David Trebacz Blog

I've had a disk drive complaining about have trouble writing to certain blocks (specific error is I/O error, dev sdc, sector 1446901823 -across a bunch of different sectors). This raid mirror isn't supper critical, it holds backups from the other machines on my home network, but I'm starting to think it's time to replace the failing drive and eventually upgrade the size of my backup mirror (md0) partition from 1TB to 2TB. I'm using about 90% of the space right now, but probably have a good 3-4 months before I need the space. Overall, the process was much simpler than I expected and very straightforward. Other than the synchronization of the new drive the whole process took about 20 minutes. It was nice not having to do this with a system down, but I could do it much quicker having been through this test run. 1. Preparation before starting: I just wanted to gather some background on my drive system before I start unplugging and plugging bac...

So our light in our kitchen decided to drop onto our glass electric cooktop. We suspect that the glass retainer ring wasn't screwed on all the way, and the globe light bulb just gave out. Either way our nice Whirlpool 30 inch (Model RCC3024) stove cooktop was broken. Here's the pictures of my broken cooktop and the rest of this blog post shows how simple it is to replace (I didn't find a good pictures or video on the web of the process). Hopefully this helps you do it yourself.     I immediately went online to see if I could get a replacement cooktop glass from the fine folks at   http://www.repairclinic.com . I had bought several appliance parts over the years and they have always had the parts and been fair on the pricing and shipping. After typing in my model number (Whirlpool RCC3024LB01) I got to this page  http://www.repairclinic.com/Shop-For-Parts/a13b5d622616/Model-RCC3024LB01-Whirlpool-Range-Stove-Ov...

I'd like my newsreading activity to remain private and I enjoy using the PAN Newsreader . The newsreader is open and free, but unfortunately doesn't support SSL connections. My news provider astraweb does support SSL at no additional cost. So I decided to take the plunge an utilize stunnel to encrypt connections to news service provider on my 64-bit Kubuntu linux machine. Hope the following procedure helps anyone trying to do the same. Install stunnel4 form the Ubuntu repositories: sudo apt-get install stunnel4 Configure stunnel to start automatically by editing the main configuration file with nano text editir (my favorite) and change the ENABLED=0 line to 1: sudo nano /etc/default/stunnel4 ENABLED=1 Copy the example configuration /usr/share/doc/stunnel4/examples/stunnel.conf-sample to /etc/stunnel/ sudo cp /usr/share/doc/stunnel4/examples/stunnel.conf-sample /etc/stunnel/stunnel.conf Edit the newly copied configuration file to make news request secure Uncommen...

For whatever reason my Windows 7 machine stopped accepting my credentials for my Windows 2000 server mapped drive shares. I had been using mapped drives in Windows 7 for at least a year. I did have a stuck Windows 7 upgrade, that forced to to go back to a previous restore point. I also ended up reinstalling my antivirus. I could login via remote desktop, so I knoew the cedentials were correct and the account was not locked. The solution that worked in about 30 seconds was adding the LmCompatibilityLevel registry key to my Windows 7 Home PC: Open Notepad (or your favorite text editor): Copy the text below and paste in Notepad: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa] "LmCompatibilityLevel"=dword:00000002 Save the file on your desktop (or anywhere else) as name.reg - ".reg" is important. Run the file and press yes on the 2 pop ups. There is no need to restart -my mapped drive just began working again. ...

Below is my unboxing experience with the new Comcast Arris TM722G EMTA Internet Voice Modem. The Modem is DOCSIS 3.0 and supports Comcast's Triple Play service (TV, Internet and Voice). I'm not a big fan of paying a $7 per month rental fee in my area, so I purchased a modem from the Best Buy in Crystal Lake, Illinois for $149. I paid for the modem at Best Buy. It took the representative a couple minutes to set things up so I could check out at Best Buy. You can get a list of all the locations at  http://www.arrisi.com/consumer/_docs/ARRIS_Modems_Comcast_Xfinity_Best_Buy.pdf Users Manual in pdf format http://www.trebacz.com/Instruction%20Manuals/Arris_TM722_Instruction_Manual.pdf Once at home the unboxing began. Pretty box on the outside with all kinds of Comcast Xfinity branding. List of the minimum requirements to install. You do need to have a working triple play service setup or an appointment to have the voice installed, if you don't alread...

It been almost 1 year since I first posted my You Tube video of my 2007 Durango spilling fuel  all over the ground. Since then it and several forum posts have gotten a lot of attention from legal folks and the NTSB. After years of filling issues with the NTSB and following threads on the problem, it seems that Dodge has finally decided there is an issue. Just today on one of the many forum threads Dodge noted there is a TSB on the subject covering many more vehicles than the original one that just covered the 2005 models. I followed this forum post for a long time  http://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen-durango/190747-gas-fill-overflow-on-my-06-durango.html . We'll be at the Dodge dealer on Monday seeing if we can get it in to be fixed at no charge to us. It will be nice to not have to fill the tank slowly or short filling it by 2-3 gallons. It also seems like a simpler fix than replacing the entire fuel tank on the Durango...

I really enjoy using a simple Newsreader on my KDE version of Ubuntu. It's a simple newsreader that feels a lot like Forte's Agent newsreader on windows. After a recent upgrade to 11.10, I started getting double images of inline images. This is the opposite of a problem before where mulipart images wouldn't appear at all. The version of PAN in Ubuntu repositories is quite old, so I needed to install it myself. I adapted the post by Scot Kuma http://www.scottkuma.net/pans-at-it-again-updating-pan-newsreader-on-ubuntu-11-10 for my needs. I got an error about missing hotkeys.h when I tried to compile it using his instructions verbatim. As suggested in this pan mailing list post for KDE I could just install the program from their source. Hopefully this will help you get your version of pan updated. I f you don't have pan installed. Install it. This will created all the icons in the appropriate menus in kubuntu. sudo apt-get install pan Download the source tarball from t...