Categotry Archives: Misc. other devices/things

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Comcast live chat fails Turing Test

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A Turing Test is used to distinguish whether or not I am you are talking to a machine or a human. If the responses would be generally considered that of what a real life person would give, then it is said, to have passed the Turing Test.

One of the first machine based artificial intelligence programmes was Eliza. It was primitive by today’s standards, but none-the-less was the first machine based AI programme I encountered in college.

This recent chat with Comcast would seem to indicate a Turing Test failure. To wit:

analyst Arthur has entered room

Arthur: Hello Wayno, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Arthur. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Wayno: My Issue: Life Line service

Arthur: I am here to provide you with excellent customer service today. Please be assured I will do my best to help you with your concern.

Arthur: Can you please elaborate your issue?

Wayno: hi arthur. I have a question about life line services.

Wayno: qualifications, cost mostly.

Arthur: I understand your concern is about life line services, am I correct?

Wayno: correct

Arthur: May I have 2 minutes to check on that?

Wayno: absolutely

Arthur: Thank you.

Arthur: Thank you for waiting, Wayno.

Arthur: XFINITY Voice service is compatible with personal emergency alert response systems provided by Philips Lifeline and Linear LLC. XFINITY Voice service doesn’t guarantee compatibility with other systems. To check compatibility, contact the agency that provided you with the personal emergency alert response system.

Wayno: no that does not answer my question. what are the qualifications and cost of life line service?

Arthur: Contact your alarm company before your XFINTITY Voice installation. Provide the date and time of your installation so the alarm company can check the status of your alarm on installation day. If your alarm system needs to be reactivated after XFINITY Voice is installed, you will not be compensated for the cost of reactivation.

Wayno: okay I am not talking to a human being.

Arthur: I am a live agent, Wayno.

Arthur: I just gave you the information about Life Line service. It is for free.

Arthur: You just need to have a Comcast phone service.

Wayno: how does contacting my alarm company have any thing to remotely do with lifeline?

Arthur: I can see here that you don’t have Comcast phone service.

Wayno: okay you failed the Turing Test.

=========

Actually I was able to find the information on-line for lifeline phone eligibility.

Wayno

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How to fix audio cd in Linux (unable to open mrl)

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When I tried to play an audio cd I recently got from the library in vlc, I got the error:

VLC is unable to open the MRL

And it told me to see the logs. So I tried dmesg, and niente. Nothing. Yeah that helps!

So I went into vlc tools/preferences/Audio and changed the output module to pulse audio output. So it looks like:

VLC Audio Output Options

Who knew?

Wayno

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Fixing the libcanberra wrong ELF class message in Linux

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The solution is very simple.

It’s just so buried, it is hard to find.

Reposted from the original article above.

I was getting:

Gtk-Message: Failed to load module “canberra-gtk-module”: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libcanberra-gtk-module.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

Trying to run the new V4.0 of Skype in 64 bit Debian. The old trick of doing an LD_PRELOAD does NOT work.

My new skype script, includes the GTK_PATH export as mentioned above. Yes 4.0 skype WORKS! (should work for any 32 bit app, running in a 64 bit mode. Yes Skype 64 bit, USES the 32 bit libraries.)

New skype.sh script!


#!/bin/bash
#
# script preloads the 32 bit video for linux (v4l) libs needed by 64 bit skype
#
# Wayno Guerrini http://www.pkill-9.com v 2.0

# added the export for the gtk 32 bit library -- GU -6/22/2012
#
export GTK_PATH="/usr/lib32/gtk-2.0"

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

In my case, it made skype and the video work perfectly.

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Why orange?

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It’s time to answer: Why an orange theme? Because no one else is using an orange theme. Orange is NOT my favourite colour, but orange to me is something you have to start your day.

Tart. Tangy. Re-freshing.

And you will notice, we changed themes. Still orange. I will be tweaking this over the next week or so.

Wayno

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pkill-9.com is now part of the Creative Commons Community

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Knowledge should ALWAYS be free. As such, I am passing all the contents of this website into the Creative Commons Community.

This work is now licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Share and share alike.

Thanks Joe and Loni for your wisdom, guidance, and mentoring spirit.


Creative Commons Logo

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Cox Communications “quality challenged” internet connection (of Cats and Cox)

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Outdoor internet connection provided to Hermitage Cat Shelter, in Tucson, Arizona by Cox Cable

Outdoor internet connection provided to Hermitage Cat Shelter, in Tucson, Arizona

NOTE: THIS LETTER HAS NOT BEEN SENT, IN HOPE OF RESOLVING THIS ON A LOCAL LEVEL.

