iTunes error 9006 solution

Few days back for no apparent reason iTunes started giving "error 9006" while downloading its software upgrades.

As everyone else I started googleing to find a solution. I was surprised to see so many people facing this iTunes error, but no concrete solution anywhere only vague pointers for things to try. I spent days fiddling around various settings, upgrading antivirus software, disabling firewall etc. etc., but the error persisted.

Finally excluding iTunes.exe in "protocol filtering" in my Anti Virus Software(ESet) did the trick. Below is a screen shot of my settings that solved the issue.  

 
Thanks,
prantor

How to fix slow Internet browsing issue? - High download speed is not enough

I have a 20MBits/sec download Internet connection but recently I started seeing sluggish Internet browsing through FireFox and Crome. Page loading takes up a minute or more. When I perform a speed test(speedtest.net) on average I get 10MBits/sec download rate which is pretty good. But my site browsing was still slow. Whats going on! I started debugging the network to figure out where is the bottleneck. In the process I found couple of useful free network tools,

• Visual trace route (http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert/ ) - It tells you where in the network path packets are spending its time.

• Routing Analysis tool (http://myspeed.visualware.com/servers/namerica/iad.php?testtype=-3&codebase=216.114.192.140&message=Route%20helps%20to%20diagnose%20connection%20problems&location=USA:%20Mankato,%20Minnesota&ver=8&map=namerica&provtext=HickoryTech%20Corp.&provlink=http://www.hickorytech.com/) - It gives a nice analysis report about every network hops and potential issues in each node.

• tracepath, traceroute, dig - linux network hops tracing utilities.

After using these tools and analyzing the reports I realized that my network speed is okay as reported by speedtest.net, the problem was my ISP's(charter) DNS server which is very slow. So even though my download seed was fast but resolving the domain names were taking most of the time and so my sluggish browser performance.

Charter's tech support is useless, all they know is to reboot the cable modem. I kept telling them it is DNS server performance problem but they kept telling me reboot the cable modem. After few minutes of frustrating conversation I gave up on charter tech support.

My solution was to use opendns.com instead of my ISPs slow DNS. Signed up for a free account at opendns.com, pointed my wireless to the opendns.com's DNS server. Now my browsing is fast.

Not satisfied with the fast DNS, I went forward and installed a DNS cache proxy(dnsmasq) server in my local machine. Now my machines caches the domain lookup names from DNS and caches it so I never hit the DNS server more than once for a domain name.

Now my browsing is blazing fast :).

How to install rar unrar on Oracle Enterprise Linux, RedHat

Yum repository for Oracle Enterprise Linux(OEL) does not contain rar/unrar utility, so if you want these utilities here is waht you have to do.

1) Login as root.
2) Create a yum repository file called dag.repo in folder /etc/yum.repos.d/
3) Add the following content to this(dag.repo) file.

[dag]
name=Dag RPM Repository for Fedora Core
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/3/en/i386/dag/
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

4) Search for the rar/unrar in the newly added repository
yum list all | grep rar

Your output should be something like the following:

bash-3.2# yum list all | grep rar
rar.i586 3.5.1-1.1.fc3.rf dag
unrar.i386 3.6.8-1.fc3.rf dag
perl-Data-Hierarchy.noarch 0.34-4.el5 epel
rar.i386 3.6.0-0.2.beta2.fc3.rf dag
rarpd.x86_64 ss981107-22.2.2 el5_latest_local


5) Start the rar install using the correct name from the list above.

yum install rar.i586
yum install unrar.i386

6) Verify that rar is working by typing the following command
rar

Congrats!

Ubuntu Linux Desktop Productivity Tools for Ex Windows User

I am happy to announce that I have been MS-Windows/sluggish/annoyance free for the past three years by migrating to Ubuntu Linux. I didn't take the plunge in one day, the main reason for my slow/calculated migration was because there were too many Windows software tools/utilities/online-services that I used on a daily basis that I could not find(3+ years back) a good equivalent replacements for on Linux(at that time) or compatible software supported on Linux.

Over the last couple of years Linux support for "Desktop-tools" have improved a lot, and the major contribution I would say is because of Ubuntu's focus on Desktop. My observation is with Ubuntu 95% of the things just works out of the box for reasonably aged machines(laptops and desktops). The 5% of things that do not work out of the box can be easily fixed by googling the error message, thanks to the huge Ubuntu community.

In my quest to find best windows alternative FREE tools on Linux I have spent lot of time over the years and finally settled on the following tools. I hope this blog helps others who are in the same quest.


Email:
ThunderBird

Internet Browser:
FireFox
IE6 on Wine

Instant Messaging:
Pidgin

FTP:
FileZilla

Mind Map:
FreeMind

Linux Info:
Hard Info

Music Player:
Amarok

Office Documents:
Open Office
Google Docs

Disk Usage Info:
JDisk Report

Java Development:
java
eclipse
netbeans

SQL Development:
JDeveloper
sqlplus instant client

Database:
Oracle database

SOA Development:
SOAP UI

Online Share Drive:
Zumo Drive. My important files are available on any machines I login and also in my iPhone.

VPN:
"Cisco VPN Client" from CISCO with my companies profiles files.
VPNC

PDF Reader:
Adobe Reader 9

CHM Reader:
CHM Viewer

CD/DVD Burner:
K3b

Virtulization:
VMWare Player

Text Editor:
JEdit

TODO Management:
"Task" google gadget with iGoogle. I use it because the task list is available in any machine I login and also in my iPhone. I can add task through my iPhone and it is in sync when I get online.

Directory Sync:
Synkron
rsync

Diff Tools:
Meld Diff Viewer

Bookmarks:
delicious.com with FireFox plugin.

Address Book/Contacts:
yahoo.com. There is sync capability with iPhone through iTunes.

Ubuntu package holder:
wajig

Shared Storage:
ZumoDrive

Network Sniffer:
Wireshark

I am still looking for good Linux alternatives for VISIO and HyperSnap.

If you use other good FREE linux tools/utilities please let me know, I will try it out and if I find it valuable I will add it to my list. I will try to keep this post up to date as and when my tool selection changes.

Pragmatic approach to Java EE WebService.

• Make sure all WebServices you expose confirms to WS-I Basic profile guidelines.
• How do I make sure my WebService is WS-I Basic profile compliant?
• Read "Basic Profile 1.1 Test Assertions".
• Use a test tool like "WS-I Analyze WSDL" in Oracle JDeveloper to test your WSDL before publishing it.
• Use only "document/literal wrapper" style for your WebServices.
• Do not define your types inline in the WSDL, always define it externally and import it in the WSDL.
• Faults are important part of your service definition so always define meaningful faults for every operation.
• Do not define fault types inline in the WSDL, always define faults externally and import it in the WSDL.