How to play vcd in Ubuntu Lucid 10.04

It may not be the best solution, but after trying a few things the only thing that seemed to work is through mplayer.

First install mplayer by typing in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install mplayer

Once you have mplayer install play the vcd by typing one of these commands until one of those works:

mplayer vcd://2

mplayer vcd://1

mplayer vcd://

Hope this works.

I also tried but it didn't seemed to work for me (I post them just in case it helps somebody)

Trying to play the .dat file in the cd with totem or vlc.
Installing gxine didn't work either

Enable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace in Ubuntu 10.04(Lucid Lynx)

* Select “System”->”Preferences”->”Keyboard”

* Select the “Layouts” tab and click on the “Layout Options” button.

* Select “Key sequence to kill the X server” and enable “Control + Alt + Backspace”.

How to install sun-java6 in Ubuntu Lucid 10.4

Once you know how is actually quite easy... The simplest way to do this is through the repositories.

Got to System->Administration->Software Sources, then go the second tap "Other Software" and check the "http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu" option. Once yo close the window, it will refresh the repositories. Now you can go to synaptic and install it there.

If you want the latest and don't want to wait for the repositories to get updated follow this link...

Oracle (Sun) Java JRE

it is the easiest follow tutorial you will get out there...

************UPDATE**************

Ubuntu PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sun-java-community-team/sun-java6

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sun-jav

Remove anchor icon from docky

In OMG! today was posted this tip:

Did you know that very recently Docky added the option to remove the Anchor icon from the dock? Oh yes!

OMG! reader kiwisoup e-mailed me over some instructions that I thought i’d paste here: -

* Press ALT + F2
* Type command “gconf-editor" and hit enter/return
* Navigate to "apps/docky-2/docky/items/DockyItem" in the gconf-editor
* Uncheck "ShowDockyItem"
* Restart Docky

Et voilà! Anchor free Docky!

Terminal way
If you're lazy and want to do this via the terminal you can do so using the following commands. (Thanks to commenter dRewsus)

this command will turn the icon off:

* gconftool-2 --type Boolean --set /apps/docky-2/Docky/Items/DockyItem/ShowDockyItem False


this will turn it back on:

* gconftool-2 --type Boolean --set /apps/docky-2/Docky/Items/DockyItem/ShowDockyItem True

Remember that you will need to restart Docky to see the changes.

Granola - Make your PC environmentally friendly

What it used to be MicroMiser, now has changed to Granola and looking much better...

Granola is software that improves the energy efficiency of your PC or laptop.

Check it out at: http://grano.la/

I personally still need to prove that is actually works, but is definitely interesting especially for saving on battery live for laptops...

Equalizer for Pulse Audio

There’s a really cool equalizer for Pulse Audio which can be installed by adding a repository. Its a system wide equalizer hence no matter what media player you use, you will be able to utilise this setting.



How to install:



Open the Terminal (Accessories > Terminal) and type in the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:psyke83/ppa

Next type the following in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get update

Finally, type the following (in the Terminal of course)

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-equalizer

Thats it. You can access the Pulse Audio Equalizer from the Sounds & Video menu.

********************UPDATE******************
PPA not working for Maverick

https://launchpad.net/~psyke83/+archive/ppa/+packages

Music Players

As you may know, this is not your normal blog. It is just a way to store thing I may find interesting on the internet for future reference. I welcome readers if they find equally interesting the things I'm posting and I'll offer help if needed with anything I post.

As a music lover I always keep an eye for music players. I still think that Amarok 2 is the best thing around and still improving every time, but they still haven't implemented things from the old Amarok into the new one, I still hope they do some day. But my hopes are sleeping away as they don't seem to be interested on them and the time is passing. I'm talking such things as be able to browse the music by added today, yesterday, last week, etc. I thought that was a good feature. Anyway, the reason I'm posting today is to talk about a couple of other music players. I always keep an eye open for new contenders in the market. Especially for cross-platform ones, and in the last while I came across a couple of interesting one.

The first one is Clementine, a cross platform music player based in Amarok 1.4, I've already giving it a go and it is in its early stages and missing a lot of features that Amarok had, but I think what I has it does it well, definitely one to watch in the future if they continue the way they are going.

The second one is aTunes, even though I hate the name and I hate Itunes this is not a copy of Itunes, is totally different. They are going by version 2 and it looks very good. I haven't tried yet, but I'll definitely will in the near future.

