Blackboard 9.1 SP8 + Accessibility Setting

Just a little something that I noticed and fixed when I was redesigning the look & feel to our Blackboard installation.

access-icons

These icons which may or may not be on your installations login page. They open up a separate pages which detail how to change your font sizes within your browser and how to keep your own high contrast colors / colours theme from your operating system within Blackboard.

Problem is Blackboard have screwed up the CSS you can’t actually click on them to take you to the required page to view the settings / help information.

How to fix:

Hunt down the ‘login.css’ file, this will be containing in whichever theme that your using, download it via ‘System Admin’, Communities ‘Brands & Themes’, ‘Theme and Palette Catalogue’ locate theme and use the Action menu to ‘Download’.

Unzip the contents of the zip somewhere on your hard drive, keeping the folders intact.

Search the file for this section:

#loginHeader ul li.contrast:before {
content: "T";
font: 130%/1 "Utilicons";
color: #f0f0f0;
text-align: center;
position: absolute;
right: 0;
left: 0;
top: 5px;
text-shadow: 0 -1px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .2);
z-index: 2;
}

Remove or comment out line:

z-index: 2;

Now just zip it back up again, go back to the same place that you downloaded it from and select ‘Edit’ rather than ‘Download in the ‘Action’ menu. Then ‘Upload Theme Package’ from your machine.

You’ll need to clear the browser cache, as Blackboard is a right pain as it holds on to images and css in the cache.

Now check your login page, the buttons will be now clickable.

Job done.

Redhat 5.9 Lampp libdl.so.2 library issues

We think that some kind of Redhat upgrade broke our Lampp installation, we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of why it started to happen.

instead of Lampp starting Mysql etc, it was just returning the following:

/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

After much Googling and head scratching we worked out that the script ‘lampp’ wasn’t looking for the library files because it wasn’t recognising the Redhat version that we were running.

Code below showing lines 45 to 62 of the ‘lampp’ script:

45 function osguess() {
46 if test -f /etc/redhat-release
47 then
48 if egrep “9 ” /etc/redhat-release > /dev/null
49 then
50 if egrep “Tikanga” /etc/redhat-release > /dev/null
51 then
52 echo “unknown”
53 return 0
54 fi
55 echo “rh9”
56 return 0
57 fi
58 else
59 echo “unknown”
60 return 0
61 fi
62 }

Line 50 has been changed from “Fedora” to “Tikanga” to represent the release of Redhat that we’re running.

This simple change allows the script to correctly link to the library files required to run the script, without the change, the script didn’t know which version of Redhat was running and then returns 0, which stops the script from looking in the correct place for the library files.

If you open your ‘/etc/redhat-release’ file then edit your lampp script to represent the release, this fix should work for you.

Our file contains:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.9 (Tikanga)

So you know how we knew that our version was “Tikanga”.

Fedora or Tikanga ?

Something very strange happen today when we tried to start LAMPP

. . .

cat: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Starting XAMPP for Linux …
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/bin/bash: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
. . .

We Googled it, noticing that some other people got the same problem:

http://viewsby.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/lampp-error-while-loading-shared-libraries-libc-so-6-xampp-centos/

So we tried

cat /etc/redhat-release

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.9 (Tikanga)

so edit lampp, replace ‘Fedora’ with ‘Tikanga’, save lampp and restart lampp, works!

Don’t understand why ‘Fedora’ worked before, but not now.

Blackboard Collaborate Webinar

I’ve completed my first experience of speaking in and listening to a Webinar, the following is a summary of what I thought of it, hopefully it will prove useful to you when deciding whether this is the route that you should take.

Tools / Equipment used:

  • Blackboard Collaborate (used to be called elluminate)
  • Toshiba Laptop (Windows 7), Windows XP wasn’t as fluid so a reinstall was called for.
  • External Microphone
  • External Headphones

Advantages:

  • Easy to setup, although first run setup can have Java issues, so it would be best to check that you don’t have these by attempting to access the room well in advance to your webinar time.
  • People don’t have to travel to be in a particular location to participate.

