Open Source

Gnome DO | Docky

2010-01-20T14:01:00.007-05:00

Since almost day one of my Linux experience, I've loved the idea of having a Mac-like dock at the bottom of my screen. I've never really been fond of the Windows-like panel that comes by default. The first dock that I used was Avant Window Navigator and I was very happy with it, and I still think that it's an awesome dock. However, I decided that it was time for a change.

Enter Docky.

Docky is a dock that is actually a theme used by Gnome DO. In my personal opinion, it looks and feels more like the Mac dock than AWN does. It's been a great dock to use lately, however there are couple of cons:

Difficult to change program icons.
Does not allow for custom launchers (if it does, please enlighten me.)

I have finally learned how to edit the icons that appear for programs in Docky.

Disclaimer: This requires opening Nautilus as root. Please be very careful that you do not hurt your computer while doing this. If you follow the steps here, your computer will be fine.

Open a terminal and type in this:

sudo nautilus

This will open Nautilus as root. Please navigate to:

/usr/share/applications

Now locate the program that you would like to change the icon of. Right click on it and open it's properties. Change the icon. Close Docky completely and open it again. You should now see your preferred icon.

Indicator Applet

2010-01-20T13:55:00.001-05:00

I know that not everyone likes the new Indicator Applet, but I do. I like that it can centralize where notifications for certain programs can happen. However, the programs that actually utilize the indicator applet are not all programs that I use.

Like some others, I've removed Empathy & Evolution from my computer. To be completely honest, I never gave Empathy or Evolution a shot. The thing was, I already have programs that I like to use, and I want to continue to use them. For Instant Messaging, I use Pidgin and for email I use Thunderbird.

While Pidgin puts itself on the indicator applet as part of the installation, Thunderbird does not. I have searched for quite a while on how it can be added to that damn envelope.. and it's finally happened.. Here's how..

It's quite a simple process, it just needed to be found. Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird

When the file opens, type in this line:

/usr/share/applications/xxxxxxxxxx.desktop

Please note that xxxxxxxxxx should be changed to the command used to summon Thunderbird. For me it was thunderbird-3.0

After this you should be able to see Thunderbird when you click on the indicator applet (Envelope). If you want the notifications that libnotify would give you, please check out the Mozilla Notification Extension

Look on the Brightside

2010-01-13T09:19:00.007-05:00

So I was at work today and using the new iMac that we recently received. It has our company’s new software installed on it (Z4).Being the geek that I am, I decided to look around at OS X to see if I really liked it and to see how it compares to GNOME. Needles to say, it's pretty snazzy. In a lot of ways it's similar to GNOME, but in EVEN MORE ways it's not. There also happen to be some things that I really like about OS X that I wish my computer could do. I'm not saying that these things are not possible; I'm just saying that I don't have them...yet. Look at the 'Brightside' (keep that in mind).

As I was playing with the iMac, I decided that this thing just HAD to have my favorite screensaver on it, Helios. Setting it up was a breeze, but that's not why I'm writing today. I noticed an interesting piece of functionality that I really wanted to have. Hot Corners.

Hot Corners give the ability to initiate screen saving or power saving functions by simply moving the mouse to one of the four corners of your screen. For example, I setup Hot Corners so that when I put the mouse at the bottom right corner of the screen, it will start the screen saver.

I started Google searching for a program that provides similar functionality for Ubuntu & GNOME. That's when I stumbled upon Brightside (see, there it is again). Brightside provides virtually the same functionality that Hot Corners does, plus the ability to switch screens by moving the mouse to the side of the screen. Brightside doesn't seem to have been worked on since Dapper was around, however it still works perfectly. There are some install issues though, simple fixes for them too.

Here's how to get brightside running...

sudo apt-get install brightside

This is where you will encounter two issues:

Brightside's properties configuration will not automatically be added to System > Preferences. So you will have to add this yourself.

Brightside will not automatically start when you login. So you will have to add the program to System > Preferences > Startup Applications.

