ManualUpdate and AutoSort Workaround:

Dim mySheet As Worksheet
Dim myTable As PivotTable, myField As PivotField, myItem As PivotItem

Set mySheet = Sheets(1)
Set myTable = mySheet.PivotTables(1)
Set myField = myTable.PivotFields(1)

For Each myItem In myField.PivotItems
    myField.AutoSort xlManual, myField.SourceName
    myTable.ManualUpdate = True

    myItem.Visible = True

    myTable.ManualUpdate = False
    myField.AutoSort xlAscending, myField.SourceName
Next myItem

The workaround is to temporarily enable ManualUpdate in the PivotTable and disable AutoSort in the PivotField. Download pivot.xls for a sample of the error and the workaround.

First, Install Packages:

> su -
> yum install perl mplayer ffmpeg ImageMagick
> exit

Log into root and install the necessary packages. The RPM Fusion repository needs to be configured for mplayer, ffmpeg, and ImageMagick.

Copy Perl Script:

> vi thumbs.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use POSIX;

my $dir = getcwd();
my ($width, $height, $length);

opendir(DIR, $dir) or die $!;

while (my $file = readdir(DIR)) {
   next unless ($file =~ m/\.mp4$/);

   my @info = `mplayer -benchmark -nosound -quiet -vo null -frames 1 -identify $file`;

   foreach (@info) {
      if (substr($_, 0, 15) eq "ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=") {
         $width = substr($_, 15);
      }
      elsif (substr($_, 0, 16) eq "ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=") {
         $height = substr($_, 16);
      }
   elsif (substr($_, 0, 10) eq "ID_LENGTH=") {
         $length = substr($_, 10);
      }
   }

   $width = floor($width / 3);
   $height = floor($height / 3);
   my ($tile_x, $tile_y, $frame) = (6, 4, 1);
   my ($position, $files);

   while ($frame < ($tile_x * $tile_y + 1)) {
      $position = $frame * floor($length / ($tile_x * $tile_y));

      system("ffmpeg -ss $position -i $file -vcodec mjpeg -vframes 1 -s $width"."x"."$height -an -f rawvideo -y __$frame.jpg 2> /dev/null");

      $files = $files . " __$frame.jpg";

      $frame += 1;
   }

   system("montage -title \"$file\" -geometry $width"."x"."$height"."+"."1"."+"."1 -tile $tile_x"."x"."$tile_y$files $file.jpg");

   system("rm __*.jpg");
}

closedir(DIR);

You can also download the thumbs.pl file.

There are a few things you may wish to configure. First is the script only creates montages for mp4 files. Change the regular expression for your needs. Second is the scale of each thumbnail relative to the resolution of the video. I have selected one-third of the original size. Third is the tile layout. I have selected 6 horizontal by 4 vertical tiles. If you are editing the script, note that the -ss option must be before the -i option or else ffmpeg will crawl while creating thumbnails.

Why both mplayer and ffmpeg? mplayer has the ability to do montages but I usually have issues with the -sstep option, and framestep is way too slow. You can certainly pull video data with ffmpeg -i but mplayer -identify is much easier to parse and I was lazy. Sorry.

Run the Perl Script:

> perl thumbs.pl

Place the script into a directory and execute it. You can run it in the background with nohup perl thumbs.pl & instead. The script will find every mp4 file in its directory and make a sequential video thumbnail montage for it.

First, Install TigerVNC:

> su -
> yum install tigervnc-server

Log into root and install the TigerVNC package.

Configure VNC Server:

> echo 'VNCSERVERS="1:mnguyen"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
> echo 'VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 1024×768 -depth 16"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

Edit the vncservers configuration file and set up a user pair. Note the element numeral 1 which refers to a user pair. If you set up a second user, say snguyen, then use echo 'VNCSERVERS="2:snguyen"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers and echo 'VNCSERVERARGS[2]="-geometry 1024×768 -depth 16"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers.

Set VNC Password:

> su – mnguyen
> vncpasswd

Log into each user associated with a VNC server and configure a VNC password.

Finally, Start VNC Server:

> exit
> chkconfig --level 2345 vncserver on
> /etc/init.d/vncserver start

Exit back to root and start the VNC server daemon. Each VNC server has a unique port, 590#, associated with the user pair element defined in the vncservers configuration file. So the VNC server for user mnguyen is on port 5901 and the VNC server for user snguyen is on port 5902.

First, Import the Google Key:

> wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
> rpm --import linux_signing_key.pub

Log into root, download the Google signing key, and import it with RPM.

Set Up the Google Repository:

> vi /etc/yum.repos.d/google64.repo
[google64]
name=Google – x86_64
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

Create a yum repository file for Google and add the 64-bit information above.

Next, Install Google Chrome:

> yum install google-chrome-stable

Install the Adobe Flash Plugin:

> gzip -d libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
> tar -xvf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar
> mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins/
> mv libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/

Download the 64-bit version of Flash Player for Linux from Adobe’s site here and uncompress it. Create a plugins directory for Google Chrome, and then move the Adobe Flash Player plugin file into the newly created directory.

Install the Sun Java Plugin:

> cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins
> ln -s /usr/lib/java/jre1.6.0_20/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so .

If you have not installed Sun’s Java runtime, follow my CentOS instructions here. These instructions work for Fedora too. Simply link the 64-bit Java plugin file to Google Chrome’s plugin directory. Do not forget the period at the end.

