Monthly Archives: October 2008

Subversion: This client is too old to work with working copy ‘XXX’

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I thought I’d thoroughly read this article, but upon reading it again today, I noticed a key point I’d missed. If you can’t upgrade your SVN client, do a fresh checkout with the older client. I’m going to have to try this now…

This client is too old to work with working copy ‘XXX’

The full error message is:
This client is too old to work with working copy ‘.’; please get a newer Subversion client.

You will get this error message once you have used a Subversion client linked with a higher Subversion version, and then try to execute a command with a Subversion client linked with an older version, e.g., you used an 1.4.x client on your working copy, and now you try an svn 1.3.x client on the same working copy.

The reason for this is that Subversion 1.4 and 1.5 upgrade the working copies transparently on every command. But once the working copy format is upgraded, older clients can’t access the working copy anymore because they don’t know the new format.

The only solution to ‘fix’ this is to upgrade whatever clien

via This client is too old to work with working copy ‘XXX’ | TortoiseSVN

baadf00d!

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Came across this while debugging a program today in Eclipse:

0xbaadf00d

0xBAADF00D : Used by Microsoft‘s LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED) to mark uninitialised allocated heap memory

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(programming)#Magic_debug_values)

…I very obviously forgot to initialize one of my variables. ;-)

E18 Error Fixed! (Canon PowerShot SD450)

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Huzzah! I finally fixed the E18 error I’ve been experiencing on my Canon PowerShot SD450, which prevented my lens from extending when the power was turned on, and the fix wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had expected. I’ve even snapped some shots of the process so that you can follow along at home, and fix your own camera if you are experiencing the same problem that I was.

Canon_Ixus_II_with_E18_errorIf you’re not yet familiar with the E18 error, check out this information on the topic from Wikipedia:

The E18 error is an error message on Canon digital cameras. The E18 error occurs when anything prevents the zoom lens from properly extending or retracting.[1] The error has become notorious in the Canon user community as it can completely disable the camera, requiring expensive repairs.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E18_error)

This is a fairly prevalent problem with the PowerShot cameras, and a class action lawsuit was filed (but dismissed) against Canon:

A Chicago law firm, Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates, has already filed a class action,[4] while the law firm of Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP are investigating this camera flaw and may issue a class-action lawsuit against Canon.[5] There is at least one other.[6] Although the suit was dismissed in a court of law, the plaintiffs are appealing.

Fortunately, at least in my case, the fix did not require returning the camera to a Canon repair facility or having to take unreasonably complex steps.

My solution for the PowerShot SD450/IXUS 55 follows:
(You’ll need a very small Philips head screwdriver, #00, to remove the screws)

  1. There are six screws holding the metal frame of the camera body together, two on each side, and two on the bottom. Remove all screws, pop the strap-hook plate (sorry, probably not the most technical term there), then gently lift the front plate off by pulling up from the bottom, and remove the back plate in the same fashion. These should come off relatively easily. This is what the camera should look like as you remove the plates:
    IMG_5340
    IMG_5342
    IMG_5344
  2. Now, looking from the top of the camera, you should see a small motor on the left side, as shown below (it’s beneath the cable with a “22” written on it):
    IMG_5346
  3. Take your screwdriver (or another small instrument) and gently try to rotate the plastic piece attached to the motor on the left side, as shown below:
    IMG_5359
  4. At this point, try placing the battery back in the camera (if you have removed it), turn the camera to one of the capture modes, and press the power button. If all went well, your lens should now be able to extend and retract properly.

Further information (and other repair tutorials) are available at the following locations:

Unforunately, the site that had the most comprehensive information about this issue, e18error.com, seems to be down for the time being. Here’s a quote from their site that I saved in another blog post before the site was taken down:

HOW IT ALL WORKS:
Canon E18 error happens when the lens gets stuck while trying to extend. The camera will beep a few times and the LCD will display a little E18 in the lower-left corner. The lens gets stuck in the extended position, and refuses to move either to focus the lens or to retract when powered off.

