• Fixes a bug that could allow someone to bypass the passcode and access the Phone app.
• Improvements to Maps in Japan.

Not very exciting but the passcode bypass fix is a big one for me.

1. nano -w /etc/sudoers
2. Scroll down to the section ## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
3. Below the root entry line I enter: blogchampion ALL=(ALL) ALL
4. Save

User ‘blogchampion’ now has access to use the sudo command.

You can also add all users within a particular user group to have sudo permissions. I do this as follows:

1. nano -w /etc/sudoers
2. Scroll down to the section ## Allows people in group wheel to run all commands
   
3. Below the %wheel entry line I enter: %bloguser ALL=(ALL) ALL

Now all users belonging to the bloguser user group have access to use the sudo command.

You probably also want to force users to use the root password when using sudo. See the post How to make CentOS ask for the root password with sudo for instructions.

1. nano – w /etc/sudoers
2. Scroll down to the section “# Defaults specification” and below that line enter: Defaults    rootpw
3. Save the file.

Now when a user account tries to use the sudo command, they will be prompted for the root password.

• BAExpats – Buenos Aires expatriates group (fantastic community for advice)
• Bagelazo – Delicious bagels and sandwiches in Buenos Aires
• Bakano – Pizza delivery
• ByT Argentina – Apartments in Buenos Aires
• Charcas y Armenia – Apartment to rent in Buenos Aires
• Chowhound – Great tips and advice for those looking for fine dining experiences in Latin America
• Ele Baires – A popular Spanish school for those in Buenos Aires on business
• Free Language Classes – Links to some places where you can learn essential Spanish phrases for free
• Guia Oleo – Buenos Aires restaurant guide with reviews from locals
• Ibero Spanish – My favourite Spanish school in Buenos Aires
• IBL – Study Spanish in Buenos Aires
• LVStudio – A Spanish school with classes in the touristy Palermo neighborhood
• Movistar Argentina – The mobile phone company I use in Argentina
• Puratierra Restaurant – A good Buenos Aires restaurant
• Romario – Pizza and Empanadas restaurant chain and delivery
• SaltShaker – An online diary with restaurant reviews and interesting posts for foodies
• Silver Star Transport – Executive Taxi Service
• Tickettek Argentina – Get tickets to concerts, the theatre, sports events, etc.
• Top Argentine Wine Picks – A good list of wines to try

This worked well for all but three of the tracks in my library where I was presented with the cryptic error message:

iTunes could not copy “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” to the iPod because the file could not be converted

I tried disabling the “convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps” option which duly wiped all the songs off my iPod again, and then attempted to sync them all at higher bit rate. Many more songs failed to sync this time too. So I chose to Restore iPod to factory defaults and then investigate further why those three tracks wouldn’t play. (yes – I know I should have tried to research the problem more first before attempting the re-sync!)

I’m managing my music library with iTunes in the Cloud so all of these songs were recently downloaded from iTunes servers. However, when I tried to manually create AAC versions of the three troublesome songs I was presented with a more useful error message:

“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” could not be converted because protected files cannot be converted to other formats.

iTunes in the Cloud songs are supposed to be delivered as unprotected. And nothing in the playback of the file suggested the songs were actually copy protected. But I deleted the local copies of the songs from iTunes application anyway and then tried to re-download all three of the songs again. After successfully re-downloading fresh copies, I then tried to sync my iPod Nano again and this time the process completed correctly without errors.

I should have guessed iTunes Cloud would be the problem. I’ve encountered numerous problems with corrupt downloads, failed downloads, and playback issues on portable devices when using the service. So this is just another item to add to my list of hassles as an occasionally frustrated iTunes user.

Diskpart can be used to wipe a drive clean of all partitions. It will wipe EVERYTHING and require you to format the drive in Windows afterwards to a valid filesystem such as NTFS or XFAT before you can use it.

Here are the steps I successfully followed:

1. Open the Command Prompt utility.

2. Enter: diskpart

3. I waited while diskpart scanned my system for active drives and partitions. It took about 20-30 seconds.

4. Enter: list disk

5. List disk returns a list of disks connected to my Windows system. Each disk is numbered: disk1, disk2, disk3, disk4, etc.

6. I found and noted the disk number of the drive I wanted to wipe clean of all partitions.

7. Enter: select disk## (replacing ## with the disk number I wanted to use)

8. The next command will wipe everything off the drive. So I checked, double-checked, triple-checked that I definitely, definitely, definitely had selected the correct diskX number before proceeding to step 9.

Remember the next step will DELETE EVERYTHING off the selected drive.

9. Enter: clean

10. Wait a few seconds…. the drive is now cleaned. Enter: exit

I then proceeded to Administrative Tools to format my drive to NTFS filesystem. I can see now the EFI partition has been successfully removed in Computer Management > Disk Management. My router is now able to use the drive as NAS. Job done!

Despite numerous complaints and requests for an option to disable the behavior in Chrome Preferences, there’s still no way to turn this off within the browser – or tweak a hidden browser config option. The only workable solution I have found is to install AutoHotkey software and add three lines of code to a simple .ahk script.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. Download AutoHotkey software from the project website here.
2. Install AutoHotkey and allow it to create a sample script in “My Documents” folder.
3. Open that sample script (AutoHotkey.ahk) in a text editor and add these lines to the bottom of the file:

   ^WheelDown::return
   ^WheelUp::return
   #MaxHotkeysPerInterval 1000

4. Double click the updated AutoHotkey.ahk script in My Documents and allow it to replace the existing instance that is already running.

Now try opening a new instance of Google Chrome browser and try zooming in and out of web pages using ctrl + mouse wheel. If the zoom ceases to function, you’ve successfully solved the problem.

lsb_release -a

Information returned to you:

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise

Now breathe again.

The next step, after backing up, is checking that ‘update-manager-core’ is installed on the target machine:

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

Now edit your ‘release-upgrades’ file to tell the update-manager that you want to receive all major operating system upgrades.

sudo nano -w /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

You will need to change prompt=lts to prompt=normal if it is not already set this way. Save and exit nano.

Next you need to make sure your system has all the current updates for the version of Ubuntu you are running right now:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

If apt confirms your system is up-to-date, we’re good to go. (we did make current backups of all our data right?)

To start the Ubuntu upgrade process, issue the following command:

sudo do-release-upgrade

If you’re connected remotely using a terminal connection, Ubuntu will inform you this is risky and that a separate SSH server instance has been opened on port 1022. This, in theory, should allow you to connect to your machine in the event something goes wrong – and your default SSH server has died.

If all goes well, your machine should be upgraded to the current version of Ubuntu within about 30 minutes – depending on the speed of your internet connection.

These instructions were written for Ubuntu upgrades from 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS. These may no longer work for newer versions of Ubuntu, and may need updating in the future.

Thankfully it’s very easy to change your server hostname in Ubuntu, and across all other Linux distributions in general. It’s as simple as issuing a couple of commands via a command line interface, editing two files, and then a quick reboot to puts the changes into action. So there’s no real excuse not to right your previous wrong.

Let’s get started.

First up, let’s edit the ‘hostname’ file replacing the existing entry with our new hostname:

nano -w /etc/hostname

Next up, edit the ‘hosts’ file replacing the old hostname with the new:

nano -w /etc/hosts

You can reboot your machine immediately for the new hostname to take effect. Or alternatively, just issue the following command line to implement the hostname changes without a restart:

sudo /etc/init.d/hostname.sh start

Others may prefer to substitute “nano -w” with their preferred command line text editing tool. I’ve been using Pico/Nano since Cobalt RaQ server days, and I’ve never grown out of the habit.