Enhanced web experience with Ubiquity
Firefox is one of the jewels of the Free Software crown, and it makes a great partner with Ubuntu. Out of the box you get a bleeding-edge, highly efficient platform for fully enjoying the bounties of the web.
As you might know, Firefox is also highly extensible. It's easy to add some features that were not originally bundled with the browser. Ubiquity is a über-extension, that a makes your daily experience on-line more agile and fun. I say über, because it provides multiple functionalities that are otherwise given by a plethora of other extensions or web applications.
Howto: Use Dropbox to Sync Tomboy Notes on Ubuntu 10.04
Ubuntu by default comes with Ubuntu One, which is basically a Dropbox clone with a few cool additions. Ubuntu One has got some great desktop integration syncing which I really like, but unfortunately like most people I don't just work in an Ubuntu environment, so Ubuntu One just doesn't suite my needs. I want something that will sync all my files, Tomboy notes etc... cross-platform. So I've been using a feature in Tomboy that allows local folder syncing, which can take advantage of Dropbox's own syncing abilities. Basically what we're going to do is have Tomboy sync to a local folder which is located in the Dropbox folder.
Howto: Discover software alternatives that run on Linux
Whenever people think about switching to Linux, they wonder if all the applications they are used to work with will be available on their new system. Although not all software companies release versions of their applications for Linux, often there is a very good alternative available that performs at least as well.
Surf to alternativeto.net and learn what you can use instead of the application you use to have on your older system. Who knows, maybe you'll even find a fresh new approach to the task at hand that will boost your productivity!
Howto: Install Skype on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
This is exactly the same process of installing it on the previous version, straignt forward, works great.
Note: Due to a recent update, you can now install Skype via the Ubuntu Software Centre, just do a search for it. You can also install it via the command line with the following: sudo apt-get install skype
Step 1
Go to www.skype.com/download and get the appropriate 8.10+ version for you (32/64-bit).
Step 2
Launch the Skype install .deb file (just double click it) and follow the on screen prompts.
Howto: Fix Spotify sound problems on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
After installing Spotify on my Ubuntu 9.10 system I found that I was having some sound issues, popping, cracking and sound crashes. I'll walk you through my settings and point you to the Spotify FAQ for the suggested settings (they didn't work for me, but they could for you) So here we go...
Howto: Install Spotify on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
I finally got around to trying Spotify, unfortunately they don't have a Linux native application so we'll be running the Windows version under Wine. The install process is very straight forward and most people have had it work straight out of the box however I had some sound problems which you can see here.
Howto: Install TweetDeck on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
This is one of the best social networking application I've found out there, not only is it functional and stylish, but it's cross-platform as it's an Adobe Air application and it's really easy to install!
Note: If you don't have Adobe Air installed please follow this guide first and then return to here.
Step 1
Go to tweetdeck.com and click the yellow download button.
Howto: Use Symbolic Links to Sync Folders with Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
I've been using Dropbox to sync files over multiple OS's for a while now, but I've always found it annoying that I couldn't sync folder I specified rather than just the one Dropbox folder. While my solution isn't quite what I want, I does a pretty good job of it nonetheless, this is done by using symbolic links.
Basically a symbolic link will allow a folder to be in two places at once. In my case I'd like to make a symbolic link of my /Documents folder and place it in my /Dropbox folder so it will be synced to my other machines.
Step 1
Open a Terminal and simply run the following command:
Howto: Compile Dropbox from Source on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
It's very straight forward to do and doesn't really take much time at all. If you're on another Debian based distro it should work fine.
Step 1
Download the source files from here www.getdropbox.com/downloading and unzip it (right click and "Extract Here").
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Step 2
We now need to install the dependencies in order to build our install files from source.
Open up your Terminal and type:
Howto: Fix Gnome Do Home Folder Bug on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
If you've had a problem opening the Home Folder with Gnome Do, basically if I add the Home Folder icon to my docky or even find it doing a search, it simple wont open. Well I did some poking around and found a fix.