————-
Patrick J. Esser, President
Cox Communications
1400 Lake Hearn Drive
Atlanta, Georgia 30319

The Hermitage Cat Shelter is dedicated to the shelter, protection, and care of homeless cats, especially those that are often not considered adoptable by other organizations. We are both an adoption facility and long-term sanctuary for those felines who are “adoption-challenged.” including felines who are FIV or FeLV-positive, and other types of chronic health issues. All of our kitties roam free within 8,000 sq ft of outdoor/indoor living space. (Mission Statement)

To that end, we rely heavily upon the internet to carry out our mission. Approximately a year ago, The Shelter contracted with Cox Communications here in Tucson, Arizona, to install internet access for the shelter. We have 4 hard wired connections, and a laptop in use, using a central router. Because the way things we’re done, we have a cable modem and laptop (wifi) in one building, and the wifi and hardwired router in another. Because the distance is too great, the laptop cannot connect to the router in the next building, even though it sits a few feet from the cable modem. All of this goes through a single connection from the outside.

When we often have inclement weather during our monsoon season, or extremes in temperature, we experience frustrating and severe outages. Why? Because the technician who installed this took several short cuts (see photo, attached) and obviously has no pride in their work.

We are committed to providing the best opportunity available to the cats under our care. But is Cox committed to doing the right thing and fixing the poor installation quality that was performed?

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How to file check a Windows or Dos File System using Linux

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It’s much much easier then I thought!

You need to use dosfsck!

1. If not already installed, install dosfsck: (it’s in sbin)


sudo apt-get install dosfsck

2. Find your device name.


sudo blkid

You will get output that looks like:

/dev/sdf1: LABEL=”CANON_DC” UUID=”713B-5AE2″ TYPE=”vfat”

Your device name will PROBABLY be different.

3. Check the usb drive or sd card:

Remember that the device should NOT be mounted, and that it needs to run as root (sudo or su -)


sudo dosfsck -av /dev/sdf1

-a says to automatically repair.

-v says to use verbose output.

You will get output that looks like:

dosfsck 3.0.9 (31 Jan 2010)
dosfsck 3.0.9, 31 Jan 2010, FAT32, LFN
Checking we can access the last sector of the filesystem
Boot sector contents:
System ID “PwrShot ”
Media byte 0xf8 (hard disk)
512 bytes per logical sector
32768 bytes per cluster
6304 reserved sectors
First FAT starts at byte 3227648 (sector 6304)
2 FATs, 32 bit entries
483328 bytes per FAT (= 944 sectors)
Root directory start at cluster 2 (arbitrary size)
Data area starts at byte 4194304 (sector 8192)
120752 data clusters (3956801536 bytes)
63 sectors/track, 128 heads
8192 hidden sectors
7736320 sectors total
Reclaiming unconnected clusters.
Checking free cluster summary.
/dev/sdf1: 693 files, 29358/120752 clusters

No errors. Good to go. Look Ma! No Windows!

Wayno

5

Getting a Webcam/Logictech Quick Cam to work with Skype in Linux

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THIS RECIPE WORKS WITH THE NEW V4.0 SKYPE FOR LINUX! yAy!

Video Chat Cameras are nice. But they don’t always play nicely with the Linux version of Skype.

1. Here’s the camera I have: (here’s now to find out what you have.)


lsusb

and the output will look like:

Bus 005 Device 004: ID 046d:092e Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Chat

2. First step first. Let’s see if the camera works with Linux Cheese.

If not already installed, install cheese:


sudo apt-get install cheese

Cheese is a local loopback programme. It takes the output from the camera (/dev/video0) and loops it right back for you to view.

If successful, this will tell us, that Linux recognizes the camera, and that it works. The light may/may NOT be on.

3. Let’s try the next step: Installing Skype.

Lets get the latest version of Skype from the website.

The latest Linux version (as of this writing) is: 2.2.0.35. (YES, that is far far behind the Windows Version) — Since Microsoft owns Skype, the future of the Linux version is an unknown at this point.

4. Once the download is finished, install Skype:


sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu_2.2.0.35-1_i386.deb

They have a version for Debian, and 32 and 64 bits. The example shown above is for the 32 bit Ubuntu version. So make sure you get the right version, and make sure you get the right architecture: 32 or 64 bit.