Apparently, people who posted about this incident on forums say they had to send the camera for repair and that Canon has horrible customer support and response time.

Here is how the E18 error looks like. You just get a black screen with small “E18″ sign in the lower-left corner:

The problem usually happens because dirt or sand get into the lens mechanism. But it seems that more and more people are showing, who took great care of their camera, and still started receiving E18 errors.

(http://www.e18error.com/)

Please share your experiences with this fix, or the E18 error in general, in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

Disable Ubuntu System Beep!

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If you’re like me, you’re probably quite annoyed with the system beep in Ubuntu. Luckily, there’s an easy fix:

To disable it temporarily:

  1. In Terminal (or the console), enter: “sudo rmmod pcspkr”
  2. You should not hear the system beep until your next system reboot.

To disable it permanently:

  1. In Terminal (or the console), enter: “sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist”
  2. At the end of the file, enter a new line “blacklist pcspkr”
  3. Type Ctrl+O (to save the file), then Ctrl+X (to exit nano)
  4. After your next system reboot, you should no longer here the system beep.

Thanks to Turning Off The System (hardware) Beep : Linux Tutorial for the info!

Microsoft Word: Strikethrough Shortcut Key

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This is freakin’ awesome; I had no idea that you could assign keyboard shortcuts this easily:

From word.tips.net:

  1. Press Ctrl+D or choose Font from the Format menu. (If you are using Word 2007, press Ctrl+D or click the Home tab of the ribbon, then click the small control at the bottom-right of the Font group.) Word displays the Font tab of the Font dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
  2. Hold down Alt+Ctrl and, at the same time, press the plus sign on the numeric keypad. The mouse pointer turns into a clover symbol.
  3. Click on the Strikethrough check box in the Font dialog box. (As you move the mouse pointer to get ready to click, the mouse pointer may change back to an arrow instead of a clover; this is OK.) When you click, Word displays the Customize Keyboard dialog box with the insertion point blinking in the Press new Shortcut Key box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
  4. Type whatever shortcut key you want to use for the strikethrough format. Just hold down whatever combination of the Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys you want, and then press the desired key to go with that combination. If the combination is already taken, that information shows just below the Customize Keyboard dialog box, and you can then change to a different shortcut key. (A good combination to consider is Alt+Shift+S or Ctrl+Alt+S, neither of which are used in a default installation of Word.)
  5. Click the Assign button. The shortcut key is now assigned to apply strikethrough formatting.
  6. Click Close to dismiss the Customize Keyboard dialog box.
  7. Click Cancel to dismiss the Font dialog box.

(via Topics: Strikethrough Shortcut Key)

More shortcuts available here: http://word.tips.net/W020_Shortcut_Keys.html

Magic number (programming) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Interesting list of “Magic Debug Values” from Wikipedia:

