Rosetta 3.3 and gcc version incompatibility

I was trying to install Rosetta 3.3 on my current system but kept on getting:

``KeyError: "Unknown version number 4.6 for compiler 'gcc'"

Obviously I'm not going to roll back my gcc somehow to get it to install. The solution is pretty damned simple.
From http://www.rosettacommons.org/content/invalid-value-option-cxx#comment-3211

OK, try editing the line of tools/build/options.settings that says:
"gcc" : [ "3.3", "3.4", "4.0", "4.1", "4.2", "4.3","4.4","4.5", "*" ],
to instead have 4.6 as well:
"gcc" : [ "3.3", "3.4", "4.0", "4.1", "4.2", "4.3","4.4","4.5", "4.6", "*" ],

Success! Almost...
then there was:

collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
scons: *** [build/src/debug/linux/3.0/64/x86/gcc/libutility.so] Error 1
scons: building terminated because of errors.

which required me to install zlib1g-dev.

Right-hand opening for article class in LateX

So I like to use article documentclass for a variety of reasons, though mostly because I'm used to it. But what if you want your article to be formatted such that each new section opens on an odd (right-hand) page?

Looking around got me to this solution, in the preamble:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,twoside]{article}

twoside allows you to have different even and odd headers and margins.

\usepackage[bindingoffset=1cm,margin=2cm, includeheadfoot]{geometry}

 This sets up the margins such that there is a bigger margin to allow for binding.

\newcommand*\stdsection{}

\let\stdsection\section

\renewcommand*\section{%

\clearpage\ifodd\value{page}\else\mbox{}\clearpage\fi

\stdsection}

This does a clearpage whenever a section is on an even page. It works a treat. This does mean that your list of figures and tables also start on a new, odd, page, which is no great change, really.

hat-tip to: http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2813&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

 

 

hanging at splash screen

So this morning I logged onto my computer only to find that it hung at the splash screen, particularly at the world/network icon. This was a red herring though, because if you left it long enough it said:
"No write access to /home/user/.ICEauthority" and then "could not start ksmserver". After trawling the internet, I came across this solution, which worked for me:

sudo chown group:user /home/user/.ICEauthority 

- where group is your group (for me that was the same name as my user) and user is your username.
Then run

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart 

and you should be back in business!

could not start process unable to create io-slave klauncher said unknown protocol 'file'

Started getting this error as a pop-up every 10 minutes or so after the recent update: "could not start process unable to create io-slave klauncher said unknown protocol 'file'" with the title of some of my google calendars.

At first I assumed it was a thunderbird problem because I had to delete those calendars from thunderbird because they had stopped working completely with a thunderbird upgrade. However, a quick check of my System Activity showed some akondai resources that when killed caused the same pop-up box to show up. Lo and behold, I had attempted to use akonadi to sync them once upon a time and on the recent update this had started working again. Deleted those from the resources list via Settings->Personal information->Akonadi and we are now annoying pop-up free.

KPackageKit trouble

For some reason every week or so in Kubuntu I get this error in KPackageKit when I open it after I notice I am not having automatic updates:

The package list needs to be rebuilt.
This should have been done by the backend automatically.

Also, if you try to run apt-get you get:

E: Encountered a section with no Package: header

I am not quite certain why it happens yet, but the following fix works:

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf
sudo apt-get update

Which I got from Ubuntu forums/

nVidia screen flicker

So a couple of days ago I started to get a very annoying screen flicker in kubuntu. Every 30 seconds or go the screen would flash black and occasionally there would be a white line in between flashes or flashes of the screen. It could be stopped by alt-tabbing a couple of times. I gathered the problemw as with nVidia (I have a GT220) or something, so I went to nvidia-settings and turned PowerMizer to "Prefer Maximum Performance" from "Adaptive performance". I have the 260.19.06 drivers.

I haven't had a problem since.

UQ soefile access

So this post is mac-related. So I have a several year old mac at home (PPC! running 10.4.11) and even with my University's VPN I still couldn't access myFiles using the network address that usually works locally on linux and windows on campus.
Normally the addresses are (works for both staff and students with a substitution of s1234567 with your my.UQ username):

All Campuses except Ipswich students - \\soefile\s1234567
Ipswich Campus students - \\uqistudent\s1234567
Gatton campus students - \\UQGfile\s1234567$

But that wouldn't work in the Go->Connect to Server Dialog. What does work (at least for St. Lucia, I'm not an Ipswich or Gatton student so I can't confirm it for those campuses) is:
smb://soefile.uq.edu.au/uqxxxxx or smb://soefile.uq.edu.au/s1234567

But you can't browse the "local" network that you are VPNed into for some peculiar reason. Also, you can then save that connection as a shortcut to your desktop by dragging the network icon and name from the top of the finder window to the desktop (or any folder for that matter), but for some reason not to the sidebar.