NOTE: IF YOU ARE ON A 64 BIT DEBIAN SYSTEM, AND PLAN ON USING THE 64 BIT SKYPE, YOU MUST INSTALL THE 32 BIT LIBRARY:


sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs-gtk

TO GET SKYPE TO WORK ON A 64 BIT DEBIAN SYSTEM. Yeah makes no sense, but you need this if you are running 64 bit DEBIAN Skype.

5. If you do not already have a Skype account, sign up for one. Just follow the prompts. Test the audio by using the Skype Test Call.

6. Let’s try the video. RIGHT click on the green skype logo in your task bar, then LEFT click on Options/Video Devices.

Now hit the test button. You should hopefully see an image. If you do not, don’t panic!


This article gave me the information I needed to get it working. But of course, I found a much simpler method then what was given.

7. If you have no video, and this was especially true with the some of the Web Chat Cameras, all you may need to do is to pre-load the needed libraries.

Using your favourite editor (I’ll use nano in this case) create a file called skype.sh in your home directory (cd ~ )


nano skype.sh

enter the following in the file:


#!/bin/bash
#
# script preloads the 32 bit video for linux (v4l) libs needed by 64 bit skype
#
# Wayno Guerrini http://www.pkill-9.com v 2.0

# added the export for the gtk 32 bit library -- GU -6/22/2012
#
export GTK_PATH="/usr/lib32/gtk-2.0"

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

control-o (control plus the “oh” key) to save, and control-x (control plus the “x” key to exit)

note that the library path name /usr/lib/libv4l/ may be different on your machine. This happens the be the correct path for 32 bit Ubuntu 10.04. The LD_Preload loads the Video for Linux Libraries, which Skype needs, but doesn’t get.

Now change the icon executable location to the script we just created:

Repeat step 6, and the video should now work!

Wayno

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How to label an ms dos Flash Drive or Micro SD card using mtools in Linux

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The information on how to label an ms-dos formatted drive seems scattered across the internet, and might seem overwhelming at first. But it’s not too hard. Here’s my recipe!

1. If not already installed, install the mtools package. This is an open source package for manipulating ms-dos file systems, under Linux.

to do that simply install the package:


sudo apt-get install mtools

We’re half way there!

2. Let’s insert that flash drive, thumb drive, micro sd card or whatever it’s called.

3. Most systems should auto-mount the drive. If not, view this article, on how to mount a usb or micro-sd card.

4. We’ll use


sudo blkid

to get the device id!

$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for :

/dev/sde1: LABEL=”" UUID=”1B44-206B” TYPE=”vfat”

That’s the guy I want! sde1! Your device WILL probably have a different device name.

5. Let’s fix /etc/mtools.conf first.

using your favourite editor (nano in my case) let’s change mtools.

as always the # (octothorpe) is a comment and need NOT be coded.


cd /etc # change to the /etc directory
sudo cp mtools.conf mtools.conf.org # make a backup of the current file
sudo nano mtools.conf # edit the mtools.conf file

add a line at the bottom which reads:


drive p: file="/dev/sde1"

control+O (OH) to write, and then control x to exit. Again, your device name, might be different.

do a

cd ~ # change back to my home directory

to get back to your home directory, after editing /etc/mtools.conf.

6. So now I try to label the drive, p: but I get:

nwayno@Homer:~$ sudo mlabel p:WAYNOFLSH
Total number of sectors (1957888) not a multiple of sectors per track (62)!
Add mtools_skip_check=1 to your .mtoolsrc file to skip this test

Oh-oh! It turns out the it tells you how to fix the problem right there, but it may not be obvious. (All this to label an ms-dos drive under Linux? YES, unfortunately!)

Using your favourite editor, create .mtoolsrc (yes the period at the beginning is important!)
and add the line:

mtools_skip_check=1

to the file. Save and exit. Again, all this is not hard, it’s just a pain.

7. Let’s try again!

$ sudo mlabel p:WAYNOBKFLSH
$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sde1 955M 203M 752M 22% /media/WAYNOBKFLSH

8. Flush the buffers with sync


sync

Mission accomplished!

Look Ma, I didn’t have to use Windows, after all!

Wayno

0

We’re re-hosting. We’re back, mostly

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Well some calamities, Jane. Our old webhoster went down, and I needed to re-locate. So….I am back….almost.

Some of the pictures are missing, and wordpress needs some tweaking, but I alone survived to tell the tale.

If you were a subscriber, you will need to re-subscribe. Apologies, but I have no access to any of the old data. Fortunately, my wordpress backup was only a few days old. Didn’t lose any articles, just pictures, which can be re-added.

So I ask for your patience while I recover.

Your patience WILL be rewarded!

Wayno

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