Microsoft

Pidgin Spellcheck Support

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Installing pidgin on a new system and it is failing at installing (downloading) the spellcheck installation files from the openoffice site. So here’s the “fake” way of doing the same stuff:

Install Pidgin
Download http://it.thelibrarie.com/utilities/en_US.zip
Create the directory structure C:\program files (x86)\pidgin\spellcheck\share\enchant\myspell
Unzip the en_US.zip file and grab all of the files – copy to the newly created myspell directory from the previous step
Open pidgin – you now have spellcheck support

Linux

Apt-get Woes

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I had just done apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade when I saw something that made me cringe:

No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
Errors were encountered while processing:
initramfs-tools
plymouth
linux-image-3.2.0-38-generic-pae
ubuntu-minimal
plymouth-theme-ubuntu-text
linux-image-generic-pae
linux-generic-pae
mountall
upstart
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Well that’s not the exact error – I ended up seeing “disk out of space” among other issues. Basically the /root filled up and it broke my apt-get upgrade right in the middle of updates. No good.
So I go to /boot and clean up the older kernel files – just make sure you delete the “abi”, the “config”, the “initrd”, the “System.map”, the “vmcoreinfo”, the “vmlinuz” etc all with the same version number.

Then I went about reinstalling the packages. Unfortunately since some of the packages were already installed prior to running out of space, the dependencies were a little off.

apt-get install -f was no help:

You might want to run ‘apt-get -f install’ to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
initramfs-tools : Depends: initramfs-tools-bin (< 0.99ubuntu13.1~) but 0.99ubuntu13.1 is installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

And I didn’t want to have to restore this beast since the last full backup was over 2 months ago. So I had to carry on.

First I noticed that initramfs-tools needed the bin installed, but the bin was too new for initramfs-tools to utilize and therefore could not update even via –configure. Chicken and egg?

So then I looked up what versions were available so that I could downgrade:
apt-cache showpkg initramfs-tools-bin

Versions:
0.99ubuntu13.1 (/var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise-updates_main_binary-i386_Packages) (/var/lib/dpkg/status)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_binary-i386_Packages
MD5: 14e601bd8c0a0905d238d89be3036fa8
Description Language: en
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_i18n_Translation-en
MD5: 14e601bd8c0a0905d238d89be3036fa8

0.99ubuntu13 (/var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_binary-i386_Packages)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_binary-i386_Packages
MD5: 14e601bd8c0a0905d238d89be3036fa8
Description Language: en
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_i18n_Translation-en
MD5: 14e601bd8c0a0905d238d89be3036fa8

Ok, so this was getting easier. All I have to do is install the older version. I had to look it up since it generally doesn’t happen too often:
apt-get install initramfs-tools-bin=0.99ubuntu13

The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
initramfs-tools-bin
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

From there I run the following:
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get autoremove
apt-get autoclean
reboot

Profit.

Microsoft

Remove McAfee Agent

2 Comments

I had a system with McAfee installed – originally it was pulling updates and rules from an EPO server on site, but the EPO server had been retired and most other systems were migrated to other antivirus suites (Nod32). Unfortunately a laptop was having issues and McAfee had not been removed.

The enterprise antivirus suite had been removed successfully using add remove programs, but the Agent was giving the following error:

McAfee Agent cannot be removed while it is in managed mode.

Since the EPO server was long gone, I attempted to remove the agent manually:
Start > Run > CMD (as administrator)
c:\program files (x86)\mcafee\common framework\frminst.exe /remove=agent
Success!

Networking

Cisco NTP Timezone

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I needed to set the NTP, change the time, and verify everything was all set on a few of the switches around the office. I also changed the timezone.

