em:maxVersion> to read <em:maxVersion>10.*</em:maxVersion>

This should be safe, and it seems to work well. However, it's possible that future upgrades of Firefox may change features that this plugin depends on, and that could cause unexpected results.

I will look for a permanent solution for this with the next kiosk build.

I started up Visual Studio 2010 on my Windows 7 virtual machine to finally get some development done and was greeted with this error when opening a project I had recently worked on:

The solution appears to be under source control, but it's binding information cannot be found. Because it is not possible to recover this missing information automatically, the projects whose bindings are missing will be treated as not under source control.

Another symptom of this problem can be seen when using Windows Explorer. The folders that should be under source control no longer have the little green icon in the corner, and there is no longer a Team Foundation Server menu.

One solution I came across suggested using the Change Source Control dialog, available at File -> Source Control -> Change Source Control. The solution said to highlight each project/solution and then click Bind. However, I was presented with the error:

The mappings for the solution could not be found.

After an hour of searching, I figured out that this happened because I renamed my virtual machine to conform to our standards. Apparently, the workspaces in Visual Studio depend on the name of the computer, not some sort of unique identifier.

To fix this, the first step is to close the solution. After the initial error you will be asked if you want to "temporarily work uncontrolled" or if you would like to "permanently remove source control association bindings." Choose "temporarily work uncontrolled" and then immediately close the solution using File -> Close Solution.

Next, open the workspaces dialog using File -> Source Control -> Workspaces...

You will notice the Manage Workspaces dialog box contains one workspace with your new machine name. Click on Edit... to view the details of this workspace.

In my case there were no working folders. There should be an entry for every project you have under source control. I should have at least 10 here.

Click Cancel to return to the Manage Workspaces dialog box and click the check box labeled "Show remote workspaces." When I did this, I now have second entry that has my computer's old name. Clicking edit when for this "remote" workspace brings up all of my missing mappings.

Next, you will want to note the old computer name and follow the steps outlined here:

• Close Visual Studio.
• Open the Visual Studio command prompt found in All Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010).
• Enter the command: tf workspaces /updateComputerName:OldComputerName /s:http://Tfs_server:8080 substituting "OldComputerName" and the address of your TFS server. I had to add /tfs to the end of the address.

When I started Visual Studio, I now had two workspaces. I was able to delete the "new" one that had no mappings, and for completeness I renamed the old one to match the new computer name. Now all of my projects open properly.

Also, I now see the little green corner on the folders that are under source control when I use Windows Explorer, and the Team Foundation Server menu appears again. I had to reboot to see these.

We take a break from our day-job-imposed semi hiatus for our annual report from the Washington DC Auto Show. As we have reported for several years now, the organizers of The Washington Auto Show have been attempting to lend the... Jon Weekend Leisure

We take a break from our day-job-imposed semi hiatus for our annual report from the Washington DC Auto Show. As we have reported for several years now, the organizers of The Washington Auto Show have been attempting to lend the... Jon Weekend Leisure