Audit Vault and Database Firewall (AVDF) - Expired Password

I was recently having problems bringing up my Audit Trails. The logs were telling me that the connection could not be made. So I went to check that. On the AV Server, I attempted to connect as the username specified on the Secured Target -> Targets configuration page. For me, that's avdfuser. I used the Secured Target Location connection string to attempt it from SQL*Plus, which looks like this:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@//111.111.111.111:1521/msa.oracle.com

where the "111" numbers are the IP address of the target. When I tried this, I got an "Account Locked" error. It turns out my profile was such that it let the account password expire. I corrected that, and reattempted. I still got the same error. Then I noticed that the Target configuration page had nothing entered for the avdfuser password. That initially seemed OK to me, as that was the case for other targets that were connecting fine, but then it occurred to me that, since I'd just unlocked the account, I probably need to reenter the password on that page. I did that, and it connected just fine.

Android GPS Failing

I used the GPS navigation of my Samsung Galaxy S2 a lot while traveling on the West coast. It was great. Then when I got back to the East coast, that feature stopped working. If I went into Google Maps and tried to navigate somewhere, the bottom of the screen displated "Searching for GPS..." the entire time. Strange, because it was able to identify my current location.

I got it to work (for now, anyway) by turning off GPS. Then turn off the phone for 5 minutes. Then turn it on, and turn on GPS. Working now.

I'm not sure how long that will last and how often I'm going to have to do that, but as often as I need GPS navigation, I'm willing to do that if it works every time.

Cooling off a Lenovo T61 the Easy Way

I've been noticing lately that this T61 was getting actually hot to the touch... on the palm rests. It's about 5 years old, so I'm sure it's got some dust in it. I found a tutorial on how to take it apart and get the dust out, and also replace the thermal grease, but I figured I'd try a shortcut. So I powered down, flipped it over, and took some compressed air, and just blew it in the side vent, and any other thing that looked like a vent.

Powered up. Ran the FanSpeed utility, and the CPU temps are now in the high 40s C. Before I did this, they were in the high 60s C. And this is even after an hour of running. I'm just gonna say Woo Hoo.

Finally hit a problem!

I just came across this thread introduction in an Oracle forum:

I have 20 + years Oracle background...but hit a problem.

So, apparently, everything was fine for the first 20 years, and then... boom, a problem. Must be nice. :-)

JRE is defective for OpenOffice

I was getting this message when I tried to create tables in a new OpenOffice DB I'd just created:

"The selected JRE is defective".

I googled about a bit, and something said to set the JRE path in OO. So I went to "Tools -> Options -> Oracle Open Office -> Java" and saw this:

Everything looks good... it has the Java installation listed, and highlighted.

Well, stupid me, it is listed, but it is not selected. So I clicked the little circle on the left to select it, click OK, and all is well.

Environment Variable Completion

I just noticed recently that the Bash shell does automatic environment variable completion. As with file name completion, hitting the tab key offers the rest of the possible completed values.

E.G. if I have these variables:

$ TB_THIS=somthing

$ TB_THAT=else

$ TB_OTHER=morestuff

Then I can type "echo $TB_" (without quotes) and then hit TAB twice, I see this output:

$TB_OTHER  $TB_THAT   $TB_THIS

As with file name completion, if I provide more letters, it auto-finishes the variable name.

Dedocking and redocking messups

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T61, with a docking station. When I pop it off the dock, and then later put it back, sometimes the screen does weird things, like it won't allow me to move windows to the right 1/8 of the screen. The laptop is widescreen, the monitor is not. I suppose that's the reason. I've figured out a solution in just doing the Fn-F7 before I undock. I think that gets the display in the right mode, and then it can switch back later when I dock, and it works again.