#show clock
18:36:39.993 UTC Mon Dec 10 2012

conf t
clock timezone CST -6
exit
clock set 18:36:39 CST 10 Dec 2012
#show clock
18:36:39.993 CST Mon Dec 10 2012

conf t
ntp server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
ntp server 1.north-america.pool.ntp.org
exit
show ntp associations
show ntp status

Networking

Enable SSH Cisco IOS

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So I wanted to disable telnet and enable SSH only on the switches – take my 2950 and 3560 switches and change the following:
Change the hostname and generate the crypto keys
conf t
hostname HOSTNAMEHERE
ip domain-name HOSTDOMAINHERE
crypto key generate rsa
If this command does not work then you need to update to a K9 or crytographic IOS!
end
show ip ssh
wr mem

Enable the AAA authentication
conf t
service password-encryption
aaa new-model
aaa authentication login default local
aaa authorization exec default local
aaa authorization network default local
exit

Create the User
conf t
username CISCO password PASSWORD
end

Create passwords
conf t
enable secret PASSWORD
line con 0
password PASSWORD
line vty 0 4
no password
transport input ssh
line vty 5 15
no password
transport input ssh
exit

Set SSH arguments
conf t
ip ssh version 2
ip ssh time-out 60
ip ssh authentication-retries 2

Networking

Upgrade Cisco IOS TFTP

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I have a C3560G-24-TS that I needed to upgrade to the newest version with K9 instead of MZ (so I could enable crypto SSH).

Verify your version
show version

System image file is “flash:c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5/c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5.bin”

View the files on your flash drive
dir flash:
In my case I had a folder called “c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5” with “c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5.bin” located inside
Also, the newest IOS required 15,072,310 bytes available and my switch had over 20MB free. If I had less than 15MB available I would have to delete the old configuration first.

Copy the old file from your switch to your TFTP
copy flash: tftp:

Source filename: c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5/c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5.bin
Address or name of remote host: 192.168.1.222 (your TFTP server)
Destination filename: I just hit enter with the defaults

Copy the new file from your TFTP to your Switch
copy tftp: flash:

Address or name of remote host: 192.168.1.222 (your TFTP server)
Source filename: c3560-ipbasek9-mz.122-58.SE2.bin
Destination filename: I just hit enter with the defaults

Verify the file has been uploaded
dir flash:
Technically you should be able to run verify flash:filenamehere, but I was receiving errors

Change the boot image to the new file
show boot
– notice the BOOT path-list is flash:c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5/c3560-ipbase-mz.122-50.SE5.bin
conf t
boot system flash:c3560-ipbasek9-mz.122-58.SE2.bin
exit
show boot

– notice the new BOOT path-list is flash:c3560-ipbasek9-mz.122-58.SE2.bin

wr mem
show version

Reload/Reboot the switch
reload
show ver

Microsoft

Open Excel In New Window

2 Comments

I remember back when I could just double click on an excel file and it would open in a new window. Now, in order to save time/resources/etc, everything opens in the same window.

Employee was having problems with opening excel files from outlook with the “Excel cannot complete this task with available resources” error. Microsoft didn’t help much. Google neither.

Last time I had an error that was similar was back with 2003 office and the user had opened the same named file a hundred times (not all at once) and that hundredth time it refused to open. Temporary files were created each time the file was opened named something like “tempfile01.xls” and then “tempfile02.xls” etc but after the tempfile99 it wouldn’t overwrite the first one. Deleting temp files fixed that issue. It did not, however, fix it with office 2010.

Workaround I got was to edit the registry to make each excel file open in a new application window.

MAKE SURE EXCEL IS FULLY CLOSED!!!
regedit
HKCR\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\open\command
Edit the default and add “%1” at the end – there should be spaces between all arguments
Rename the “command” key to “command2”
Rename the “ddeexec” container to “ddeexec2”

HKCR\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\open\command
Edit the default and add “%1” at the end – there should be spaces between all arguments
Rename the “command” key to “command2”
Rename the “ddeexec” container to “ddeexec2”

Close regedit
Open Excel
Open Excel again. Profit.

Ramblings Of An IT Person