Fix for Google Play Error [RPC:S-5:AEC-0]

After re-installing the Google apps package (gapps-jb-20130301-signed.zip) on my CM10.1 phone, Google Play stopped working and didn’t let my install any new apps or update existing ones. To fix the Error[RPC:S-5:AEC-0] you’ll have to:

Go to the system settings -> delete your Google account -> add it again and let your Android sync

Don’t worry, you won’t lose any of your data by doing that.

CUPS and Canon Pixma: Printer hangs after first page

After updating my Ubuntu desktop to a more recent release (12.04 / Precise Pangolin), my rarely used Canon Pixma MP190 stopped working. Not completely, but in a rather annoying way: Printing a single page works fine, but printing multiple pages / copies causes the printer to hang. Hard. As in, you have to pull the power plug to reset it, as no button will do anything anymore.

Apparently there was a bug introduced with CUPS a while ago, or rather a change in behavior of CUPS which triggers a bug in the printer Firmware. Took me a couple hours to find and had me on the brink of throwing out the whole printer.

And it looks like it affects quite a few other USB printers as well:  Epson NX130, Canon i550, i560, ip4200, ip4300, ip5200, MP180, MP160, MP210, MP450, MP500, MP520, …

To save you from reading through all the comments: Till Kamppeter came up with a workaround that worked perfectly for me and others.

In a terminal window, run the command

lpadmin -p  -o usb-unidir-default=true

with  being the name of your printer as displayed
by the "lpstat -p" command.

Now turn off and turn on your printer, then try to print several jobs.

 

After that I was able to print a couple hundred envelopes without a hitch.

 

PositiveSSL not working with Android?

Namecheap currently offers one of the most affordable ways to get a (not self-signed) SSL cert to use with your web-/mailserver – the only drawback being, that it isn’t signed by a CA Root, but through some subsidiaries, which means you’ll also have to install a supplied CA bundle on the server or else you’ll get a bunch of SSL errors.

With dovecot as POP/IMAP server, that’s actually quite easy – just put all the certs in single file, starting with your servers cert and followed by the three certs supplied by Namecheap/Comodo.

This should work fine with most mail clients, like Thunderbird or Evolution. The cert also worked with Apache for HTTPS. But for some reason, it didn’t work with my Android mail app.

Turns out, Android can be quite picky about the order of the cert chain…

#~$ echo|openssl s_client -connect yourserver.tld:993
CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=3 /C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root
---
Certificate chain
 0 s:/OU=Domain Control Validated/OU=PositiveSSL/CN=yourserver.tld
   i:/C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=Comodo CA Limited/CN=PositiveSSL CA
 1 s:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root
   i:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root
 2 s:/C=GB/ST=Greater Manchester/L=Salford/O=Comodo CA Limited/CN=PositiveSSL CA
   i:/C=US/ST=UT/L=Salt Lake City/O=The USERTRUST Network/OU=http://www.usertrust.com/CN=UTN-USERFirst-Hardware
 3 s:/C=US/ST=UT/L=Salt Lake City/O=The USERTRUST Network/OU=http://www.usertrust.com/CN=UTN-USERFirst-Hardware
   i:/C=SE/O=AddTrust AB/OU=AddTrust External TTP Network/CN=AddTrust External CA Root

If the certs are in any other order, Android threw an error. So your cert file should contain (again: in that order):

  1. Your Cert as supplied by Namecheap/Comodo/…
  2. PositiveSSLCA.crt
  3. UTNAddTrustServerCA.crt
  4. AddTrustExternalCARoot.crt

The cornerstones of a successful society

Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture — call them the 6 killer apps — that promote wealth, stability and innovation.

Summary:

  1. Competition
  2. Science
  3. Property rights
  4. Modern medicine
  5. Consumer society
  6. Work ethics