Once you've done all of this, you'll be able to go to System > Preferences > Screen Actions and setup your 'Hot Corners.'

Enjoy!

Who Ya Gonna Call!...

2010-01-12T09:10:00.001-05:00

As with any new users to Ubuntu, I have been hit with my fair share of frustrations. I don't whine and complain about how my computer won’t do this or won’t do that. Instead, I go out and find the solution. (Just ask my wife, she knows I'm too stubborn to give up until I find the solution to a problem)

On this journey of mine there has really been a place that I know I can go to and receive support from wonderful 'experts.' I use quotations for a reason, but I'll get to that soon. This place that I seek answers to my Ubuntu mysteries is the Ubuntu Forums. This has been a place that I can always go to for support. I mean support in different ways: problems that I'm having, questions about a new program that I discovered, or even guidance from a friend about something going on in life.

One of my favorite places to be while at the forum is the Community Cafe; this is typically where I spend most of my time. The conversations are so eclectic that I love it there. I can read things ranging from Ubuntu barking at cats to finding Malicious applications found on Android marketplace. It's really a fun place to be at.

When I can, I try to head over to the Absolute Beginner Forum. Even though I am no Ubuntu or Linux 'expert' (see, there it is again ;-) ) I might still be able to help someone that has been using Ubuntu for a shorter period of time than I, and that person might consider me to be an expert if I was able to solve their problem. I know that I have thought this. Someone helps me to fix a problem that has been driving me up the wall, and I might think of them as an expert at what they’re doing. This is what I love about Ubuntu and Linux, anyone can help anyone. There is always going to be someone that is asking for assistance with something that I may have encountered in the past.

In the past I've used different forums for various reasons, but none of them have ever compared with this one. The Ubuntu Forum is truly a community. People like each other and help each other as if we were all brother and sisters. We care about the well being of the other user and will offer as much assistance as we possibly can. People working together is a wonderful thing.

I don't want to forget to mention the Moderators either. I have always felt that the Mods at the Ubuntu Forum are quite level headed and fair as far as how they treat the users. I have never once suspected one of them of playing favorites with a user for any reason. But truly the best part is that the whole community of users can be considered a Moderator in itself. Using the Report Abuse button can really come in handy when someone has crossed the line. Do I feel like bad when I report someone?...no. There are times when people forget that the person on the other side of the post is a real person. They might say something that could go against the Code of Conduct, and those things should be reported. But as I mentioned before, the forums are still a great place to be.

A little history:

UbuntuForums History:The UbuntuForums were created by Ryan Troy (ubuntu-geek) in October 2004 the forums quickly became a popular resource for Ubuntu and was deemed the Official Ubuntu forums in November 2004. The forums hosting continued to be maintained and paid for by Ryan until March 2006 when Canonical graciously offered hosting for the forums. In June of 2007 the forums domain, license and assests were transfered over to Canonical they now maintain sole ownership of the forums. Ryan continues maintain the forums and serve's on the Forums Council along with KiwiNZ, jdong, Technoviking, matthew, bodhi.zazen and bapoumba.

My Temporary Band-Aid

2009-12-15T18:09:00.003-05:00

As with many other users of the wonderful Remote Desktop feature, I was afflicted with the broken refresh while 3D effects are enabled on the host computer. This is a problem that began when Ubuntu 9.04 was released. Basically, when logging in to the host computer remotely, Vino decides that it does not want to refresh the screen because 3D effects are enabled. If 3D effects are disabled, the screen refresh will start working normally. I'm sure that there is a lot more involved with this that I don't completely understand, but I know that it's been quite annoying for me.

Honestly, it should have been fixed by now, but I digress...

For the entire time that I was using Jaunty and for a few weeks into the release of Karmic, I didn't know what to do. Then I finally did a Google search that produced an amazing result! Here is the temporary "band-aid" that I discovered..

On the host computer...

