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: Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
If you're like me and just can't switch over to Ubuntu One because they don't have a cross-platform client quite yet, Dropbox is still the king of easy folder synchronisation.
Step 1
Go to www.dropbox.com/downloading and download the appropriate .deb file.
Note: If you don't have a dropbox account sign-up for one here
Note: If you're not sure which one to download, you'll notice just above the download links they recommend which one you should download.
Step 2
Once downloaded, locate the file and double click it. You'll be presented with a package installer, just follow the on screen prompts.
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: 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: Install Adobe Air on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
There are some really great adobe air applications out there especially one revolving around social networks such as twitter, facebook, friendfeed. This is a pretty easy install and I'm going to show you how to do it via the command line because it's very quick to do.
Step 1
Download adobe air here and save it to somewhere you can find it like the /Downloads folder.
Step 2
Open up a Terminal window under the Applications->Accessories menu and navigate to the folder you download adobe air to, in my case it was the /Downloads folder:
Howto: Install Firefox 3.6 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
Update: The mozilla team has made a new ppa that will upgrade firefox 3.5, I've added that ppa below.
Firefox 3.6 has just come out and for people that don't want to wait for Canonical to officially upgrade the default Firefox 3.5 install on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala follow these steps:
Step 1
Go to System->Administration->Software Sources and in the Software Source window navigate to the Other Sources tab.
Step 2
Click the Add button and copy and paste the either ppa into the dialogue box:
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: Install Adobe Flash 10.1 (pre-release) on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
As most linux users know Adobe Flash isn't particularly good, it's choppy and hogs your CPU. Well Adobe has a pre-release of Flash 10.1 which is really really good. It's pretty easy to install.
Step 1
Note: Download it to somewhere easy to access it like your Desktop