Ubuntu 14.04 with AMD Radeon Graphic Card

After setting up Ubuntu 14.04 with my AMD Radeon GPU, I have the following problems.

• GPU fan nosie
• It is because the default driver does not have the fan control, you could
• Driver -> Additional Driver -> install fglrx-updates
• Cannot full screen
• After installing fglrx driver
• $ sudo amdcccle
• Display Manger -> Digital Monitor (1) -> Adjustments -> Scaling Options -> 0%
• 
  

Update MySQL root password in Ubuntu 14.04

Edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf, and add the following line

 skip-grant-tables

Restart MySQL service

 $ sudo service mysql restart

Login to mysql and modify passwords

 $ mysql -u root
 mysql> UPDATE mysql.user set password = PASSWORD('YOUR NEW PASSWORD') where user = 'root' and host = 'localhost';
 mysql> quit

Restart MySQL service

 $ sudo service mysql restart

You should be able to login to MySQL with your new password

 $ mysql -u root -p

Can not log in to Skype in Ubuntu

Skype 4.2 worked perfectly until this morning in my Ubuntu 12.04. It took me a while to make Skype work again. This is how it works.

Remove Skype 4.2

$ sudo apt-get remove skype

Get rid of old Skype configuration

$ rm -fR ~/.Skype 

Download Skype 4.3 from Skype's website (http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/). From there I got

skype-ubuntu-precise_4.3.0.37-1_i386.deb

*Depending on your machine and time, you might get different version of Skype.
*I tried to apt-get update to get the latest Skype. However, it seems the apt list is not up to date at that time, I can get the latest Skype by that approach.

Then install Skype 4.3

$ sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu-precise_4.3.0.37-1_i386.deb

Hope it works for you  : )

美國汽車保險 Car Insurance

簡單地說明一下要怎麼樣在美國買汽車保險.

主要的保險分類

1. Liability 
2. Personal Injury Protection
3. Comprehensive
4. Collision
5. Uninsured Motorist

Liability是責任險(強制的), 意思是只要把車開上路都一定要有這個保險。Personal Injury Protection在德州是強制的。 Comprehensive, Collision, Uninsured Motorist則是optional的, 可以依照個人的需要調整。

通常保險都會有limit(上限), 意思是保險公司最多就賠償到這個limit的額度。還有另外一個概念是deductible(扣除額), 假設有一個保險的limit是$30,000, deductible是$500。則萬一發生意外，$500以內的話要自己出，超過$500且小於$30,000的部分則由保險公司支付。由此可見，deductible越小的保費通常越高, limit越高的保額通常也越高。

Liability主要是當發生車禍的時候, 假設A撞到B, 則A的Liability會拿來賠償B損失。Liability又根據其cover的項目細分成Bodily Injury Liability和Property Damage Liability。依據所在的地區, 每個州會規定其最少需要保的額度。例如德州在2012年Bodily Injury Liability最少是$30,000/$60,000，意思是萬一A造成B的車禍, A的保險公司賠償B的車禍單人所受的傷害最多陪$30,000, 整件事件中的所有人的傷害最多陪到$60,000。Property Damage Liability則是用來賠償對方車子的損失, 德州2012年的最低Property Damage Liability則是$25,000。

Personal Injury Protection則是用來保障車禍發生時, 自己以及自己車上的乘客萬一受傷的保險。

Comprehensive是綜合險, 通常用來賠償因非車禍碰撞而導致車子的損傷。例如車子被偷、火災、水災、風災、冰災, etc。通常會依照車子的現值決定要不要保這個保險、以及comprehensive的deductible。

Collision則是自己開車去碰撞到別人時，維修自己車輛的費用。通常依照對自己開車的信心，決定這個選項要不要保，以及deductible的額度。

理論上每個人上路都應該要有保Liability, 然而有可能有人沒有保險還是開上路。Uninsured Motorist就是為了這種case設計的。

其他比較minor的項目包括，出車禍時的道路救援 (Emergency Road Service), 車被撞壞了維修時的租車 (Rental Reimbursement), 車子正常情況下的維修 (Mechanical Breakdown Insurance)。

保險公司

通常比較大的有以下的幾家, 通常quote到比較便宜的是AAA or Geico。

• AAA
• Geico
• Progressive
• State Farm

保費與折扣

一般來說影響保費的因素可能有這幾個：

• 保險者的性別與年紀、拿到駕照時的年紀。(拿到駕照的時間越長保費越低)
• 之前的肇事紀錄。
• 被保險的車輛。(越貴的車保費通常越高, sport car通常比sedan高)
• 通常可以跟agent問問看有什麼discount，曾經聽說過的有
• 上defensive driving的課, 這是個online course, 可以上一下(ps. 這個課認真就輸了, 萬一覺得自己開始已經很defensive, 可以直接skip去google答案)
• Good student discount, 如果是college student GPA高會有discount (會讀書的小孩比較會開車?)
• 大部分的保險都需要有駕照, 似乎有幾家可以讓有permit或者是沒有駕照的人保, 不過可想而知保費會相當貴。

買車與保險

• 一定要有Liability才可以開車, 車商通常都會檢查你的insurace才會讓你把車開走。

Math extesion for MediaWiki

I spent quite a lot of effort to deal with Math extension for MediaWiki 1.19.2, and I have encountered the following errors: 

PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined method TempFSFile::autocollect()
PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined method FSFileBackend::getRootStoragePath()

This is how it finally works for (at least for me). BTW, I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.


1.First of all the HEAD in git did not work, you shall download the following version.

cd extensions
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/p/mediawiki/extensions/Math.git
cd Math
git reset --hard 29a0a80e8fbb2d33507760075e4da9103439cbd9 

2.Install texvc, which generate graph for latex syntax

sudo apt-get install mediawiki-math

3.Modify LocalSettings.php:

require_once("$IP/extensions/Math/Math.php");
$wgTexvc = '/usr/bin/texvc';

4.Update your database to generate table for Math extenstion.

sudo php <your_path_to_wiki>/maintenance/update.php

5.Don't forget to check permission of folders to your wiki account. It should work.

If it still won't work, try to take a look at /var/log/apache2/error.log to see if there's any error message.
Hope this works for you : )

Tip that make Firefox runs fast!

I found Firefox 16.0.2 works incredibly slow in Ubuntu 12.04.
After following some debugging procedures like this, I found that it is the "Global Menu Bar integration 3.5.4" Add-on that make Firefox slow.
Simply disable it make my Firefox runs fast again.