Computing

Getting Dell XPS Trackpad to work on Ubuntu Hardy

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I had trouble getting my Dell XPS M1530 track pad/touch pad to work when I updated the BIOS from A07 to A09. However, it is fairly an easy fix.

Edit your ‘/boot/grub/menu.lst’ file with:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Then add:
i8042.nomux=1

at the end of the ‘kernel’ line. It may look like below:

title		Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=446ea0c-57b1-4112-939c-
3f1d74be9f5f ro quiet splash i8042.nomux=1
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic quiet

Save the menu.lst file and reboot. This should get your track pad/touch pad working.
Reference from Ubuntu Forums.

Drop it, Dropbox!

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It’s been awhile since I’m searching for a perfect online backup application. I’ve tried many, but none have really captured my attention. Not until I’ve tried Dropbox.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a free, multi-platform, online backup and synchronization application. My first attraction to Dropbox is because the client tools supports Linux. It also suports Mac OSX, and oh yeah, Windows too. Installation on my Ubuntu Hardy laptop is a breeze. Just download the debian package, and the rest of the installation is pretty straight forward. No extra tricky setup, configuration or anything. Upon the completion of the installation, just point your Dropbox location to a folder path on your machine, and you ready to go.

Taskbar
  An icon installed on the taskbar for easy access.

Online Backup
Dropbox currently provides 2GB of storage, which is sufficient for me at this time to backup all of my important files. Backing up files is very easy. Just open your Dropbox folder, and copy-paste the file(s) that you wish to backup to that folder.

Dropbox folder
Dropbox location on your folder.

Seamless sync
I have a couple of computers at home, which is running Ubuntu 8.04, and also a Windows 2003 machine running at my office. Installing Dropbox client on all of these boxes enabling me to sync all my files between those boxes, seamless, and without much effort at all. Just make sure Dropbox client is running, and those files will be sync automatically.

Sync files

Dropbox website
Just in case you want to grab or upload your files, but Dropbox client are not installed, you can always go to Dropbox site.

Dropbox web interface
Dropbox web interface

Another cool feature is, the files you stored has “Revisions”. Meaning, you don’t have to worry if any of our files get accidentally deleted or overwritten, since you can always retrieve deleted or the previous version of your files.

Dropbox revision feature
Dropbox revision feature

Feel free to watch Dropbox screencast for more info on their features and functions. Have you tried Dropbox or any equivalent online backup application? Feel free to share your experiences.

Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router Firmware Upgrade

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Recently I have a problem where my wireless connection sometimes getting dropped. My Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router having intermittent reboot, especially when there’s a lot of connections, like when BitTorrent is running on one of my machine. I’ve figured out that maybe it’s time to upgrade my router’s firmware. The current version is the initial release version, 7.00.1. The latest firmware for WRT54G version 7 right now is 7.00.6.

The firmware upgrade process is very simple.

1. Download the latest firmware from Linksys website. For my case it’s here. Make sure you’re downloading the correct version for your router.

2. Go to the router’s GUI. It’s usually by opening http://192.168.1.1 with your web browser.

3. At the GUI, go to “Administration”, the to “Firmware Upgrade”.

4. Browse for the firmware file that you have downloaded, and then click “Upgrade”.

5. That’s it. Easy as pie. After the upgrade process completed, the router will reboots itself, and enjoy your new upgraded firmware.

Here’s the release note for version 7.00.6. It’s already been 1 hour since my upgrade process, the BitTorrent is running, and there’s no intermittent reboot or connection drops. Cool.