GET FREE – Free your IPODS (on Linux)

So I’ve bought an IPod, eventually as some might say, after fighting at least 4 or 5 years against it. I came to the conclusion to buy one because simply all of my friends have one, and surely they can’t all be blatantly wrong. Some of them are even hardcore nerds. My only condition was to find a mp3 player that has a good Linux support, good in terms of not having to search 1 week or more to finally get this bastard working. And to be fair, the Ipod was the one, and after almost one week of using it – you can’t beat it. The IPod works out of the box, as the mac people would say, on Linux. Brilliant.
Here’s a quick tutorial on how you get it working on Linux – I’m using Kubuntu Hardy Heron.

Making animated banners with GIMP….

Ok, this time I’ll show you how to make one of these bad boys, an animated banner logo. Like this or this. The first one is actually a bit trickier as it involves a lot more layers than the other one, but I’ll explain that later.

What you need first to make these cool banners is,

1. a cool font
2. GIMP 2.4
3. and a good idea, what you want your Banner to look like

Fixing suspend and hibernation in ubuntu….

You might have noticed that the suspend and hibernation function in ubuntu/kubuntu won’t work. While there’s no official fix, you might find this work around helpful, hope you enjoy!

Most people need hibernation for their laptops.
step is to install a tool called «uswsusp»

sudo apt-get install uswsusp

And by typing the below command you check if the suspend function works now….
sudo s2ram
Same goes for hibernation

sudo s2disk

working with LaTex

LaTex (pronounced La-Tech) is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program.

I’ve been using it to write a paper for university so I’ll be sharing my knowledge that I gained so far here with you.

Let’s start with the basics, you will need a LaTex Editor to write your text in, because you cannot just write it in MS Word or OpenOffice Writer and compile it from there. Just to set the record straight, LaTex is a markup language, which uses commands to make your text look bold, coloured or any other text alignments you want to put it in.

The output of your LaTex document will be a .pdf file, as soon as you compile it. This usually does the editor for you. So make sure you have the Adobe Reader or any other tool that can open/read pdf documents installed, so you can actually read your finished document 😉

For instance, if you want to put your text in italics you need a command like \textit{your text in italics}. But more of that later!

Back to the LaTex Editor question, which one to choose? Well, first of all it depends on the operating system that you’re using. I’m using Linux (a unix based operating system) therefore I chose to use Kile (http://kile.sourceforge.net/).

If you’re using Windows, you might want to use these editors – as they’re all free software:

• TeXnicCenter http://www.texniccenter.org/

• LaTeXEditor http://www.latexeditor.org/

• WinShell http://www.winshell.org/

However, there are also multiplatform editors which should work on all operating systems. There’s a plugin for example for the Eclipse Editor, and even LaTex-Suite-Plugin for the popular Vim text editor.

Which editor you may choose, make sure you’re comfortable using it – this means it meets your needs and is not too complex to use. You’re better off to start lowkey, with a basic functionality.

the big bash commands list….

Yes, this is my first attempt of creating a list of useful, everyday bash commands – as I find myself constantly in the situation looking for a specific bash command. If you’re unlucky, googleing the right command (especially if you don’t know what it’s called) can cost you several minutes if not hours.

So this will save me and hopefully you as well, the next time plenty of time. If you think there’s an important command still missing, which is more than likely, feel free to leave a comment with the command and a short explanation what it does.

Very special thanks to Bernd for the idea and his input! Thank you!

Watching (copy-right protected) DVD’s on Ubuntu Gutsy…

Were you shocked as well when you found out that your Ubuntu (in my case Kubuntu Gutsy 7.10) wouldn’t playback DVD’s that you’ve LEGALLY purchased in shops or through Amazon? That ain’t fair, I’ve paid a good amount of money for my DVD collection and I should not be able to play them on my computer? The reason Ubuntu or probably any other Linux distribution doesn’t ship with an out-of-the-box dvd playback feature is that manufacturers of proprietary Software (e.g WinDVD, PowerDVD, etc..) pay money to ship these CSS (Content Scrambling System codecs which is a Digital Rights Management scheme which is used on almost all commercially produced DVD-Video discs. However at the end of the day, the costumer (we) pay for these DVD-player software, when we buy a DVD/CD Burner or a new graphics card.

This doesn’t apply for Linux or Open Source User – OpenSource Tools as the VLC Player or Kaffeine doesn’t pay these fees to support CSS, because VLC and Kaffeine are non-profit open source programs. There’s no money to gain by „selling“ VLC or Kaffeine, therefore its users (we) don’t pay any money to be legally allowed to view our legally purchased DVD’s.

Dolphin permission problems….

Dolphin, the new KDE file manager (entirely replaced Konqueror, which now serves as a web browser only) still has some teething problems. The main problem I was facing was, whenever I closed Dolphin I got this annoying error message:

After some googleing, I’ve eventually found the solution to my Dolphin problem

sudo chown -R theresa:theresa /home/theresa/.kde (replace theresa with your username)

That did it for me, next time I opened Dolphin, I had no such error message again. God Bless! 😉

the pivot effect with tft screens using ubuntu

Ever wanted to rotate your computer screen because a word document didn’t fit on a page? That’s now possible, if you’re the owner of a TFT screen with pivot function. It comes in quite handy if you’re reading an E-Book with a rather high resolution (e.g 120%). You won’t have to scroll to the end of the page, until the next page starts.

The best way to use the pivot function, provided that you have a Nvidia graphic card, is to install the restricted nvidia driver on ubuntu (this works smoothly on Ubuntu Feisty (6.04) and Ubuntu Gutsy (6.10)) – if you’re still using edgy you have to find the right driver for your kernel version.

After installing the restricted driver you have to open the xorg.conf file (located in /etc/X11/) – but heads up, ALWAYS backup your xorg.conf before you start editing….if you’re using an editor like Kate, then you’re on the safe side, because Kate automatically generates a backup file.

Importing emails in KMail.

Importing emails with KMail is easy – there are several ways to import email from different mail clients (e.g Thunderbird, Evolution, Microsoft Outlook Express, etc…)

Recently I tried importing my old (kmail) emails from my old Kubuntu OS. I made sure to back up the entire /.kde/ folder, but all you really need is this folder

~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail/ … this is where all your emails are stored

the ubuntu way to remote control your pc via bluetooth phones.

the reason I’m posting this blog is to remind myself what to do in case I forget the steps that need to be done in order to remote control my machine by using my bluetooth-ed mobile phone (or for yanks „cell phones“). 🙂

ok, let’s get started – it might look mega complicated, but in fact it’s a few steps and loads of text explaining why. so don’t panic 😉

this is a mini how-to for ubuntu/linux computers, windows and mac users may look out for a proprietary software called „salling clicker„. linux users don’t need to pay money for the same effect 😉
ok, so here’s a checklist what you need or already should have:

1. a bluetooth enabled sony ericsson phone e.g. W300i or V630i. why sony ericsson? because they come with a special application called „remote control“ that you’ll later need.
2. a bluetooth usb dongle …. can be found here: Amazon.com
   shouldn’t cost you more than a few $, pounds, €, etc…
3. ubuntu or any linux distribution installed

ok, after this is sorted, we move on to pair our phone with the computer.
first make sure the usb dongle is plugged into your computer and bluetooth is „switched on“ on your phone.

I’m testing this with Ubuntu 6.10 «edgy eft» so if you have a newer release e.g. «feisty fawn» configuration settings might look a bit different.