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How to Downgrade from Google Plus

Chris McLeod has an interesting story regarding canceling your Google+ account, either with or without canceling your entire Google account. Here’s the (essential) text of his article:

Step 1.

Log-in to the Google Account you want to downgrade. If you have multiple accounts, make sure you have switched to the correct one. Click the dropdown menu in the upper-right corner of most Google applications (where your user picture is), and click the Account link circled in red below:

del_g_plus_dropdown

Step 2.

Click the Google+ link in the sidebar menu:

del_g_plus_menu

Step 3.

The Downgrade link is at the very bottom of the page:

del_g_plus_link

Step 4.

You will be given the choice to disable your Google+ account, or to delete it, along with any social integrations (Google Buzz, YouTube, etc). Personally, as I know I don’t have any integrations I use with my old account, I went for the delete option. Pick which ever is right for you, then tick the “I Understand/Accept” box at the bottom of the page.

del_g_plus

Step 5.

Click the button at the bottom of the page. Your account will be immediately disabled or downgraded from Google Plus. If all goes well, you will see a box asking for comments about why you did this. Feedback is always good for product teams, so leave a little message for them:

 

del_g_plus_comments

 

Via How to Downgrade from Google Plus « Chris McLeod.

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Synology DSM root password for ssh

Today I wanted to login to my Synology Diskstation NAS via SSH as root, but it wouldn’t accept my password. To resolve, try stopping and restarting the SSH service (under Terminal in the DSM Control Panel). If that doesn’t work, try the following (verbatim via Primal Cortex’s Weblog):

  1. Enable telnet on the DSM Control Panel
  2. Telnet as root. The password should be the same as admin. If not, change again the admin password.
  3. Execute the following command: synouser -setpwd root password_same_as_admin_or_not
  4. Trying now to ssh as root it should succeed with the password gave in the above command
  5. Disable telnet on the DSM Control Panel
  6. Done.

Via Synology DSM root password for ssh | Primal Cortex’s Weblog.

Posted in Problem Solving, Synology by

VirtualBox – upgrading Windows XP VMs to 2 CPU

As you should know, you are never alone with your technical problems. Every time you stumble upon a problem, there’s someone out there with the answer. The trick is to find that answer.

Today I found the solution to one of my problems, via Alex Klink’s tech blog. His post here, verbatim:

Symptom: If you had Windows XP VM with only 1 CPU created / virtalized earlier you won’t be able to see a second CPU when you add it later.

  1. Make sure you have second CPU added via VM Virtual Box Manager and “Enable IO APIC” checkbox  in System settings on Motherboard tab is checked.
  2. You should see 2 CPUs in Device Manager , but when you run Task Manager, you’ll see only 1 CPU.
  3. MS recommendation for Windows XP is to reinstall Windows (no surprise) as you can see it in this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283
  4. Do not reinstall Windows, just run run the following from command prompt

    rundll32 syssetup,SetupInfObjectInstallAction ACPIAPIC_MP_HAL 128 %windir%\inf\hal.inf

  5. Reboot when prompted , log on back to Windows XP wait until you see “Windows has finished installing new devices. The software that supports your device requires that you restart your computer. You must restart your computer before the new setting will take effect” and press OK to reboot it again.
  6. Done

Via Alex Klink’s tech blog: VirtualBox – upgrading Windows XP VMs to 2 CPU.

Posted in Problem Solving, Virtual Box, Windows by

Portal 2 crashes on Windows 8.1

Earlier this year I got myself a new gaming laptop, a sweet MSI GT70-0NE which came with Windows 8. Of course I play games via Steam and recently a friend finally got Portal 2 as well, so that we could start playing together and solve the multiplayer puzzles.

However, from the start I occasionally had some problems with Portal 2. Whenever I would join the multiplayer HUB, the Steam process would crash (simply exit without warning or notice) and thus the game would then just hang. Unfortunately I never really figured out what was wrong because the problem was not really prevalent. Sometimes a quick reboot would solve things.

But, running the game in a window (i.e. not full screen), did seem to improve things and the crashes of Steam have not returned since. You can specify this setting under Options -> Video -> Display Mode in the main menu of the game.

So, last week Windows 8.1 came out and I was eager to install it, because of the small improvements that were made. I first made sure (on another system) that my external hardware devices would continue to work and as that seemed to be the case, I plunged in.

