InterWeb to the rescue. I did a search for magenta and 2600n and came up with this hit: http://www.fixya.com/support/t3541632-red_colour_fades_both_left_right_sides. This led me to a PDF that describes in detail how to take apart the printer to get access to the laser module where I was able to clean two of the mirrors that direct the laser to the toner cartridge drums. The mirror for the magenta toner was very dirty and I am surprised I was able to get anything out of it. the yellow toner mirror was also dirty but no where near as bad as the magenta mirror. I cleaned the mirrors and put the printer back together only forgetting to put two cables back on. Fortunately I noticed after putting in only nine of the next 11 screws. Once everything was back together I tried a test print with the new toner and it came out perfect. I then put the old toner back in and tried it as well and it also printed perfectly. Now I just have to see if I can return the new toner.

• Load and Enable the mod_rewrite module. This is done by running:

$sudo a2enmod
Which module would you like to enable?
Your choices are: actions alias asis auth_anon auth_basic auth_dbm auth_digest auth_ldap authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authnz_ldap authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cern_meta cgid cgi charset_lite dav_fs dav dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache dump_io env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap imap include info ldap log_forensic mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation php5 proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_ftp proxy_http proxy rewrite setenvif speling ssl status substitute suexec unique_id userdir usertrack version vhost_alias
Module name? rewrite
Module rewrite installed; run /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload to enable.

This is not the way I did it at first but it is the better way. all this process does is to create a symbolic link to /etc/apache2/mods-available/rewrite.load in /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/. This can be done with the ln -s command as well but some modules have a .conf file as well and a link to that module will need to be created as well. The a2enmod tool does everything for you.

• Enable the .htaccess file

This is the start of the /etc/apache2/sites-available/default file. I changed the two bold lines to get the permalinks working. The first one didn’t seem to work on it’s own but when I changed the second one it worked. I haven’t yet tried to put the first line back the way it was but I don’t think I will unless I have to. Both lines originally read “AllowOverride None
NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/arguable/
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride FileInfo
</Directory>
<Directory “/var/www/arguable”>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride FileInfo
Order allow,deny
allow from all
# This directive allows us to have apache2′s default start page
# in /apache2-default/, but still have / go to the right place
#RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/
</Directory>

• Restart Apache

The following command will restart Apache:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

• Edit the .htaccess file

Using your favorite editor put the following lines in the .htaccess file located at the root of the web server.<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /dee/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /dee/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Changes to this file happen immediately so no reboots or restarts of anything are needed.

So unless I forgot something this is what it took to get the pretty permalinks working for Dee’s blog.

It was easy enough to set up. I just created a folder under the root of arguable called dee and copied the WP files there. The first time I went into the site it created all the MySQL tables and set everything up for me. I then turned on the Akismet spam plugin and installed and enabled the NextGen Gallery that I have been using for photos.

I just picked up a pile of parts for a new desktop machine. I got the new Intel core i7 920 to go on the new ASUS P6T Deluxe mobo with 3G of Patriot DDR3-12800 memory. I had to get a video card for it as well as there is no on board video with the P6T Deluxe. I got the ASUS EAH4550/DI/512MD3 Radeon HD 4550 512MB 64-bit GDDR3 video card. I also decided to splurge and get a new case and 450W power supply.

The only problem is that after I assembled the system, which took about an hour and a half, it fails to complete POST and I can’t even get to the BIOS . I get a message that says Express Gate on the screen for about a second and then one single short beep and then nothing. The screen is black and the keyboard is dead. According to the P6T mobo manual the single short beep means that the VGA was detected, the quick boot has been disabled and no keyboard was detected. Certainly the VGA was working because I did get one short message displayed and the keyboard seemed to work for a while and then it fails so the single beep does make sense. I am thinking that there might be a problem with the mobo and the PS2 keyboard connector. The keyboard does work as I am using it right now to write this post. The mobo only has one dual purposed PS2 connector. It supposedly works as both a keyboard and a mouse connector but only for one of them at a time. I don’t have a USB keyboard to try so I will be taking the system in to PCCyber to see what they can do for me.

I really want this system to work as the i7 CPU is a quad core hyperthreaded CPU. This means that it should show up as an 8 CPU system when it works. It is also supposed to be a good CPU and mobo for over clocking. The i7 920 runs at 2.66GHz but it can be OCed to 3.85GHz according one guy I was talking to at PCCyber. I just might try that when the system starts to work.