  • 0x..FACADE : Used by a number of RTOSes
  • 0xA5A5A5A5 : Used in embedded development because the alternating bit pattern (10100101) creates an easily recognized pattern on oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.
  • 0xABABABAB : Used by Microsoft‘s HeapAlloc() to mark “no man’s land” guard bytes after allocated heap memory
  • 0xABADBABE : Used by Apple as the “Boot Zero Block” magic number
  • 0xABADCAFE : A startup to this value to initialize all free memory to catch errant pointers
  • 0xBAADF00D : Used by Microsoft‘s LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED) to mark uninitialised allocated heap memory
  • 0xBADBADBADBAD : Burroughs large systems “uninitialized” memory (48-bit words)
  • 0xBADCAB1E : Error Code returned to the Microsoft eVC debugger when connection is severed to the debugger
  • 0xBADC0FFEE0DDF00D : Used on IBM RS/6000 64-bit systems to indicate uninitialized CPU registers
  • 0xBADDCAFE : On Sun Microsystems‘ Solaris, marks uninitialised kernel memory (KMEM_UNINITIALIZED_PATTERN)
  • 0xBEEFCACE : Used by Microsoft .NET as a magic number in resource files
  • 0xC0DEDBAD : A memory leak tracking tool which it will change the MMU tables so that all references to address zero
  • 0xCAFEBABE : Used by both Mach-O (“Fat binary” in both 68k and PowerPC) to identify object files and the Java programming language to identify .class files
  • 0xCAFEFEED : Used by Sun Microsystems‘ Solaris debugging kernel to mark kmemfree() memory
  • 0xCEFAEDFE : Seen in Intel Mach-O binaries on Apple Computer‘s Mac OS X platform (see 0xFEEDFACE below)
  • 0xCCCCCCCC : Used by Microsoft‘s C++ debugging runtime library to mark uninitialised stack memory
  • 0xCDCDCDCD : Used by Microsoft‘s C++ debugging runtime library to mark uninitialised heap memory
  • 0xDDDDDDDD : Used by MicroQuill’s SmartHeap and Microsoft’s C++ debugging heap to mark freed heap memory
  • 0xDEADBABE : Used at the start of Silicon Graphics‘ IRIX arena files
  • 0xDEADBEEF : Famously used on IBM systems such as the RS/6000, also used in the original Mac OS operating systems, OPENSTEP Enterprise, and the Commodore Amiga. On Sun Microsystems‘ Solaris, marks freed kernel memory (KMEM_FREE_PATTERN)
  • 0xDEADDEAD : A Microsoft Windows STOP Error code used when the user manually initiates the crash.
  • 0xDEADF00D : All the newly allocated memory which is not explicitly cleared when it is munged
  • 0xEBEBEBEB : From MicroQuill’s SmartHeap
  • 0xFADEDEAD : Comes at the end to identify every OSA script
  • 0xFDFDFDFD : Used by Microsoft‘s C++ debugging heap to mark “no man’s land” guard bytes before and after allocated heap memory
  • 0xFEEDFACE : Seen in PowerPC Mach-O binaries on Apple Computer‘s Mac OS X platform. On Sun Microsystems‘ Solaris, marks the red zone (KMEM_REDZONE_PATTERN)
  • 0xFEEEFEEE : Used by Microsoft‘s HeapFree() to mark freed heap memory
  • 0xFEE1DEAD : Used by Linux reboot() syscall

via Magic number (programming) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BobAtkins.com: Manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies

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Manual Focus Lens on Canon EOS DSLR

Photojojo: Manual Focus Lens on Canon EOS DSLR

I found this excellent post below from BobAtkins.com about using manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies via this great article at Photojojo: Better Lenses for Less Money: How To Use Vintage Lenses with Your DSLR

Using Manual Focus Lenses on Canon EOS bodies

A common question is whether older manual focus lenses from other manufacturers can be used with a Canon EOS body. The answer is a qualified “yes” in many cases. Of course you don’t get autofocus, nor do you get any sort of focus confirmation. Also, you don’t get any sort of automatic iris operation. In most SLRs, focusing is done at full aperture, and if you stop the lens down to, say, f11, it remains fully open until just before exposure, then it stops down for the exposure and opens up again. This gives a brighter viewfinder image and makes focusing easier and more accurate. When these lenses are mounted on an EOS body, stop down metering must be used. That means that the lens is first focused at full aperture (for maximum accuracy), then manually stopped down to the shooting aperture before the shot is taken. Some people have trouble accurately focusing using the standard EOS viewfinder screen, since it has no focus aids (like a split image center). While some of the higher end models (like the EOS-1 series, the EOS 3 and the EOS A2), so have additional accessory screens with focus aids (e.g. screen Ec-B has a split image center), the consumer level cameras (Rebel, Elan, digital Rebel, 10D, 20D) do not.

