"no resources found, item cannot be added"

I kept getting this message from kmail or kpim or kontact or whatever you want to call it when I tried to create a calendar entry or to-do item. I thought it had to do with creating a new identity which I had done earlier.

Found out it was caused because my "Default Calendar" in my calendar list was unchecked. Once I checked the "Default Calendar" entry, all the errors stopped.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I'm a big proponent of actionable dialog messages. By itself, this message means nothing to an average user. Add to it "ensure that your local calendar is active" and it would have taken me like 2 seconds to fix it and I wouldn't have had to post a blog.

Windows XP x64 and Kubuntu dual boot... Remove kubuntu and prepare for pain

So I've been using Windows XP x64 and Kubuntu side by side for a while but I was sick of dual booting. So I installed Sun's VirtualBox and installed Kubuntu there. Now I don't have to reboot the PC to run Linux when I have to do Linux'y things.

Yesterday I decided to remove the Kubuntu partitions and reclaim the disk space for Windows (since I had 1g left). So I remove the partitions and reboot.

I was faced with a Grub error 22 screen and I couldn't proceed. Seems that /boot was a directory off of / and / didn't exist anymore. So Grub had no configuration data to go on.

Ohh, I remember, I thought. I'll just rewrite my MBR and that'll get rid of Grub. So I boot to the Windows XP x64 recovery console and issue the command fixmbr. Then reboot and no change - still Grub error 22.

Hmm, maybe I didn't save? Maybe I need fixboot? Maybe fixmbr then fixboot? Maybe fixboot then fixmbr? Maybe I need to specify the disk to fixmbr? Maybe I need to specify the partition? Maybe I need to specify the disk and partition? Maybe X64 doesn't use the MBR? Maybe it's a GUID thing? Maybe I'm going insane? None of it worked.

After 6 hours I was ready to simply reinstall Windows but then I thought, maybe if I reinstall Kubuntu, Grub will fix itself? So I reinstall Kubuntu, reboot and behold, a valid Grub screen with a choice to go to Windows XP that worked!

For what it's worth, I manually partitioned, creating a 1g /boot, 1 10g / and a 2g swap. So hopefully, I can reclaim the 10g and 2g, leaving Grub on /boot and configuring Grub to automatically boot to Windows XP.

Bash variable assigment modifiers

I always seem to forget this about bash variable assignment shortcuts and always have a hard time finding it.

Rather than:

if [ "" = "$var" ]; then
    $var=hello
fi

Use

var=${var:-hello}

Conversely, rather than:

if [ "" != "$var" ]; then
    $var=hello
fi

Use

var=${var:+hello}

There's also:

if [ "" = "$var" ]; then
    echo "Error, variable var must be set"
else
    b=$var
fi

And:

b=${var:?Error, variable var must be set}

There are others too, but I find these ones most useful. Check bash man page for full set.