- I tried to update my theme from the WordPress Dashboard in a self-hosted installation
- The error message I saw after any automated update attempt was: Incompatible archive: PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10) : Unable to find End of Central Dir Record signature

I searched around and found a couple of purported fixes including:
- Modify a setting in the php.ini file
- Asking the hosting service to increase the disk quota

I don't have access to to the php.ini file in the /etc directory and my disk quota is claimed to be "unlimited" (yes, I know this is not really true). So, those suggestions would not work for me. Here's what I ended up doing. I should note that my blog is on a Linux based system and that I have access to a shell via scp.

- Download the latest version of the theme I'm using on that blog (barthelme in my case)
- scp the file to my blog hosting service
- unpack the theme into its own folder at my home directory level
- changed current directory to the WordPress themes directory in {myblog}/wp-content/themes
- backed up the current theme into a compressed tarball in my home directory (secondary backup)
- moved current theme directory (renamed it). For example, mv thistheme thistheme.OLD
- moved unpacked current theme from home directory to WordPress theme directory: For example, mv ~/newtheme . (note the space between newtheme and the period "." which points to the current directory)
- The original directory name in my case was Barthelme with a capital "B". The downloaded zip file unpacked to a directory named with a lower case "b". So, I renamed (moved) the directory: Example in my specific case: mv barthelme Barthelme

I pointed my browser at my blog MobileViews.com/blog to verify it had worked.

Note that this process is provided for informational purposes. It is not guaranteed to fix your WordPress theme update issue even if you see the same error message I saw. Proceed with caution anytime. Get help if you are not comfortable with the commands and process described here.

1. Download Adobe AIR for Linux in bin format from Adobe
2. As root made the file executable: chmod +x *.bin
3. Run the executable: ./longname.bin (where "longname" == the AIR file name)
4. Download Seesmic for AIR installation file
5. Use UNR GUI file explorer and double click on the Seesmic AIR installer file. It will be recognized as an AIR file and let AIR install it.

Unfortunately, Seesmic for AIR is extremely slow and a huge memory hog on my netbook which only has 512MB RAM. It consumed to much processor time that I had to hold the power button to force a shutdown. So, I need to find a good lightweight Twitter client (AIR or native) to use with UNR On my netbook

I can confirm this is the case now. Here's what happened.

I decided to take a look at the recent MeeGo release. MeeGo is the project that resulted from the merger of Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo projects. Unfortunately, I discovered that MeeGo is nowhere near ready for production use on a netbook (no GUI). So, I decided to take a look at the soon to be defunct Mobile 2.1 instead. I installed it on the Acer Aspire One and discovered that it saw its battery as completed drained. UNR reported the battery as fully charged. With Moblin installed, the Aspire One charged up in less than 2 hours. I'm using it right now on battery power to post this blog entry.

So, it looks like UNR was completely unable to deal with the Aspire One's battery subsystem.

Moblin doesn't solve my desire for a netbook running Linux though. Moblin seems to have a lot of problems with the Aspire One's trackpad. It is very difficult to do something as selecting a checkbox on a web form.

That said, it is good to have a netbook running a Linux variant that can be used on battery power.

Last week my Acer Aspire One got about 2.5 to 3 hours of use on its 3-cell battery. I was running Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) 9.04 at the time. I updated the netbook to UNR 9.10 last weekend. After the update, the netbook won't boot unless it is plugged into an A/C electrical outlet. Pulling the plug with the netbook running results in it shutting off immediately as if the battery does not have any charge. UNR's battery status icon reports that the battery has a 0.0% charge level (no charge) but is, at the same time, "fully charged."

I suppose I could test it by wiping the SSD and reinstalling UNR 9.04. But, that takes a lot of time and I'm don't have a lot of incentive to do so (the Aspire One is not my primary netbook). Anyone else having netbook battery issues after upgrading to UNR 9.10?

I'm also going to take another look at using Ubuntu for my Linux server needs.

Moblin is a Linux distro developed by Intel and Novell that is tweaked for netbooks. I decided to test it out in a virtual machine first to see if I liked it or not. If you use the free (for personal use) VirtualBox 2.2.2 like I did, you need to make two simple configuration changes to the VM before starting to install Moblin. If you look at the screenshot above of the VirtualBox General-Advanced settings, you can see red arrows pointing at the two configuration options that need to be selected: APIC & PAE/NX.

The screenshot above shows Moblin 2.0 Beta running in VirtualBox. I'm not very impressed with Moblin 2.0 Beta so far and probably won't try it on a physical netbook. I think Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR) is better suited for my netbook Linux needs.

...is one of those product ideas that makes you wonder why it hasn't been done before. It looks like a simple-to-use utility that lets you build custom SUSE Linux appliances by letting you choose which components are installed with each appliance.

Linux Haxor has a good preview article about it here...

First Look at SUSE Studio

[CentOS-announce] Release for CentOS-5.3 i386 and x86_64

I've been pretty happy running Fedora 10 on my home PC. But, I may download CentOS 5.3 and try it as a Guest OS in a virtual machine.

- Manually downloaded Adobe AIR 1.5.1 for Linux from the Get Adobe Air download page
- Open a terminal window
- su - to root (sudo on other Linux distros)
- cd (change directory) to where the AIR installer was downloaded
- chmod u+x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
- Run the installer from the shell -> ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

The Adobe AIR installer detected the older version and asked if I wanted to install it. I clicked OK and the installation proceeded as expected.

HP Ink Use & Cost Mystery

You might want to go back to that item just to read a very interesting and detailed comment to it posted by Eric Hochstein. Eric took a hard long look at the HP 02 ink cartridges and points out a couple of things I didn't know such as the fact that the different HP 02 color cartridges contains different volumes of ink!

I printed out about 200 sheets of paper (double sided) for our annual holiday newsletter last month. This behemoth annual project had over 20 photos of various sizes scattered throughout the 4 printed pages. I bought two sets of ink cartridge packs. The one purchased earlier in the year (2008) included a black. The one bought in December did NOT. The Yellow and Magenta ink were used the fastest followed by Dark Cyan. On the other hand, I still have 2 each of Light Cyan and Light Magenta (pink) cartridges. Based on this, my current belief if that given the kind of things I print (heavy mix of photos and text), it is cheaper to buy individual cartridges.

Thanks again to Eric for posting the detailed comments of his investigation of the HP 02 ink cartridges!