Conky - A light weight system monitor

Right until now I was using a system monitor widget from screenlets as my system monitor. But today I discovered a pretty cool system monitor. It's really customizable, you can setit up to show just about anything you want and just the way you want it; from color, fonts, ...

Get conky from Ubuntu repository:

sudo apt-get install conky

To make conky work with compiz:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Go to this section:

Section "Module"

And add this line:

Load "dbe"

I've plain around for a while to make my conky to look just the way I wanted. I'll add the script to save you the trouble. Copy and paste the code below in a file called ".conkyrc" using gedit in your home directory (in the root of your home direcotory "~/.conkyrc").

# Conky, a system monitor, based on torsmo
#
# Any original code is licensed under the BSD license
#
# All code written is licensed under the GPL
#
# Please see COPYING for details
#
# Copyright (c) 2010, Carles Sentis
# All rights reserved.
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program. If not, see .
#

double_buffer yes
alignment top_right
background no
border_width 1
cpu_avg_samples 2
default_color white
default_outline_color white
default_shade_color white
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
draw_outline no
draw_shades no
use_xft yes
xftfont DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12
gap_x 5
gap_y 60
minimum_size 410 5
net_avg_samples 2
no_buffers yes
out_to_console no
out_to_stderr no
extra_newline no

# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
#own_window_class Conky
own_window_type normal
own_window_hints undecorated, below, sticky, skip_taskbar, skip_pager
own_window_transparent yes

stippled_borders 0
update_interval 2.0
uppercase no
use_spacer none
show_graph_scale no
show_graph_range no

TEXT
${color #ddaa00}$nodename${alignr}${time %T}
${alignr}Uptime: $uptime
${alignr}linux-$kernel
$hr
${color grey}Frequency (in MHz):$color $freq
${color grey}Frequency (in GHz):$color $freq_g
${color grey}RAM Usage:$color $mem/$memmax - $memperc% ${membar 4}
${color grey}Swap Usage:$color $swap/$swapmax - $swapperc% ${swapbar 4}
${color grey}Temp: CPU $color${acpitemp}C${color grey} - Nvidia $color${nvidia temp}C
${color grey}CPU Usage:

${offset 40}CPU1${color #ddaa00} ${cpugauge cpu1 30,70}
${offset 115}${color }${cpu cpu1}
${offset 40}${color grey}${cpugraph cpu0 30,355 00000 ddaa00 -t}

${color grey}Processes:$color $processes ${color grey}Running:$color $running_processes

${offset 40}${color slate grey}Highest CPU: PID CPU%
${offset 40}${color #ddaa00} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1}${top cpu 1}
${offset 40}${color lightgrey} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2}${top cpu 2}
${offset 40}${color lightgrey} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3}${top cpu 3}
${offset 40}${color lightgrey} ${top name 4} ${top pid 4}${top cpu 4}

${offset 40}${color slate grey}Highest MEM: PID MEM%
${offset 40}${color #ddaa00} ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem pid 1}${top_mem mem 1}
${offset 40}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem pid 2}${top_mem mem 2}
${offset 40}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem pid 3}${top_mem mem 3}
${offset 40}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 4} ${top_mem pid 4}${top_mem mem 4}
$hr
${color grey}File systems:

${offset 40}${color slate grey}ROOT: ${color }${fs_free /}/${fs_size /} ${fs_bar 4 /}
${offset 40}${color slate grey}HOME: ${color }${fs_free /home}/${fs_size /home} ${fs_bar 4 /home}
$hr
${color grey}Networking:

${offset 40}${color grey}Down:$color ${downspeed eth0} ${color grey}Up:$color ${upspeed eth0}
${offset 40}${downspeedgraph eth0 30,170 00000 ddaa00 -t} ${upspeedgraph eth0 30,170 00000 ddaa00 -t}
${offset 40}${color slate grey}Address: ${color }${addr eth0}
${offset 40}${color slate grey}TCP Connections: ${color }${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count}
$hr
${color grey}Other:

${offset 40}${color }Volume: $mixer%

Prey - Now with Wifi geolocalization support on Prey 0.3.7!

I was just thinking today about writing about Prey and just went I'm about to open my blog I get an e-mail talking about the new version of Prey 0.3.7.

Prey is a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen. It works in all operating systems and not only is it Open Source but also completely free.

