Tag Archives: Windows

Software

Middle-click/Cmd+click on a Link Doesn’t Open Tabs in Firefox 6.0.2

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Last night, I updated to Firefox 6.0.2 and after it was finished installing, lo and behold the middle mouse button no longer opened links in new tabs. Using a middle click (Command+click on the Mac) on a link normally opens the destination in a background tab, but it just stopped working. However, I could still use the context menu (right-click on PC, Control+click on Mac) and select “Open Link in New Tab”.

Check your extensions. Are you using Greasemonkey 0.9.10? Are you also using Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.6? As of this writing, they’re both the latest versions at the Firefox add-ons site. Nevertheless, there’s an incompatibility that causes the middle-click to fail.

To remedy the problem, download and install the latest version of Greasemonkey 0.9.11 directly at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/versions/0.9.11 or if you’d rather wait for Mozilla to approve the version, it should eventually show up as an update in Firefox.

Software

PuTTY and VI/VIM Cursor Keys Not Working in Insert Mode

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When using PuTTY to SSH to a Linux server and edit files, I’ve encountered on several occasions where navigating in vim using the cursor (arrow) keys on the keyboard while in insert mode results in control characters and/or new lines being inserted. Here are a couple of ways to rectify the situation.

  1. Check if the vim command is pointing to the full version of vim or vim tiny. 
    $ which vim

    Some Linux distros link vim to vim tiny. If it’s pointing to the normal vim, skip to step 4, below.

  2. If you’re using vim tiny and want to continue to do so, then edit /etc/vim/vimrc.tiny and add the command set nocompatible to turn off compatibility mode.
  3. If you’d rather have the normal vim editor, then install it. After installation, confirm that the vim command points to the correct version and continue with step 4, below.
  4. Check that /etc/vim/vimrc (or ~/.vimrc) contains the command, set no compatible, to turn off compatibility mode.

That should do it. If you still have trouble, be sure that your terminal is set correctly in PuTTY and on the remote system.

Have another way to fix this issue? Post it in the comments.

Software

PuTTY Displays Box Characters Instead of Hyphens in Man Pages

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A couple of posts ago, I wrote about fixing the incorrect characters that appear in man pages when using PuTTY. If, however, you see a box or rectangle where a character should be, then here’s the solution for that.

Although PuTTY and Cygwin support UTF-8, some fonts have more character coverage than others. In the case of PuTTY on Windows, most of the fixed-width fonts are missing some of the characters that are used in manual pages. As a result, a hollow box will appear in their place.

DejaVu Sans Mono is one fixed-width font that includes the required characters. Switch to it and your man pages will look good once more.

What other fixed-width fonts have good UTF-8 coverage? Share your findings in the comments.

Software

Cygwin 1.7 Has Funny Characters on Man Pages in PuTTY

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Do you see strange characters on man pages in your Cygwin? After upgrading to Cygwin 1.7, I noticed that the soft hyphens in man pages were replaced with the “â” character. Somehow, the character set wasn’t right. I remember having to deal with this problem several years ago, but couldn’t recall how I solved it. I found some old messages floating around the web going back at least a decade about setting environment variables, locales and whatnot to cure this. Fortunately, the solution turned out to be easy with the latest Cygwin and PuTTY.

As it turns out, Cygwin 1.7 now defaults to using the UTF-8 character set. PuTTY, at least on my system in the US, defaults to ISO-8859-1, a.k.a Latin-1. So, the fix is as follows:

  1. Open the PuTTY Configuration dialog
  2. Under the Window category, click on Translation
  3. In the “Character set translation on received data” section, select UTF-8 in the drop down list box
  4. Save the configuration

Now man pages look normal again. Of course, if you’ve changed the locale and/or character set in your Cygwin to something other than UTF-8, be sure to set PuTTY’s character set to match.

Are you using a different terminal/ssh program with Cygwin than PuTTY and encountering this? Share the corresponding steps to apply the cure for your terminal emulator in the comments.

Software

Pidgin Received Unexpected Response from AIM and ICQ

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Today, my Pidgin IM client started giving the error, “Received unexpected response from http://api.oscar.aol.com/aim/startOSCARSession”, when connecting to the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) server. Apparently, it can also happen when connecting to ICQ. Fortuantely, the fix/workaround on Windows and Linux is really easy.

  1. Go to Accounts
  2. Modify the AIM or ICQ account
  3. On the Advanced tab, clear the checkbox labeled Use clientLogin
  4. Save

Are you using Adium? It may also have this issue on the Mac. If you’ve solved it, post the steps in a reply.

Update: Alternatively, in step 3, you can clear the checkbox labeled Use SSL