It was only a couple of days later, when I fired up Portal 2 again, when I first noticed that the game would not start anymore. That is, the intro animation of the valve logo would show up and after that the main loading screen appeared. But at that point the Portal 2 process would simply crash and shut down. (“Portal2.exe not responding”)

After doing some research, it seemed that revalidating the game cache might solve the new problem (right click on Portal 2 in Steam, select “Properties”, select “Local Files”, select “Verify integrity of game cache”). So I did that and the result was that one file needed to be re-downloaded. After that was done, the game would indeedstartup again. I’ve been able to play the single player game again and I will be finding out if the multiplayer mode also still works. (i.e. Steam not crashing the moment I enter the multiplayer hub)

Atlas and P-Body decided who goes first

Portal 2

Posted in Problem Solving, Steam, Windows 8.1 by

I like big books, I cannot lie

Earlier this week two books arrived that I had ordered on Amazon UK. They are Beginning Android 4 (ISBN13: 978-1-4302-3984-0) and Pro Android 4 (ISBN13: 978-1-4302-3930-7).

I’ve already started reading the first one and so far I’m relatively content with the book. That is, the presented material is easy to follow (seeing that I have a solid Java background) and the information is presented in a logical order. I also like writing style of the author. As far as I can tell, all the basics are covered, including both things you need to know and thing you don’t actually need to know (IMHO).

But so far the book has not been very challenging because there simply aren’t any exercises or quizes to complete. One can simply read the book without having a computer nearby. So, to make sure all the new information ‘sticks’ is to maybe read texts a couple of time. And probably simply perform the steps in the book yourself.

The book does use Eclipse as the IDE of choice, but also provides instructions/hints for using the console tools supplied by the Android SDK. It also mentions MOTODEV, a complete development bundle comprised of Eclipse plus Android SDK and such.

Bonus tip: when working on a project, at one point it might be the case that the automatically generated class ‘R’ doesn’t match the contents of the XML-files anymore. To resolve: try to solve all compile errors if they exists. If that does not help, you can additionally try to ‘Clean’ the project (choose ‘Clean’ in the ‘Project’ menu).

Posted in Android, Books by

Enter: Kitchen Timer

Years ago I taught myself to program PHP by focusing on both reading the PHP manual and simply starting to write. The goal was creating my own forum software (like everybody else was doing at the time) and by doing so, learning everything I needed about PHP (and MySQL for that matter).

Fast forward to now and I find myself in the same situation: I want to learn how to program for Android and I need a goal, or rather a means, to achieve that. I decided that (also like to many others are doing now) I want to write a kitchen timer.

Read more

Posted in Android, Kitchen Timer Project by

A start

If there isn’t already, there ought to be a saying: any great program starts with its first steps. Or keystrokes. Or bytes.

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am attempting to teach myself to develop for Android. Today I endeavoured on this journey, first stop: http://developer.android.com/

This is the official Google website for everything related to developing your Android applications. They have an installation guide, a development guide, tutorials, etc. If you ever wish to start developing, I suggest you first follow the installation guide and after that, simply read the entire development guide. In my opinion, if  you’re an experienced Android user and programmer, you should have no problem reading it from A to Z, without interruption.

So, to summarize;

  • installed Eclipse
  • installed the Java SDK
  • installed the Android SDK
  • installed the Android plugin for Eclipse
  • started reading the guides
  • installed blogging software on website to keep track of developments

I have only fired up Eclipse and the SDK to check if no errors are produced, but a bit later I’ll try the samples to broaden my understanding. For now I’ll simply continue reading the guides.

PS: And yeah, I already have an idea for an application I want to develop. It would be a bad idea to simply start this project while not knowing what the goal would be.

Posted in Android, Development by

Hello Android

It’s been years since I blogged anything, but I’ve decided to start anew, this time with a new CMS and a new found interest.

In my job I am a Java programmer. Besides this I’ve always had a keen interest in Android. Given the fact that Android development is in essence a whole lot like Java development, do you get where this is going?

I’ve taken it upon myself to teach myself Android development and among other things I will be blogging here about my findings and experiences.

Note that there are no scheduled updates and no promises, only Intents (pun Intented).

Posted in Android by
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