Applications > System Tools > Configuration Editor

If you don't have the Configuration Editor installed, do a simple

sudo apt-get install gconf-editor

Once the Configuration Editor is open you will need to navigate to

desktop > gnome > remote_access

From here, the check box called disable_xdamage needs to be checked. After that you will be able to remotely access the host computer with refresh.

Happy Remote Accessing!

My Favorite User

2009-10-28T20:54:00.004-04:00

One topic of discussion that seems to surface every once in a while is, How many people out there use linux? To be honest, answering that question is next to impossible. It cannot be tracked by how may times the operating system was downloaded because one person can download the same OS multiple times. Not to mention that person could have downloaded it one time and then installed it on several different people's computers. It also cannot be tracked by how many people contacted the maker of the OS and asked for a free Live CD. The end user can again install the OS onto multiple people's computers using the same Live CD. However I can tell you how many people use linux.....

A LOT!

It's easily over a million users world wide, and if it's not...it should be!

I have to tell you though, there really is one user that stands out above them all. My Wife. That's right, my wife is also a user, and even though she would never tell you....she enjoys linux. She is not my favorite user simply because she's an amazingly wonderful woman, but also because she's genuinely a fan of linux at this point. She uses it everyday at home and even on her laptop.

I remember that I mentioned to her that I wanted to get her a netbook with a built-in webcam so that she could use that to call me at home on my webcam. I was planning on getting a netbook for her with Windows XP installed on it (the program that we use with the webcam is for Windows or Mac only) and then I could answer the call in my Virtual Machine running Windows 7 beta. Here's a small part of the conversation we had:

Me: So we'll get you that netbook.
Me: Then we'll run the Z-PC100 in that.
Wife: Can you install Ubuntu on it?
Me: Really? You...want...Ubuntu on it?
Wife: Well, yea.
Wife: I've gotten so used to it that I don't want Windows on it.

How awesome is that! She actually asked for linux to be installed on her future netbook. I have to tell you, that makes me very happy. My wife is amazing.

Firefox Fields

2009-10-28T11:03:00.009-04:00

If people are anything like myself, they like to change the default theme that Ubuntu uses. As much as I appreciate the hard work that the art team does, I'm not that big a fan of the default theme. Personally I prefer darker themes, most of my electronics are black and I feel comfortable around a darker theme.

However, there has always been a "flaw," at least in mine and my wife's eyes, with using a darker theme in Ubuntu. This flaw is with Firefox. You see, by nature Firefox for Ubuntu incorporates the theme of the environment into itself. Meaning, if you change the desktop theme, Firefox will follow suit. Sometimes when a darker theme is used, Firefox will have dark entry fields to type into. For the most part the text color will be something of the lighter nature and it's ok, but once in a while I will stumble upon a website that has a dark entry field and dark colors for the entry field text. Needless to say, in my case this causes a lot of typos.

I'm getting tired of highlighting what I typed...

Here is my solution for fixing this "flaw."

Navigate to /home/username/.mozilla/firefox/~/chrome

Replace username with your computer login username.
Replace ~ with the crazy folder name that's located in your firefox directory. For example, mine was 5ts89n7i.default

Now open userContent-example.css

Replace everything in the file with this: (Note: If you already have a custom userContent.css file, this will not work for you.)

/* Smooth Scrolling Workaround: Disable Fixed Background Images on Pages */

input {
border: 2px inset white;
background-color: white;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

textarea {
border: 2px inset white;
background-color: white;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

select {
border: 2px inset white;
background-color: white;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

input[type="radio"],
input[type="checkbox"] {
border: 2px inset white ! important;
background-color: white ! important;
color: ThreeDFace ! important;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

**::-moz-radio {
background-color: white;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

button,
input[type="reset"],
input[type="button"],
input[type="submit"] {
border: 2px outset white;
background-color: #eeeeee;
color: black;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

body {
background-color: white;
color: black;
display: block;
margin: 8px;
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* set default namespace to XUL */

Now save the file as userContent.css

Restart ALL sessions of Firefox that are running.