Clearly using a manual focus lens is inconvenient, but sometimes it can be worth it if the equivalent EOS lens is expensive, if the manual focus lens is better than any Canon EF or EF-S series lens (rare, but it happens), if you shoot mostly static subjects or if you don’t use the lens very often.

via Canon EOS lens Adapters – Manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies

Windows Embedded Visual Style for XP

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In case you’re looking for something fresh (and it’s signed by Microsoft, so you won’t need to hack anything to make it work)…

clip_image002

Windows XP users have not really seen a lot of love theme-wise from Microsoft since the release of the operating system. A measly handful of official themes have been released by Microsoft and the trend seems to continue for Windows Vista users. There is not really a reason to not to supply customers with fresh themes for their operating systems. If you look on the Internet you find many resources that cater to the needs of users who want to change the default themes.

Official themes on the other hand have the advantage of being signed meaning that there is no need to tamper with the uxtheme.dll file that protects the operating system from unofficial themes. Vishal over at Ask VG discovered a new signed Windows XP theme that is also compatible with Windows Server 2003 that can be installed without changing system files.

He discovered the theme in the Windows Embedded Standard CTP Refresh distribution and provided download links to it. The theme is supplied as a self extracting executable that installs the theme in the right location in Windows. The theme can then be selected from the Themes tab in the Display Properties.

(via ghacks.net)

Manga guide to databases – Boing Boing

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I have no idea if The Manga Guide to Databases will be any good (the publisher sez, “In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management. We follow along as they design a relational database, understand the entity-relationship model, perform basic database operations, and delve into more advanced topics. Once the Princess is familiar with transactions and basic SQL statements, she can keep her data timely and accurate for the entire kingdom. Finally, Tico explains ways to make the database more efficient and secure, and they discuss methods for concurrency and replication.”) but I sure hope it’s the start of a trend. I want a manga guide to supersymmetry, the surplus labor theory of value, tensor calculus and many other elusive concepts.

Manga guide to databases – Boing Boing

Dock Icons Galore!

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I’ve been using RocketDock for quite some time, and I’m always on the hunt for great looking dock icons compatible with it (Or MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher, Y’z Dock, etc.). Luckily, I’ve stumbled across some pretty sweet picks lately and thought I’d share. :-)

folders

Refresh_CL_Icon_Pack_by_TPDKCasimir

Sleek_XP__Software_by_deleket

You can find a whole bunch more great icons at the following links:

Instant Eyedropper

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This little tool is awesome. It’s like the eyedropper in Photoshop, except that it works on any pixel of your screen and gives you the hex code for the color in your clipboard. Very cool!

How it works

  1. Move the mouse pointer to the Instant Eyedropper icon in the system tray.

    Step One

  2. Press and hold the left mouse button and move the mouse pointer to the pixel whose color you want to identify.

    Step One

  3. Release the mouse button.

That’s it. The clipboard now contains the color code – in HTML format (or any other format that you have previously specified). It can be pasted and used in any text or HTML editor or the Color Picker tool of Photoshop.

(http://instant-eyedropper.com/)

Focal DT-5000 + Canon EOS 30D?

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Focal DT-5000 Zoom

Over the weekend, I found a great deal on a flash for my Canon EOS 30D at a thrift store, but I can’t find any information on this particular flash unit to determine whether or not it’s safe to use on my DSLR.

I know that it technically works, because I’ve successfully mounted it on my 30D and was able to get the flash to fire when I pressed the shutter button, but I’ve heard some rumors floating about that Canon and Nikon DSLRs are very particular about their flash units, because of their TTL flash metering and circuitry that communicates through the mount.

If anyone has any information about this particular flash, or the specifications on the EOS series DSLR flash mounts, please leave a comment on this post.

Thanks! :-D

Update: I’ve started a discussion in the PDX Strobist group on Flickr to accompany this post:
“Flickr: Discussing Is This Flash Compatible With My DSLR? (Focal DT-5000)“