Finally, Check the Installed Plugins:

Launch Google Chrome and type about:plugins into the address bar. You should see both the Adobe Flash Player and Sun Java plugins installed.

First, Install the Dependencies:

> yum update
> shutdown -r now
> yum install gcc make kernel-devel perl

Perform an update to make sure you have the latest kernel, reboot Fedora, and then install the following packages: gcc, make, kernel-devel, and perl. Make sure the kernel and kernel-devel packages are the exact same version. If you are running 32-bit Fedora, install the kernel-PAE-devel package.

Next, Prepare the vmware-tools Installer:

> mkdir /mnt/cdrom
> mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
> cd /tmp
> tar zxpf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-8.4.2-261058.tar.gz
> umount /dev/cdrom

In the Virtual Machine menu, select Install VMware Tools. VMware Fusion will make an image appear to Fedora. Mount the image, uncompress the installer files to the temporary directory, and then unmount the image.

Finally, Execute the Installer:

> cd vmware-tools-distrib
> ./vmware-install.pl

Change to the vmware-tools-distrib directory and execute the Perl script, and then follow the prompts. As long as the dependencies were installed correctly, and the version of the kernel headers match the currently running kernel, the installer will automatically find all the directories that it needs.

First, Install alacarte:

> su -c ‘yum install alacarte’

I have no idea why all of the sudden this is not installed by default with the Gnome Desktop Environment.

Finally, restart X:

Log out of, and then back into the desktop environment. Now you will see an “Edit Menus” option when you right-click on the menu.

Ever Helpful: ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel:

When attempting to increase the memory_max_target and memory_target parameters to a value over 3 GB, an ORA-03113 is triggered.

SQL> startup
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
Process ID: ####
Session ID: 170 Serial number: 3

Check the Alert Log:

> vi $ORACLE_BASE/diag/rdbms/$ORACLE_SID/$ORACLE_SID/trace/alert_$ORACLE_SID.log
ALTER DATABASE MOUNT
Errors in file $ORACLE_BASE/diag/rdbms/$ORACLE_SID/$ORACLE_SID/trace/$ORACLE_SID_mman_####.trc:
ORA-27103: internal error
Linux-x86_64 Error: 11: Resource temporarily unavailable
Additional information: -1
Additional information: 1
MMAN (ospid: 8169): terminating the instance due to error 27103
Instance terminated by MMAN, pid = ####

Download and Install the Patch:

This is an error specific to Oracle 11g version 11.1.0.7.0 (the patched version) on 64-bit Linux. Log into Metalink, and then download and install patch number 7272646, ORA-27103 WHEN MEMORY_TARGET > 3G, with the file name p7272646_11107_Linux-x86-64.zip.

First, Set Default File Permissions:

> cd /var/www/html
> find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
> find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Navigate to the WordPress root directory. For all sub-directories, grant full privileges to the owner, and then only read and execute privileges to all others. For files, grant full privileges to the owner, and then only the read privilege to all others.

Next, Set Permissions for the Uploads Directory:

> cd /var/www/html/wp-content
> chmod 777 uploads
> cd uploads
> find . -type d -exec chmod 777 {} \;
> find . -type f -exec chmod 666 {} \;

WordPress intended this folder to be writeable by all. Note that we do not grant execute privileges to the files.

Optionally Allow Write on Theme Files:

> cd /var/www/html/wp-content/themes/themename
> chmod 666 *.php
> chmod 666 *.css

Grant read and write privileges to all for the PHP and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) files if you wish to use the built-in theme editor in the WordPress administration console.

Optionally Allow Write on .htaccess:

> cd /var/www/html
> chmod 666 *.htaccess

Grant read and write privileges to all for the .htaccess file in the WordPress root directory if you wish to allow WordPress to automatically generate rewrite rules for you. It is good practice to remove the write privilege from all others (chmod 644 .htaccess) after you are done configuring WordPress in the administration console. Unless you are making changes to settings, WordPress does not normally need write access to this file.

Optionally Allow Additional Permissions:

> cd /var/www/html
> chmod 666 sitemap.xml
> chmod 666 sitemap.xml.gz

Third party themes and plugins may require additional permissions. Please refer to their documentation for instructions. In this example, read and write privileges are granted to all for files manipulated by the popular Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator plugin.

First, Execute the Binary:

> mv jre-6u16-linux-x64.bin /usr/lib/java
> cd /usr/lib/java
> chmod 744 jre-6u16-linux-x64.bin
> ./jre-6u16-linux-x64.bin

Download the 32-bit or 64-bit non-RPM binary from Sun’s site here and execute it.

Next, Set Sun’s Java as Default:

> update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/usr/lib/java/jre1.6.0_16/bin/java" 1
> update-alternatives --set java /usr/lib/java/jre1.6.0_16/bin/java

We configure the system to use Sun’s Java binaries to execute “java” commands by telling it there is an alternate installation and to use it by default.

Finally, Check the Default Version:

> java -version
java version “1.6.0_16″
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_16-b01)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 14.2-b01, mixed mode)

Install the Software Update:

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=17c36612-632e-4c04-9382-987622ed1d64&DisplayLang=en to download and install the KB907306 software update.

Map a Network Drive:

Go to Start > Computer, and then click on the Map network drive button. In the Map Network Drive dialog, click on the link labeled Connect to a Web site that you can use to store your documents and pictures. In the Add Network Location dialog, click the Next button. In the next dialog, click the Choose a custom network location button.

Set Up the WebDAV Folder:

In the third Add Network Location dialog, enter the address of the WebDAV folder, and then click the Next button.