Step 1
Open up your Terminal under Application->Accessories menu and run the following command:
gksudo nautilus /usr/share/applications
This will basically open up your file manager as root so you can edit the Home Folder executable.
Quick Tip: Getting your mic working with alsamixer
After installing Skype flawlessly if time around I was messing around with some sound settings and managed to muck something up and stopped my microphone from working. It was either me or an update, but more than likely it was me. After using alsamixer to fix my previous gripe with the pc speaker beeping and not finding a way to fix my problem in the Sound Preferences application found under System -> Preferences I turned back to alsamixer.
When I opened up alsamixer pressed tab until I was viewing [All] I saw that there were two options both called analog and I figure well everything else seems to be on why no see what they do, anyway, I ended up pressing up once to change them both to Digital and that seemed to fix my problem instantly!
Howto: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Dropbox have officially released there .deb's for Ubuntu 9.10 32/64 bit! It's quite straight forward to install.
Step 1
Go to www.getdropbox.com/downloading and download the appropriate package for your system.
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Step 2
Run the .deb file and follow the install instructions, it'll just take a moment.
Step 3
It'll tell you to logout and log back in, do so. Now run the application from Applications->Internet->Dropbox. It'll take a moment to load up then give you a warning that it's going to download/install a nautilus daemon, allow it to do so. This will just take a minute or so.
Step 4
You'll soon be greeted with a window that'll ask you if you'd like to login or create an account do what's appropriate for you.
Step 5
Once you've gone through the setup stage your Dropbox folder will now be located in your /home directory. You can however pick where you'd like to locate it and you can see that option in the setup, but the default is fine.
Step 6
Simple drag and drop files in and out of the folder and they will sync with the cloud and other machines you have it running on (can be Windows/Mac/Linux)
Congratulates you're all done! The thing I like the most about Dropbox is the fact that it's so easy to use, cross-platform and most of all free!
If you liked this guide or would like to add to it, please post a comment below and don't forget to subscribe (it's free)
Howto: Install Skype on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Skype hasn't officially released a .deb specifically for 9.10, but in this tutorial I've found that the 8.10+ .deb file works perfectly on Karmic Koala. I've hadn't had to configure anything to get the mic, sounds or camera to work with my laptop (Dell Studio 1535).
Step 1
Go to www.skype.com/download and get the appropriate 8.10+ version for you (32/64-bit).
Step 2
Launch the Skype install .deb file (just double click it) and follow the on screen prompts.
Note: If you have a dependency error or the installer fails, install a missing dependency using the following: sudo apt-get install libqt4-dbus
Step 3
Launch Skype from Applications->Internet menu and press either Ctrl+O or press the Skype symbol at the bottom of the window to open the options menu.
In the menu you'll see a option to Choose style: change that too "Desktop Settings or GTK+. Then apply the changes and next time you open Skype it'll be using you native theme.
Step 4 (Optional)
If you'd like to have Skype startup automatically when your system starts, go to "System -> Preferences -> Startup Application", Click "Add" and enter the following details:
- Name:
Skype - Command:
skype
Click "Save" and you're done! Next time you load up your system Skype will auto-launch.
Note: I only tired this on the 32-bit version of Karmic, but I'm sure if you use the correct .deb it should install fine for you.
Edit: If you're having problems with getting your mic to work check out this post: Quick Tip: Getting Your Mic Working with alsamixer
Please comment if you found this helpful or would like to make a suggestion.
Howto: Fix Alert/System Beep in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
I was looking online for a recent bug that occurred after one of the Karmic updates, basically what happened was it started setting off my system speaker, this would occur when lets say you in the Terminal and your press the down arrow key, it doesn't do anything, but this sets the system beep off. Another example would be when your in gedit and you press backspace in a blank document, it's not actually deleting anything, but it sets off the system beep and is really annoying.
