Fixing Screen Resolution in Ubuntu 9.10

It seem I always have the same problem when I install Ubuntu, the screen resolution tops out at 1024×768. It truns out the problem is caused by Ubuntu not detecting my monitor correctly. Using a Dell E173FP LCD, Ubuntu defaults to 1024×768 CRT. Editing the monitor section of the xorg.conf files to reflect the actual monitor capabilities fixed the problem. This also worked while using the Nvidia drivers, version 185.

The simple fix was to add these lines to the monitor section and reboot.
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
Horizsync 31.5-64.0
Vertrefresh 56.0 - 65.0
EndSection

The rest of the xorg.conf file contains the default settings setup during install. The Dell E173FP optimal resolution is 1280×1024 60Hz, but additional modes are also enabled which can be used for larger monitors, such as 1360×768, 1440×900, and 1600×1024.

Open up Nvidia X Server Settings dialog to adjust the resolution, System->Administration->Nvidia X Server Settings. Go to the X Server Display Configuration section, and choose your optimal resolution.

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Printing From Windows XP to an Ubuntu Shared Printer

I was having difficulty connecting from a Windows XP system, to a printer shared on Ubuntu 7.10, yet I had no problem connecting from a MAC. Assuming you already have Samba installed and enabled, there were two key items that solved the problem.

First, Create a Samba User by typing the command “smbpasswd -a username”

The “username” must refer to an existing account, then you will be prompted to create a Samba password. Use this username and password when adding the printer in windows.

Second, to add the printer in Windows XP, I had to use the following url in the windows “add printer” dialog: http://<hostname&gt;:631/printers/<printername>

The helpful information on the add printer dialog can be found here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkPrintingFromWinXP

Please let me know if you have had a similar experience!

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PayPal and Yahoo Merchant Solutions Pricing

Since my goal is to create a flexible web site, and to not deal with any security responsibilities associated with credit card transactions, I am also looking at PayPal as an option for payment processing, as suggested in an earlier comment by Ryan.

PayPal – Looking at PayPal’s services, I would probably choose the Website Payments Standard plan, since it allows the use of your own shopping cart, then provides checkout through PayPal.  This will allow you to accept all major credit cards, bank transfers and PayPal.  

PayPal – Ubercart is listed as a supported shopping cart, along with many others. For more information check here: http://www.paypal.com/en_US/html/SolutionsDirectory/sd_wp-standard.html

PayPal – Rates are 2.9% + 0.30 USD for each transaction, for less than $3K monthly sales.  Greater sales yield lower percentage rates. 

 

 Yahoo Small Business – The Merchant Starter plan provides both hosting, shopping cart tools and secure payment gateway, among other things, for a monthly fee of $39, plus a one time setup fee of $50.  There is a transaction fee for e-commerce services and transaction processing, which is 1.5% of your product sales. This fee does not cover merchant fees, an area of confusion for myself.

Yahoo Small Business – In order to process credit cards you will need a merchant account.  Yahoo has 2 partners listed Paymentech and PayPal Website Payments Pro.  PayPal Website Payments Pro allows you to accept credit cards and paypal.  There is a monthly fee of $30 for Website Payments Pro, plus a transaction fee of 2.9%  + 0.30 USD.  

 

To complete this comparison of  Drupal, Ubercart, with PayPal Website Payments Standard, versus Yahoo Merchant Starter plan, I need to factor in the cost of hosting and the cost of a payment gateway.  To be continued…

 

Comments are welcome! 

 

 

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Drupal and Yahoo Stores

Since Yahoo Store’s service has been highly rated for small businesses, I have been looking into the possibility of building a store and shopping cart using Drupal and Ubercart, then connecting to YahooMerchant service for payment processing. I thought this could be a good option with the flexibility of Drupal Ubercart combination, and the brand of a yahoo store, along with secure payment processing. Unfortunately, at this time, Yahoo does not support connecting your own PHP based shopping cart to the Yahoo payment processing system…

Yahoo does support hosting your own PHP/MySQL website, and linking to product data entered in the Yahoo catalog manager, through Yahoo store tags. Though this means you have to use Yahoo’s catalog and cart. 

Further info on using store tags can be found here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/store/tags/index.html

There is a Yahoo Stores blog, to follow further developments, which can be found here: http://www.ystoreblog.com

Any suggestions for other payment processing options that support Drupal – Ubercart?