Disadvantages:

  • No feedback when you’re talking, just silence to keep you company, yes your listeners can ask questions but the feedback which you get whilst talking to people face to face or via Skype is just not there.
  • Very depended on attendees’ equipment, as in if you have a rubbish microphone you will come across badly to the people who are listening – so it’s best to do pre-recording if you can, that way you can listen to how you sound.  One of our hosts on the day sounded very tinny.

My topic was on Enterprise Architecture, it was difficult to see if the audience was following what I was saying, I had done several run throughs of my session and had also recorded it, but that still didn’t stop me from thinking what I was talking about didn’t make sense due to the silence whilst doing it live. I found myself dumbing down my content as I was talking, which in hindsight I don’t think I should’ve done as it’s very noticeable by all the pauses, if you listen to my talk. The Webinar can be accessed here: http://emergingpractices.jiscinvolve.org/wp/webinar-applying-ea/

Cold Sores and Skiing

Okay so I know this has nothing to do programming or computers like the other posts do – But it does have something to do with Technology – Read on if your intrigued.

A bit of background: I enjoy skiing every year and every year I come back from the slopes with a face full (not one or two) of cold sores – Damn that herpes simplex virus.

I can deal with the one or two which I without fail get throughout the year, but the ones I get whilst skiing are a pain in the arse & hurt & makes me a miserable sod – Ask my wife.

Okay so if your like me then hopefully the information contained within will help you out.

If you live in the United Kingdom and complain to your doctor about them, then he might if your lucky give you one of these on an NHS prescription : Virulite – I asked and got one!
"Virulite is a electronic device which beams a UV light onto the affected area, reducing the healing time of the cold sore by half."

If not then buy yourself one, as they are the best thing that exists to get rid off cold sores once they start to appear and sometimes it can also preempt them appearing in the first place from tingle onwards, it depends how fast you get your device to the tingle. Boots in the UK sell there own branded one for cheaper than Virulite @ £35.99 : Unfortunately these are no longer sold by Boots.

Other things that I cannot live with whilst skiing and help (slightly, see below) :

If like me it seems if you ski hard and push yourself then you’ll get them no matter what you try or use. This year is the first time that I’ll be trying to use all 3 (Electronic Zapper, Sunsense & Combo Scarf) in the same visit. I’ll update this post if it works as I’ll be ecstatic.

Slight update : At the same time of getting my GP to give me a Virulite on NHS prescription they also gave me a course of tablets, 400mg of Acyclovir, 1 taken twice a day as a preventative measure.

So I’m armed to the teeth this year – Keep posted to see if it works!

After ski holiday update : It worked!! Zero cold sores! for my first time ever – My holiday included skiing most of the Espace Killy mountain range, also with a nice icy fall on the le Face Olympique Black run in Val d’Isere, so plenty of stress and pushing myself to the limit was involved. Still no cold sores – I put these results down to the use of the Acyclovir tablets and the Sunsense SPF 50 lip balm, as they are the two things that I’ve never used before, whether is was one rather than the other, I’ll never be testing that as I’m just happy that I’ve finally got a solution to not getting cold sores & will be doing the same for each and every future ski trip.

Hopefully some of the above will work for you.

Alfresco 4.3.d PDFBox fatal error Java Runtime

Our JVM kept crashing as soon as we went to the ‘Document Library’ within Alfresco 4.3.d

We tracked the issue down to a uploaded PDF file which contained metadata that the shipped version of PDFBox 1.2.1 (pdfbox-1.2.1.jar) chokes on and takes out the JVM.

By replacing the pdfbox.jar with the latest version pdfbox-1.7.1.jar our issues seem to have gone.