I did find one fix that works fairly well, which was basically to create a bash script that would turn off the system speaker when run, you'd then make it run that script on startup and you wouldn't have to worry about it any more (link at the bottom).
I did some more digging around and found a slightly better way in my opinion that involves using alsamixer. Here's how:
Step 1
Open up a Terminal and type:
sudo alsamixer
Now using your left/right arrow keys navigate over to PC Beep and press M on your keyboard, you'll see MM appear under the volume bar, this basically means it's been muted now press Esc to exit.
Step 2
Now run the command:
sudo alsactl store
This will basically save the changes you made.
That's it, pretty easy...you don't have to really muck about with bash scripts and the like, it just works.
However lets hope they fix the problem in the final release.
If you have any suggestion or question please leave a comment.
Link
Thread with startup fix and where I posted a link to this fix.
Howto: Compile Chromium Browser on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Chromium is the open source web browser project that is the basis for Google Chrome web browser, it is know for it's blazing fast speed be it of web pages or simply launching that application. There are many advantages to compiling software yourself, one of many is the optimisation that occurs purely from doing so which just adds to the speed of the Chromium browser.
Note: I'll be upfront and say that compiling something of this size is going to that an hour or so, it does depend on the speed of your system though.
Step 1
To get started the first step to getting Chromium running on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic is to downloading and install the prerequisites, which will allow you to compile the source code.
Open up a Terminal and run this command:
sudo apt-get install subversion pkg-config python perl g++ g++-multilib bison flex gperf libnss3-dev libgtk2.0-dev libnspr4-0d libasound2-dev libnspr4-dev msttcorefonts libgconf2-dev libcairo2-dev libdbus-1-dev
Just answer yes to all the prompts and leave it to download and install everything, it'll take a few minutes.
Step 2
Now it's time to download the depot_tools, which will allow us to use the source code and the source code itself:
Note: The Chrome source is a couple hundred megabytes and unzipped it's over a gigabyte so downloading may take a while depending on your download speed.
Step 3
Unzip both folders and place them somewhere convenient, i just put both on my desktop.
Then go into the depot_tool directory on your desktop and select and copy all the files in there to the /src directory within the unzipped chromium source folder.
Step 4
Open up your Terminal application and navigate to that /src directory, in my case it was:
cd /Desktop/home/chrome-svn/tarball/chromium/src/
We now need to run the gclient depot_tools utility that we placed in the /src directory which basically will let us sync up with the repositories and check file consistencies and versions.
Just run the command:
./gclient sync --force
Note: It'll appear to be doing nothing for a little bit, but it'll soon start printing out things...just let it run till its done, this will take a few minutes.
Take note towards the end of the all the things it printed in your Terminal, you'll see "WARNING" come up a few times. Start at the bottom and work your way up, it'll basically ask you to delete particular directories you don't need when compiling the source code. Here are the following ones that came up for me, yours probably wont be different, but no harm in checking:
"src/third_party/ffmpeg/binaries/chromium/mac/ia32_dbg"
"src/third_party/WebKit/WebKit/mac"
"src/third_party/python_24"
"src/third_party/WebKit/WebKitLibraries"
"src/third_party/cygwin"
"src/third_party/pdfsqueeze"
"src/third_party/ffmpeg/binaries/chromium/mac/ia32"
"src/third_party/ffmpeg/binaries/chromium/win/ia32"
"src/third_party/pthreads-win32"
"src/third_party/GTM"
Delete all those directories and then your ready to start compiling!
Step 5
In the same Terminal window move into the /build directory from the current /src directory:
cd /build
In this directory simply run:
../hammer -C build chrome
Note: Make sure you enter the command with the two full stops, this is because you want to run the file hammer.py which we put in the /src directory as apart of the depot_tools that are in the previous directory to the current /build directory we're in.