Pictures of the Pinewoods week should be appearing soon. Depends on how busy I am the next few weekends.

I also found the widgets section and configured all the widgets I wanted. Found a few things that I was looking for. It was a little confusing at first. When I added the two widgets that I wanted all the other content in the side bar disappeared. I figured it out though and it works nicely now. I will probably change the theme again sometime soon but not right now. I should upgrade WordPress to 2.6 first.

Used Synaptic package installer to install:
dhcp3-server
openbsd-inetd
tftpd-hpa

These are the three apps I need to get pxe booting happening I now need to configure them and turn off the dhcp server I have running on the router.

I also installed emacs while I was at it.

Configuring tftp server:

Not quite in the same order as the instructions I am reading from http://wiki.koeln.ccc.de/index.php/Ubuntu_PXE_Install.

The tftp directory /var/lib/tftpboot exists already. probably created during the install of the tftpd-hpa package. I didn’t check to see if it was there before I started.

Add the following line in /etc/inetd.conf:
tftp           dgram   udp     wait    root  /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot
Well that was easy, its already there. They must know what I want to do.

Now I just have to run the command to start the tftpd server “sudo update-inetd –enable BOOT”. Well that ran. I got no errors so I presume it worked.

Verify that inetd is listening on the right port:
netstat -lu
should show
udp        0     o  *:tftp                  *:*
What I get is:
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address        State
udp        0      0 *:48524                 *:*
udp        0      0 *:bootpc                *:*
udp        0      0 *:tftp                  *:*
udp        0      0 *:mdns                  *:*
The line I want is there. Woo hoo!

That seems like all I need to do for tftp at the moment. On to dhcp3-server.

Start by editing the INTERFACES=” ” line in /etc/default/dhcp3-server file. eg:
INTERFACES=”eth1 eth2″
I guess I should figure out which interfaces I use to start with. ifconfig does the trick. The response I get from this command is:
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0A:E4:2E:A6:42
inet addr:10.10.10.10  Bcast:10.10.10.127  Mask:255.255.255.128
inet6 addr: fe80::21f:c6ff:fe3f:534e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
RX packets:1095381 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:329926 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:2
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:457421618 (436.2 MB)  TX bytes:62150576 (59.2 MB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
RX packets:1790 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1790 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:90100 (87.9 KB)  TX bytes:90100 (87.9 KB)
Therefor my guess is that I am using eth0 and that is what I need to put in the dhcp3-server file.

Now to modify the /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf file. This is where I put all the dhcp rules. This is the text I need to put in the dhcpd.conf file:
host pxeinstall {
# ie. “hardware ethernet 00:0A:E4:2E:A6:42;”
hardware ethernet [MAC address of PXE client networkcard, without brackets];

# this is the unused IP address we will assign temporarily to the PXE client
fixed-address 10.0.0.16;

# Not needed if the tftp server is on the same host as the DHCP server. ie. “next-server 10.0.0.2;”.
# edit : Well needed, otherwise he is looking for the host 0.0.0.0 so, it doesn’t work
next-server [ip-address of the server serving tftp];

# path of the bootloader file, relative to tftpd’s root
filename “pxelinux.0″;
}
I’m not entirely sure what else needs to be done at this time. I think I need more than that to get the dhcp server running to hand out addresses to all my machines and not just the pxe booting machines. The next step is to turn on the dhcp server so I will have to stop here and do some more research. I want this dhcp server to hand out addresses to any device that requests one as well as hand out addresses to the pxe booting devices along with the extra information they need to boot up.
I also want the pxe to boot the OS and not do an OS installation which I think these instructions are heading for. I’ll be back when I figure this out.

I did the first half of the upgrade process last night and then finished it this morning. I deleted all the spam comments that Akismet had found before I backed up the MySQL database and the WP directories. In the morning Akismet had already blocked another 19 spam comments! That is one plugin I will never live without. Even during the easy and fast upgrade of Akismet one spam comment got through before I managed to get the latest version of Akismet running again.

I found a tool (PIXresizer) to resize and rotate images that works with folders and bulk image processing. Now I can put all 400 or so of my pictures online as well so expect a deluge of pictures in the next couple of weeks.