USB devices not recognized until reboot

Issue: USB devices not recognized by OS until restart: iPod Shuffle, WD External HDD and multi-card reader. Digital camera is recognized immediately when connected.

Getting the Acer 5620z w/ Broadcom BCM94311MCG to work with Ubuntu 9.04

I, along with my friend Chris, have been working on this for two days now. I tried 3 different tutorials on getting this card to work.

I finally found a tutorial that did work, but there was one step that was hanging me up.

Here are the definitive steps to get the Broadcom BCM94311MCG (ver 1.0) to work with Ubuntu 9.04.

*****I'm stealing the steps, slightly modified from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty_No-Fluff#Introduction

I'm emailing those guys to let them know. I'm hoping to ease the pain of others with this laptop that are going to Ubuntu.

Open a terminal and copy/paste each one of these commands. After you have successfully accomplished all commands, pull the ethernet cord, restart, and you should (hopefully) be golden.

echo -e 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

mkdir ~/bcm43xx; cd ~/bcm43xx

sudo apt-get install cabextract

wget ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp34001-34500/sp34152.exe

cabextract sp34152.exe

sudo ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

ndiswrapper -l

sudo depmod -a

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.orig

echo -e 'auto lo\niface lo inet loopback\n' | sudo tee /etc/network/interfaces

sudo ndiswrapper -m

echo 'ndiswrapper' | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

echo 'ENABLED=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/default/wpasupplicant

UFRaw from the command line!

Learned how to use UFRaw from the command line today. Whenever I have a lot of shots that are taken in the same light, I just save the settings for the first file. Then, at the command line, I enter a command to write out "settings" files for each photo. Then I enter another line to have UFRaw batch convert everything according to those setting. Much faster!

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Guide.html

Thumbnail size in folder view

Issue: Would like to change the size of the thumbnail preview in my folders.

Ubuntu 9.04 not seeing external hard disk without reboot

Issue: Ubuntu 9.04 not seeing external hard disk (WD 300 GB USB 2.0) when I plug the drive in. I have to reboot, then the HDD works fine. Is this an issue with Ubuntu or do I not have something set up correctly?