Firefox 16, Mac OS Mountain Lion, Fixing Missing QuickTime "Plug-In"

Symptom:

You have a recent version of Firefox and you run into a page that requires a QuickTime plug-in.
It asks you to install the plug-in manually but there is no way to do it. You probably looked for it everywhere and even Apple web site says, "it comes with your Mac already."

Root Cause:

It appears that if you have a QuickTime plug in file in  /Library/Internet Plug Ins/QuickTime Plugin.plugin this issue can occur. It also appears that this isn't really needed.

I had this Mac for quite a while with all different versions of Firefox running, so I would not be surprised if the old plug-in was not removed when it had to be after a certain version of Firefox.

Work Around:

If you hesitate to do any of these "internal" activities below, then try using Safari browser. That's I have been getting around before I found this answer.

Possible Fix:

1. Quit Firefox
2. Open your Finder and head to /Library/Internet Plug Ins/ and cut QuickTime Plugin.plugin and paste that onto the Desktop or any other directory outside of it. In fact you will need this since Safari will need this. 
3. Start Firefox again.
4. Try the page with Quick Time again

Note that if you remove the QT plugin, it apparently breaks Safari's ability to play the QuickTime.

"Dead" iPhone 4 (or 4S) Solution

Symptom:

This is what happened this morning. For no good reason at all, the phone was off completely when I went back to it. I know I made a call earlier in the morning.

• Normally off-phones can be turned on by pressing the power button for 5-10 seconds. This time, it did not respond.
• Normally if it is completely out of battery, it will also show some charging sign when it is plugged into the charger. This time, that did not happen.
• I left it on the charging stand thinking that at some time the battery charging sign would come on. It never did.

Fix:

Try holding the big square "home" button in the bottom middle of the phone and power button pressed together for good 30 seconds or longer, and it worked for me.

Side Note:

This never happened to my iPhone 4 for the entire 3 or so years I owned it. I upgraded it to OS 6 recently, that may have something to do with it, and it might happen again because of this. If so I will post again if this tends to happen a lot now. Also ironically, it just happened at the time I was several weeks (looks like some delay) before my iPhone 5 arrives. If it was completely dead, I am certainly in a big bind, and may be forced to move to an Android phone.

Using Windows PuTTY with SSH Keys

Well, I am embarrassed to say that it took me a bit of time to figure out how to log into a Unix system using PuTTY and SSH keys.

I could not find (or understand) this information easily in the PuTTY document site. I felt that this information is assumed to be known. So if you landed on this page, then you have the same issue as I had. Note that from Unix to Unix, the instructions are straight forward as to where you would store the keys and such. This is an article about the Windows PuTTY.

Based on my experimentation there are two ways that the SSH Key can be loaded. Once way is to specify the Private Key (I did not say Public Key) portion in the PuTTY configuration. I will explain this in a moment. And the second way is to use Pageant.EXE. The latter approach is the one I actually like better but both will work.

First, if you have never done this sort of things, then you are a bit out of luck as I am not going to explain how to use Puttygen to generate keys and where to find Pageant and the like. I can, however, give you one quick way to get those loaded is to install Tortoise Git on your windows.

Now, assuming that you got keys generated and stored them somewhere kind of safe (I put mine somewhere in my own Documents folder so only I can see it and not others on the network.)

Here are some key things you need to remember to do.

• Start your PuTTY
• Create a new profile, but most importantly you should set your user name in the [Host Name] field. For example, admin@192.168.1.10  Otherwise, your user name get prompted for and also the password too. This is more important if you are using Pagent to log-in.
• If you are NOT using Pageant
• Before you press that [Open] button, navigate to Connection: SSH: Auth node on the  Category panel.
• You will find [Authentication Parameters] field. In there you specify the location of your Private Key.
• Then you should go back to the Session node and save current configurations.
• In this approach you will have to supply the password each time you connect, which kinds of defeat the purpose of using the keys.
• If you are using Pagent, then the prime advantage of this is that once you give the password for the private key then from that point on you can log in to any SSH sessions that is associated with your key pair while its running without supplying it again.
• Add your private key in Pageant. You can access Pagent from the notification tray section.
• If it is not running, you will have to manually start it from the start menu where Pageant is stored.
• (Note you may still have to do the Key Load part into the session as described in "If you are NOT using Pagent" but I did not have to. If I have to do that I will update this article.)
• You do still need to load the key to Pageant each time you log into your Windows session.

Nexus 7 Screen Capture Does Not Work. It Actually Does.

Symptom:

I have learned that you can do Volume-Down plus Power simultaneous button press to capture the screen as a part of the Jellybean feature.

I tried this many times and it did not work. Only thing I saw coming up was the volume control.

Resolution:

The buttons work as advertised. I was not doing this right (as with a several other people posted this complaint). I was thinking that by pressing these buttons the screen shot starts right away. And that's where I was wrong.

The real trick is this.

• Press the power and volume down button simultaneously and hold both buttons pressed for 1-2 seconds (and be patient) until the screen capture completes.
  
• Note that if the volume thing comes up on the screen you messed up the timing of simultaneous pressing. Release both fingers and try again.
  
• You could also be inadvertently pressing both Volume Up and Down simultaneously as you do this. Try holding the volume button really towards one edge. (Never use your thumb ;-) 
  
• Do you have a teenager handy? Ask him or her try it. If it works with them, then, well, the machine is fine.
  
  Good luck!

java_sp.dll Corruption Issue, Version 7 Update 7

Symptom:

I was updating a Windows 7 Home Premium system with Version 7 update 7, and got java-sp.dll error and could not proceed. It was an account with a local machine admin privilege.

My Fix:

Open the download folder where you downloaded the installer and "Run as Administrator".

Time Wasted:

About 20 minutes.