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Mythbuntu – Setting up a 2nd drive for videos and recordings

By default MythBuntu stores all recordings on the drive where the operating system was installed, so once I had MythBuntu up and running, I wanted to use a second drive for all video storage. This allows more space for my video files, and keeps them separate from the OS drive. The basics steps are listed here.

By changing the directories settings listed below, I am able to maintain my large video files on a separate drive, which is mounted as sdb1.

Create directories on 2nd drive, I used these names:

/media/sdb1/myth_recordings
/media/sdb1/myth_video
/media/sdb1/myth_temp
/media/sdb1/myth_archive

Set permissions needed for MythTV to access each directory:

sudo chmod 775 /media/sdb1/myth_recordings
sudo chmod 775 /media/sdb1/myth_video
sudo chmod 775 /media/sdb1/myth_temp
sudo chmod 775 /media/sdb1/myth_archive

Change file owner and group for each directory to mythtv:

sudo chown mythtv:mythtv /media/sdb1/myth_recordings
sudo chown mythtv:mythtv /media/sdb1/myth_video
sudo chown mythtv:mythtv /media/sdb1/myth_temp
sudo chown mythtv:mythtv /media/sdb1/myth_archive

Change path settings in MythTV.

The menu breadcrumb trail to each setting is shown in blue.

MythTVSetup > General > page 2
Directory to hold recordings: /media/sdb1/myth_recordings

Myth Frontend > Utilities/Setup > Setup > Media Settings > Videos Settings > General Settings
Directory that holds videos: /media/sdb1/myth_video

Myth Frontend > Utilities/Setup > Setup > Media Settings > Archive Files Settings
Myth Archive Temp Directory: /media/sdb1/myth_temp
Myth Archive Share Directory: /media/sdb1/myth_archive

After finding my way through these steps, I was up and running!

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Drupal and Ubercart – Roles, Users and Permissions

To administer the Ubercart store, I created a role called “store administrator” by clicking to “add role” under:

Home › Administer › User management > Roles

Once the Role is created, go to “edit permissions” and enable access to all items related to the Ubercart modules, such as uc_store module.

Then go to:

Home › Administer › User management > Users

For testing, I created a new user and added the “store administrator” role to the account. I have learned that the first user created after installing Drupal is a superuser, and has permission to access everything on the site, so it is not recommended to use the superuser account for everyday work.

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Drupal for Ecommerce

In the quest to build an ecommerce site that is easy to manage, capable of providing detailed product attributes and scalable, I am testing Drupal CMS with an ecommerce option. I chose Drupal for the broad support it has in the community, its flexibility and ongoing development. Given I’m starting with Drupal, I am looking at Ubercart, as the easier to use, but less flexible alternative to Drupal ecommerce module.

I found very useful and detailed information on comparing Ubercart versus Drupal’s ecommerce module available here: http://alligatorsneeze.com/diving-drupal-e-commerce-ubercart-vs-e-commerce-comparison

My testing platform is Ubuntu Server 7.10 running on Vmware Server. The server was simply installed with the LAMP option that is available during the install process. To administer the server, I setup Webmin, which is a fantastic way to manage a server that is not running a gui. Webmin is available at http://www.webmin.com/

With the server up and running, I followed the basic instructions for installing Drupal, available at drupal.org.

To securely log into the server remotely, I simply run the command “ssh username@ipaddress” from a terminal window. This works on both Mac and Linux platforms, for Windows you can download putty.exe to connect using ssh.

As I go through the setup process, I will share any problems I have, along with the specific fixes I find work for y configuration. These fixes may only apply to the versions of Ubuntu (7.10) and Drupal (5.6), but I imagine I am not the only person running these versions, so hopefully this will be useful for others. 😉

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Drupal – The GD library for PHP is missing or outdated

Problem:

The GD library for PHP is missing or outdated

Fix:
install GD
sudo apt-get install php5-gd

restart apache
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Some forums suggested to enable the line “extension=php_gd2” in php.ini, but could not find it in my php.ini file.

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Drupal Installation – The directory files does not exist

Problem:

The directory files does not exist.

Fix:

create directory in drupal root, and grant full access

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/files

sudo chmod 777 files

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Drupal Installation – First error when loading webpage

Problem:

First error when loading webpage at [your address]/html

Drupal installer requires write permissions to ./sites/default/settings.php during the installation

Fix:

sudo chmod 777 /var/www/html/sites/default/settings.php

After success, Drupal reminds you to change this back to non writeable.

sudo chmod 755 /var/www/html/sites/default/settings.php

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