Luckily the solution was easy:

1. Run ifconfig eth0
2. Make note of the “HWaddr” from it’s output. You’re looking for a hex value that looks something like: 00:0c:29:72:46:d6
3. Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and make sure the HWADDR in that file is the same as the HWaddr from the ifconfig command

That solved the problem for me

Ugh, with windows crap like this, I could care less about what caused it and why. Let’s just cut to the part where I found the solution to this problem. I found the answer on how to fix this at MSGOODIES. I wanted to dupe their info here in case that page goes away. All credit goes to this post on MSGOODIES!

1. Boot off of a XP CD
2. Type “r” to go into recovery console
3. Run these commands:
chkdsk c: /r /p
fixmbr
exit (which reboots)
4. Done.

That fixed the issue for me. Hope it does for some other poor windows souls. Thanks guys!

I’ll just preemptively ask that you don’t post comments asking for assistance. The above information is all I know or care to know. Like I said before … Windows can go to hell!

What’s the definition of irony? When you’re in an editor and click on the “learn more about document compatibility” link, which opens in your default browser (Opera 9.6x) and this is what you see. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the following screen shot is of a document labeled (and all about) “Defining Document Compatibility“:

Screen capture of Microsoft's "Defining Document Compatibility" page in the Opera Web browser

Seriously … Microsoft … is this some kind of giant Andy Kaufman-esque joke that I don’t get?

Another way to get the magic string is to simply view the Get Info window of the file in question. But as Doug Adams of Doug’s Applescripts for iTunes pointed out, you can’t copy and paste that. So he whipped up this bit of code. Paste this code into the Script Editor and run it while the track in question is playing in iTunes:
tell application "iTunes"
display dialog "Current track's kind is:" default answer ((get kind of current track) as string)
end tell

If you have other file types not listed here, please comment with their magic string so I may compile them here. Thanks!

Incompatible Extension

“ProxyButton” will not be installed because it does not provide secure updates

Luckily a solution exists over at Idea Shower. Add a new boolean key using about:config and restart. Easy-peasy. More at Idea Shower.

Update 2009-10-14: To clarify, these instructions are for Mac OS X. I do not have any info on running fondu from windows (if that is even possible. I suspect it isn’t). Perhaps windows users could run fondu on a linux virtual machine/box they have lying around? Maybe a linux live CD?

1. Download & Install .pkg file
2. From Terminal, cd into the directory where the .dfont file lives
3. Run fondu MyFont.dfont
4. Marvel as a .ttf font is spit out next to your .dfont file

Thanks Fondu!

Update 2009-05-22: Please note that the fondu binary lives in “/usr/local/bin/” by default. Either add this path to your environment, or prepend the path to the fondu command like this: /usr/local/bin/fondu MyFont.dfont

Turns out that the subscriptions change to that color for feeds that have not updated (added a new post) in 60 days. Perhaps I’m just dense, but this was not obvious to me.

Anyway, if you care to change that color, go to: Preferences -> Fonts -> General -> Show Color Options...

I decided on a company called Knownhost. So far, so good. Actually so far, so great.

I chose them for a few reasons (in order):

1. Seemed to have good support
2. True root access in a true VPS environment
3. Good price
4. Plesk control panel (although you can pick from many others)
5. Ready to go servers (no installation of other software required)

I’m a big fan of the Web Hosting Talk forums. I cruised those for a few days reading various posts about VPS hosters. Knownhost personal have a pretty good presence on those forums. They answer various questions about tech and linux stuff, rarely (if ever) pushing their own company. I liked what I was reading.

They are a young company. I vaguely remember that they formed in 2005, although I could be wrong. In the age of come-and-go hosting companies, I was not fond of this fact. In an email to support, a gentlemen by the name of Jay responded “We are a new brand but have been in the industry for over 15 yrs …” I took a gamble and signed up with them knowing I could exercise the 30 day money back guarentee if need be.

Now check this out: I signed up around 9pm pacific time. I received a phone call roughly 10 minutes later from Knownhost with a question about my credit card (I put in the wrong billing address). I was impressed. We got the address corrected and I was up and running shortly. Some people may think that sounds weird for a hoster to call past 9pm … but I say it’s smart as I was obviously up and had just placed the order.

Over the months I’ve had a technical question or two and they’ve always answered them promptly and politely. I usually get a response in under 30 minutes. Nice!

From a technical standpoint, everything has been running very smoothly. I have yet to experience any down time in the roughly year and a half I’ve used them. To be clear, that’s ZERO (0) down time.

I would confidently recommend them to others seeking a quality VPS.

Via the anonymous blogger over at www.swart.org.za/wordpress (seriously, I couldn’t find any identifying info on the site) I now know how to remove the hideous Virtuozzo ad that appears on the login page of Plesk.

Quoting swart.org.za:

To disable the promo, edit the lanuage (sic) file, located here:

/usr/local/psa/admin/plib/locales/en-US/messages_en-US.php

Search for the following string:

virtuozzo__promotion

To clarify a few things:

1. That’s two underscores (__) in “virtuozzo__promotion”
2. You’ll be setting the value of “virtuozzo__promotion_top” to empty single quotes. So the final line would look like this:
   'ui__promotion/virtuozzo__promotion_top' => '',

While in there, I discovered you can change the “Login to Plesk 8.2.1″ (or whatever your version is) text that appears on the login page from this same file. I’m speaking of the text that appears above the login boxes, near the icon of the keys. Search for “login_up__login_label_plesk” and change the value to whatever text you like. The final product looks like this on my server:

Bye bye ugly SWSoft promo text! Thank you mysterious stranger at swart.org.za!