Replace old file with new in :  /alfresco-3.4.d/tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/lib/

Random error we where receiving in ‘catalina.out’ shown below:

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
# SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x59ee264a, pid=4534, tid=1553988496
#
# JRE version: 6.0_18-b07
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (16.0-b13 mixed mode linux-x86 )
# Problematic frame:
# C [libfontmanager.so+0x2464a]
#
# An error report file with more information is saved as:
# /opt/alfresco-3.4.d/hs_err_pid4534.log
#
# If you would like to submit a bug report, please visit:
# http://java.sun.com/webapps/bugreport/crash.jsp
# The crash happened outside the Java Virtual Machine in native code.
# See problematic frame for where to report the bug.

Access JasperReports Server using LDAP

We had a few issues getting to the bottom of how to add the LDAP functionality to JasperReports.

So here is how we did it:

Open ‘applicationContext-security.xml‘ which is located in:
/usr/local/glassfish3.1.2/glassfish/domains/domain1/autodeploy/jasperserver.war/WEB-INF

This is where it is if you’ve followed our earlier blog post, how to deploy JasperReports Server 4.0 on Glassfish 3.1/3.2.

If you didn’t then it’ll be located within your JasperReports directory somewhere.

Changes:

To help you find what needs to be changed, download my version of the applicationContext-security.xml file and use some file comparing software to note the changes from the original version.

There are changes on lines:

  • 14: Unremarked the “ldapAuthenticationProvider” line.
  • 78: Enter your LDAP host “ldap://blah.blah.co.uk:3286”.
  • 83: Enter username/email address/account name here.
  • 84: Enter the password to the above account on this line.
  • 93: Enter the domain content ‘DC’ structure for your LDAP directory.

i.e.
DC=staff,DC=google,DC=co,DC=uk

Apache Directory Studio will help test the above configuration & help you find your LDAP host, ‘DC’ structure, using its search features.

Once you’ve made the changes to this file, start up Glassfish again and you will be able to login using your corporate account.

*Things to note, if you have a local account in JasperReports with the same name as the account that you’re trying to access from LDAP, access will only be granted using the local password that was set to this account – Not a password coming from your LDAP host.

Jinitiator repaint on Windows 7

When using my fix to get Jinitiator to work with Windows 7, you might of noticed that your screen is reduce to the Windows 7 basic theme.

I thought I’d write a separate post about how to fix this, as it’s something I often get asked how to do.

Click Start > Control Panel > JInitiator
‘Basic’ Tab
In the ‘Java Runtime Pparameters’ box, add this:
-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true
‘Apply’ & click ‘Close’.

Now restart your machine.

Now on launching your website application, Windows will no longer be forced into using the basic theme.

Alfresco & Flash upload issue

Having issues uploading to Alfresco Share using its Adobe flash up-loader?

As weird as this sounds, try updating your installation of Internet Explorer.

Even if your not using Internet Explorer, lets be honest who still is! 🙂

This has solved issues that we’ve been having, machines which still had IE6 on them, when updated to IE8 the up-loader would work in both Firefox and Chrome.

It also allowed us to use Primefaces 2.2 fileUpload on the machine it wasn’t working on, after updating IE.

VisualVM problem connecting to monitor Glassfish

We had a issue getting VisualVM to connect to one of our Glassfish servers, in order for us to monitor it.

The problem was being caused by the server being behind our firewall, although the issue still existed after we had opened port 8686.

netstat -ano command was showing us that the port was open, but no reasons as to why it wouldn’t connect:

tcp 0 0 :::8686 :::* LISTEN off (0.00/0/0)

Another one of our servers which is behind an older less secure firewall was connecting fine.

After much searching & head scratching, we found that we needed to add the following line to the JVM Option within Glassfish:

-Djava.rmi.server.hostname=YOUR_SERVERS_NAME

See this Oracle blog post for the reason why this is needed.

Summary:
If you are trying to access a server which is behind a NAT – you will most probably have to start your server with the option
-Djava.rmi.server.hostname=

so that the RMI stubs sent to the client contain the server’s public address allowing it to be reached by the clients from the outside.