Technology How To’s

Article that I’ve written over the years to resolve specific technology issues that I’ve run across in my day to day life.

How to: Run Gimp from Linux Machine and display on Mac OSX

Posted by Rick on in Linux, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How to: Run Gimp from Linux Machine and display on Mac OSX

Unix machines are known for their great versatility in configuration, and their “power”. Traditionally Unix machines were “headless” or without a monitor or other display device except for Terminals. These days another whole computer can replace the terminal. But Unix machines as the whole tend to be pretty beefy machines when it comes to CPU and RAM. Instead of just using it as a glorified File Server, with a few simple commands they can used to run pretty complex pieces of software such as the Gimp.

On the OS X side make sure you’ve got X11 installed. Follow the XCode Install Directionshere.

Once that is done, launch an X11 window and type ‘xhost +’ or optionally ‘xhost +machinename’ or ‘xhost +username’ xhost allows other computers to use your X11 program as the display instead of their own display. The + means everybody which might be bad for security, but good if you’re going to be using a lot of different machines. Looking at the man page it can be limited to just machine name or even specific users names.

Login to the remote machine using ssh or telnet.

type ‘setenv DISAPLY :0.0’ in a tsch or csh shell. Bash will not work. This tells the remote machine to redirect it’s display to your machine.

Launch software! In this case just type gimp, but you may have to type in the full path to the software.

How to: Contact Amazon.com’s customer service

Posted by Rick on in Internet, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How to: Contact Amazon.com’s customer service

Just like in physical stores, people sometimes have problems with online stores. Usually the larger companies have pretty good Customer Service. But sometimes you just want to be able to actually talk to someone on the phone to get an issue resolved.

According to Amazoncustomerservice Blog the numbers you need are:

(206) 266-1000 for Local to Seattle US
1-866-216-1072 for US
1-206-266-2992 for International
(877)-586-3230 for Canada
+44.208.636.9200 for UK
0800 279 6620 for UK Free Phone
0011 1 206 266-2992 – Australian (same as international)

He’s also included numbers for Paypal, Ebay, Yahoo!, and Netflix here.

How to: Clean Apple Mighty Mouse

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Hardware, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How to: Clean Apple Mighty Mouse

I am a big fan of the AppleMighty Mouse. It feels right in my hand.

Unluckily the little ball attracts grime and stops working. There have been multiple posts on how to fix them.

The problem is just like any other mouse. Grease from fingers gets on the ball which attracts dust. The dust gets rolled into the mechanism clogging it up. Canned does not get this gunk out as it’s like glue. WD-40 does a bit but can damage parts inside the mouse, or the rubber of the ball itself. Plus it leaves a thin film that merely makes the problem worse. Taking the mouse completely apart tends to break them. Rubbing the mouse ball upside down against your hand merely gets out loose pieces.

The best, longest lasting method I’ve found is to use a wire twist tie. Push the mouse ball down and run one end of the wire tie along the groove. You’ll be able to physically see the gunk under the lip holding the ball in. Remove everything that you can physically see.

Step 2 is a variation on other fixes. Pour some rubbing alcohol on a lint free rag. Turn the mouse upside down and rub the ball with the rubbing alcohol. This will clean the rubber ball itself and help remove any smaller pieces of gunk that the wire tire removed. Keep doing this for longer then you think you’ll need.

Follow these steps and you should see a noticeable difference in how the mouse ball moves. It’ll be like getting a new Mighty Mouse, but cheaper.

For long term cleanliness wash your hands before using the mouse. This will help keep the build up to a minimum.

MSMAPI32.DLL is missing, corrupted or broken

Posted by Rick on in Technology How To's, virus, Windows 2 Comments

MSMAPI32.DLL is missing, corrupted or broken

Upon Launching Outlook in Windows, this error message comes up: Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version.

iTunes for Windows can give a similiar error message by the way. As can the MSN toolbar although both tend to say: The original 49 could not be located in the dynamic link library MAPI32.dll

The first problem seems to be caused by having Office 2007 installed, then retrograding back to Office 2003. Perhaps because of the costs or maybe because of compatibility issues.

Uninstalling Office 2007 does not remove or replace MSMAPI32.ddl. Instead you need to go to c:Program
FilesCommon FilesSystemMSMAPI1033MSMAPI32.DLL and delete or rename the file. Once that is done, launch Outlook . Reconfigure your mail settings and everything should be good to go.

The file may also be located in c:winntsystem32. There may be a backed up version of it that you can restore.

Do not under any circumstances download this file from the Internet, restore it from another machine or your original Windows Disks. This is most likely a virus.