WLAN on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) with IPW3945 and WPA encryption

I updated from Feisty to Gutsy yesterday and had massive problems making an internet connection via wlan. My Acer Aspire 5650 has an Intel IPW3945 WLAN card and the kernel modules were loaded successfully without any errors. The restricted WLAN driver was listed as "in use" in Ubuntu's restriced driver manager, so I expected to have a working driver configuration.
Somehow I assumed it had something to do with the network manager. So I completely removed the Network Manager via

apt-get remove network-manager

and configured my wlan interface (using instructions from a german ubuntu forum) manually editing /etc/network/interfaces:

iface eth1 inet dhcp
        wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
auto eth1

My wpa_supplicant.conf looks something like this:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1

network={
        ssid="YourWlanSSID"
#        scan_ssid=1
        proto=WPA
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        pairwise=TKIP
        group=TKIP
        psk=YourPSK
}

Note: I am using WPA encryption for my WLAN.
You can test your wpa_supplicant configuration using the following command:

sudo wpa_supplicant -i eth1 -D wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

Option -i defines the network interface name of your WLAN card. Option -D declares the driver to use and option -c defines the wpa_supplicant configuration file.
After this I restarted my system and I got a working wlan connection to my Access Point.

Finding a JAR archive where a class belongs to

Ever wondered to which JAR archive a specific Java class belongs to? Sometimes you need this information, because your application server throws a ClassNotFoundException. This can be caused by a lib or another framework that instantiates classes dynamically at runtime using a Class.forName call.
The Jarminator is a tool which helps you browsing single or multiple JAR archives and may help you in finding the correct JAR archive which contains the missing class.

Check out Scott McKeon's album "Can't Take No More"

A friend of mine told me to lend an ear to Scott McKeon. Scott who?? I asked? Scott McKeon! Well, Scott McKeon is a British Blues guitarist who recently released his debut album "Can't Take No More". This album was produced by Jesse Davey - the former guitarist of "The Hoax".
So what is it all about? This album sure is a hammer! The more I listen to it, the more I like it! Scott has a style of his own and really hits the floor. He plays hard and loud and sometimes his tone reminds me of a man now buried in Austin, Texas. On the other hand there is his ability to play slow and soft. He's not the type of guitarist who tries to play as many notes as possible.
Well, what's the bottom line?
He has passion, a great technique and yes this man can sing!

Installation of Canon Pixma 4300 under Debian Linux using CUPS

I bought a new printer (Canon Pixma 4300) and had a few problems installing it under Debian Linux. I found a very good installation instruction and I would like to share it with you.

Install necessary packages

sudo apt-get install alien libxml1 libpng3 libtiff4

Download original drivers

wget ftp://download.canon.jp/pub/driver/bj/linux/cnijfilter-common-2.70-1.i386.rpm
wget ftp://download.canon.jp/pub/driver/bj/linux/cnijfilter-ip4300-2.70-1.i386.rpm

Convert RPMs into Debian packages

sudo alien -d cnijfilter-common-2.70-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -d cnijfilter-ip4300-2.70-1.i386.rpm --scripts
sudo dpkg -i nijfilter-common-2.70-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i cnijfilter-ip4300-2.70-1.i386.deb

Create symlinks

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/libpng.so.2
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3

Restart CUPS

sudo ldconfig
sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

New Stevie Ray Vaughan album coming in November

Epic/Legacy is going to release a new Stevie Ray Vaughan album on November 6th, 2007. This album features duets Stevie did with various artists. Some of the songs are album versions and some of it are live versions.
More info can be found at Epic/Legacy's official site: http://www.legacyrecordings.com/Stevie-Ray-Vaughan/Solos-Sessions-and-Encores.aspx
Another new release will appear also on November 6th, 2007: A new version of the "Pride And Joy" DVD containing more material (eg. the MTV Unplugged session) in better (5.1) sound mix. More info can be found here.

Using Drupal as new blog software

Since I am moving my complete homepage to Drupal I decided to quit using Serendipity as my blog software and use Drupal's blog module.
My old Blog, available under http://quebbemann.kicks-ass.net/serendipity, will not be updated anymore and will be removed soon. I migrated all entries to Drupal. So nothing is lost.