Note: Compiling the source code takes about an hour, but as I said at the start it depends on the speed of your system, so don't plan on using that machine for a while as compiling the code will take up all your system resources and make it unusable.
Step 6
The compiled code will be in /src/sconsbuild/Debug directory, so to run Chromium simply double click the chrome executable!
Note: I'd recommend making a launch shortcut, this can be done by right clicking on the desktop and clicking Create Launcher..., just put in the name of your application, then browse towards the Chromium executable. If you'd like to get the Chromium icon it's in the same folder as the executable.
Congratulations, you've just compiled Chromium from source! From my experience it's been working great, i found to to run slightly fast than the pre-compiled .deb files you can get from the dev-channel (links below) it also hasn't crashes on me, hope I didn't just jinx it!
Links I used to make this howto:
- More detail on prerequisites.
- Pre-compiled .deb files from here for both 32 and 64 bit Debian based systems.
- Chromium source code here.
- Download depot_tools, you can download either compressed file i downloaded depot_tools.tar.gz.
Please leave a comment if this tutorial was helpful or you'd like to add to it.
Howto: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Beta
UPDATE:Ubuntu 9.10 has been released and so has an official .deb install file for Dropbox, updated Howto HERE.
UPDATE: I reposted this guide seeing as there's no need for it here: Howto: Compile Dropbox from Source on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
As of yet the dropbox team haven't released a .deb file for Ubuntu 9.10 (32/64 bit), I'm sure they'll release one by the time 9.10 is released, but I can't wait that long. So what we're basically going to do here is compile it from source, it's not all that scary...
Step 1
Download the source files from here www.getdropbox.com/downloading and unzip it (right click and "Extract Here").
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Step 2
We now need to install the dependencies in order to build our install files from source.
Open up your Terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install libnautilus-extension-dev libnotify-dev python-docutils
Follow the prompts and it should a a few minutes to download and install everything.
Step 3
Navigate to where you created your /nautilus-dropbox folder (it'll probably have a version number after it) in the Terminal, in my case:
cd /Downloads/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1/
Step 4
Once inside type the following commands into your Terminal:
./configure
make
sudo make install
Run each command one after another, they'll run for just a couple of seconds each.
Step 5
After installing it simply log out and log back into your system, navigate to Applications → Internet → Dropbox, click “OK” and it'll download and install the daemon and then prompt you for your dropbox details.
As you can see it's a pretty easy install and it's been working great for me!
If you have any questions, comments or tips, please leave a comment below.
Gmail’s Down! – Rethinking Cloud Computing
I've been a big proponent of Gmail and most Google Applications, however I've always been wary of the pitfalls with 'cloud computing'. I think storing information online is a great idea, but I still feel that it's unreliable, Google services rarely go down, but I don't think that's good enough. Most people are dependant on online services and if they break there could be major repercussions, be it loss of money or not being able to hand in a college assignment. Cloud computing just isn't at the point were we can completely rely on it.
My current method of backup was to forward my college email to my Gmail, but this doesn't help if I can't access the internet and really need to check something. This interruption is the reason I've decided to revisit Google Gears as I've come to a point in my life were email is very important to my academics and I've got important documents I should really have local backups of.
I prefer Google Gears to other email clients such as Thunderbird or Evolution Mail, because I’ve grown accustomed to the Gmail UI and in my mind when I think of email I think, browser.
Ultimately I think the best solution is syncing your local information with the 'cloud' to give both reassurances that your information is backed up, read locally, but also be accessed from other machines via the internet if needed. Programs like Dropbox are a prime example of this unity.
Note: I noticed Gmail went down around 9PM GMT and is still not back up, just logged back on and it's back up.
Recent Posts
- Enhanced web experience with Ubiquity
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- Howto: Use Ubuntu One to Sync Tomboy Notes Cross-platform
- Howto: Use Dropbox to Sync Tomboy Notes on Ubuntu 10.04
- Howto: Discover software alternatives that run on Linux
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