Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Delicious bookmark for IE Alpha

Besides the del.icio.us alpha version for Firefox 3, Yahoo! has just released an Alpha version of Delicious add-on for IE today.

Delicious for IEThe IE version provides a similar user interface with the one in Firefox, but seems quite unstable at present, bookmarks cannot be synced perfectly. The most attractive benefit to make me install this add-on is that I don't have to maintain 2 sets of bookmarks for IE & Firefox any more.

As it's an alpha version, if you want to download the add-on, you have to join Yahoo! Group - delicious-firefox-extension first.

Delicious for IE

Saturday, April 19, 2008

How to install Broadcom BCM4310 USB controller driver in Ubuntu

My lenovo C466 (so as on Dell Vostro 1500)laptop has an embedded wireless network card "BCM4310 USB controller".

To install the driver of this card, we need to use "ndiswrapper" which makes the drivers for windows work in Ubuntu & it's GUI "ndisgtk" to facilitate the installation.

How to install Broadcom BCM4310 USB controller Wireless Network Card in UbuntuHere are the steps to install the driver for BCM4310 USB Controller Wireless Network Card in Ubuntu (have been tested in both 7.10 & 8.04)

1. Install "ndiswrapper" & "ndisgtk"
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils ndisgtk, or you can install these packages from "Synaptic Package Manager"

2. Download the driver
Download the driver from Dell's site: http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R174291.exe

3. Unzip the file
Unzip the file to your desktop, there should be a "DRIVER_US" folder which contains the "bcmwl5.inf" file, we need this file later

4. Run "ndisgtk"
sudo ndisgtk, or you can launch it from "System -> Administration -> Windows Wireless Drivers"

5. Install the driver
Click "Install New Driver", and select the "bcmwl5.inf" mentioned above, and then click "Install"

After the above 5 steps, the wireless card indicating lamp should be on now, if you still cannot connect to the network, you should make some configuration.
1. Open the Networking Admin tool (System | Administration | Networking), select the Wireless connection and click Properties, ensure the Enable roaming mode checkbox is ticked.
2. Click the Network Manager icon (computers icon in the top right corner of system tray), your network ESSID should be shown in the drop-down list. Select your network by clicking on it.
3. If the Network requires any further configuration (e.g. WEP key), a dialog should appear, select the correct settings and paste in your key.


2008-10-06 update:
For BCM4310 USB controller in Fedora Core 8, alexander has shared his experience here

And if you still have problems after applying the above steps, here, nadavkav has shared his experience on driving his BCM4310 (14e4:4315) on his HP Pavilion tx2520ej by compiling Broadcom's source.

Reference:
1. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-650729.html
2. http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Tech/Wireless/Truemobile_ndiswrapper
3. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=650729

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Lovely cats

Three cats are living outside my girlfriend's house, they are the Cow Boy, the Black and their mother. Click here to see all the photos of the lovely cats.

Cow boy The Black Cow boy's mother

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

A trip to Guangzhou Huolu Mountain

Huolu MountainIt was China's National Day (1st Oct) yesterday, and the first day of a week-long holiday which is called the Ten-one Golden Week in mainland China. I had a wonderful trip to the Huolu Mountain with my YMCA friends.

As you may know, the most famous mountains in Guangzhou are the Baiyun Mountain & the Yuexiu Mountain, which lie in almost the center of the city, their green trees, fresh air, histories and the convenient traffic have attracted quite a lot of tourists. But, they are not as natural as were, and they are crowded with people in holidays.

Huolu Mountain is different, it was not invested until about 5 years ago, but at present it still keeps most of its original appearance, only have some roads paved. To get to the peak of the mountain, you can choose to walk on the small roads or to climb a slope over 45 degrees which is a little dangerous. On the peak of the mountain, there are several huge stones, climb onto the stone then you will be able to take a glance of the city.

Walk along the roads, besides trees, flowers and insects, you may also find some people gathering water from springs in the mountain. Yes, there are still springs in the mountain, in the city of Guangzhou.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Does GoDaddy really support PayPal?

Just before I can start writing this post, I spent several hours on trying to purchase my new domain name from GoDaddy through PayPal, because I have some funds in PayPal and want to avoid being charged without my permission in the future. But finally I could only give up and change to use my credit card to finish the payment.

The problem I encountered was almost at the final step, that it showed the following error messages:

Transaction failed because has no funding sources (10210)
There was a problem authorizing your credit. Please verify your payment information or use an alternate form of payment.
I've searched the problem on the internet, and found that some people had the same problem with me. So I'm wondering whether GoDaddy supports PayPal or not at present.

05/Oct/2008 update: recently I've successfully renewed my domain with PayPal.