Here is a link about the new super cool features on prey, it's a short read but very interesting:

http://preyproject.com/blog/2010/03/prey-0-3-7-now-locate-your-computer

Other ways just go to http://preyproject.com

GoogSysTray

I just heard about this cool application GoogSysTray, to keep you up to date with all your google apps. Did I mention is cross platform too?

Googsystray is a system tray app for Google Voice, GMail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Wave. It notifies on new messages, alerts, etc., and provides basic services quickly.

If you go under view all files, there's a deb package:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/googsystray/

Get counted

I recently read that the number of Linux user has increased in the last few years. Ubuntu alone has ground from 8 million to 12 million in the last 2 years. But all this figures are estimates and there's isn't a conclusive way on proving how many people actually use Linux, or where,...

So, Go to http://counter.li.org/ and register in and you can even install a script which will update the web side on your use. Good for statistic, demographics, etc.

Lets go and get counted

DamnVid - Video Download tool

DamnVid is a cross-platform application to download and convert videos from your hard drive or from dozens of video sharing websites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Veoh, Metacafe, etc. Basically, it's a video downloader and converter that sucks less.

What is Damnvid?

• A video converter, first and foremost. It makes use of the wonderful FFmpeg library, used in other software like VLC Media Player or Google Chrome.
• A video downloader. While DamnVid can convert local video files just fine, it can also download video streams from most video sharing websites. But what gives it the edge over other video downloaders and converters is that not only it does both the downloading and the converting, but it does them at the same time: it converts as it downloads, making the whole process much faster.
• A cross-platform software that sucks less.

http://code.google.com/p/damnvid/

important - There is no support for lucid yet!!!

******************UPDATED********************************

Here is a link to the Ubuntu PPA

Completely removing wine

Removing wine completely from Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get --purge remove wine
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo rm -r ~/.wine

You can remove the following files but not necessary:

/usr/share/app-install/desktop/wine.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/desktop/wineconfig.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/desktop/winefish.desktop
/usr/share/app-install/icons/_usr_share_pixmaps_winefish-icon.png
/usr/share/python-support/guidance-backends/wineread.py
/usr/share/python-support/guidance-backends/winewrite.py
/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/wineread.py
/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/wineread.pyc
/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/winewrite.py
/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/winewrite.pyc

Never use rm if you don't know what you are doing

I don't know why the menus still there in gnome but everything else has been remove. If you don't want to see the menus go to System -> Preferences -> Main Menu and remove it from there.

If later you want to reinstall wine first renable the menu in gnome by going to /home/username/.config/menus you should find a file - applications.menu . Inside should be similar to this:

<!DOCTYPE Menu
  PUBLIC '-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN'
  'http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-1.0.dtd'>
<Menu>
    <Name>Applications</Name>
    <MergeFile type="parent">/etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu</MergeFile>
    <Menu>
        <Name>wine-wine</Name>
        <Deleted/>
    </Menu>
</Menu>

If so delete the file. (if there's more than the wine entry I'd try just removing the wine ref.) There may be other wine related .menus in the applications-merged folder, delete them also. Now you can reinstall wine.

Gedit Plugins

I always knew gedit had plugins but I never really gave it much thought until today. If you are a developer, been web or app this may be quite interesting to you.

Install by synaptic gedit-plugins and go to edit -> preferences and the plugins tab.

Here is the gedit plugins page: http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins

The plugin that really caught my attention was the embedded terminal plugin, quite useful. One window less to have open and you see the code and terminal side by side. To be able to see the terminal just make sure you have the view -> bottom pane option enable in gedit to see the terminal.

Change Amarok 2 theme colors under Gnome (Ubuntu)

Yesterday I was wondering if it was at all possible to change the Amarok theme colors from gnome in Ubuntu. And after a little search I found out that not only it was possible but quite easy also. Here is the steps to take:

Open the ternimal and copy/paste:

First you need to install the systems setting native of kde

$ sudo apt-get install systemsettings kdebase-workspace-bin

make sure is compiled correcly

$ kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental

Don't worry if you get errors

$ systemsettings 

Get-flash-videos - A command line program to download flash videos

Download videos from various Flash-based video hosting sites, without having to use the Flash player. Handy for saving videos for watching offline, and means you don't have to keep upgrading Flash for sites that insist on a newer version of the player.

You can check project home page

My First Post

This is an idea I has for a while now and I'm glad to see that finally I got the energy to start this blog. I think this was the harder part. I hope this blog is more for a personal use only but I'm hopping that anyone coming around here will find a little help...