Your entry fields should now look like this...
I am still working to tweak a few more things, but this should definitely get the ball rolling for you as it has done for me.

What I'd like to tweak still:

Check box background color
Upload file entry field
Radio buttons

If anyone else has a fix for this already, I'm all eyes...

Songbird

2009-10-23T17:50:00.008-04:00

After making my switch from Windows, One of the things that I really missed having was a quality music player. In Windows I had always used iTunes to organize and listen to my music. Then I made the switch and quickly realized that iTunes pretty much did not exist for me any longer. I began searching around to find the new music player that was going to be my replacement for iTunes.

I started out using Rythmbox and for a default music player, it's quite a nice program. It has some pretty nice features, like the ability to listen to internet radio. Also it was able to scrobble with my last.fm account and even play songs from there. However, I began to feel that it was not the right program for me. I don't feel that the method used to organize my music was up to par and to me that's pretty important. I them began searching again...

After searching around for another program to try and use, I stumbled on Amarok. In the beginning I thought it was great. It was able to scrobble my last.fm and it managed my music collection to my satisfaction. The next thing I say may make people think that I am vain, but to each his own... The biggest reason why I stopped using Amarok was because I use Gnome, and as most people know Amarok is designed for KDE. This fact does not allow the program to really mesh with my desktop enviornment. That's also something that is very important to me. I like uniformity, and Amarok was breaking things for me. My search continues...

One thing I have not talked about yet it my loyalty to Mozilla. I think that Mozilla is a fantastic company and the software that they create is phonomenal. So when I discovered that Mozilla was creating a music player, I naturaly wanted to give it a try. Songbird was brought to me...

In the beginning it was pretty rough, it had it's share of bugs. However, it's a Mozilla product, Mozilla has quite a good track record of fixing their bugs... I persisted. Over time the bugs went away and the program really started to take shape and mature. One of the best things about Mozilla is the fact that it is open source software. This gives people the ability to create extentions for it, the same way that Firefox, Sunbird, & Thunderbird have extentions. I was able to modify the program to completely fulfill all of my needs and desires in a music player. Except one...

One of the biggest drawbacks about Songbird is that it does not have GTK+ integration yet. This was almost ok since there are plenty of feathers (themes) to choose from. However, my desktop got to a point when the color scheme just did not match any of the available feathers out there. Needless to say, I was quite bummed out.... until I discovered a special extention that saved me...

Enter System...

I don't know if people call System a feather or something else, but it definately made me quite happy. You see, System, allows Songbird to integrate with the computers current color scheme. Notice that I used the word "computer" and not Ubuntu. The reason for this is because System was originally designed in Windows and is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. I must say, it works quite well too. It matches my desktop enviornment almost flawlessly. There are a few oddities in the extention, but the creator seems to work quite dillegently on getting those things squared away.

If you're in the hunt for a quality music player, I strongly suggest using Songbird, It's well worth it.

Songbird

GIMP

2009-10-21T20:59:00.009-04:00

During my time in the Windows operating system, there were many times in which I needed an art program to do one of many different things. One of the biggest things that I do is create Power Point presentations at work. In these presentations I use a lot of visual examples of what I'm trying to tell my audience (You would be surprised how many people don't read the words of an instruction manual and instead just follow the pictures).

Back then I was trying to use Windows Paint. If you don't remember Windows Paint, It was that little program that could barely handle the simple task of Cropping a photo. Needless to say, it was not worth using any longer. Then I made the switch to Ubuntu and discovered GIMP.

Here's a little description of the program shown on GIMP's website...

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

I have to say, GIMP is quite the amazing program. It has saved me so much time, but more importantly headache, when I create my instruction manuals. But other than that, GIMP has allowed me the ability to touch up pictures so that they look flawless, I've also used it to create favicons for websites.

The only thing about the programs that really bothered me was that I was not able to use it while I was at work using Windows XP. I was still stuck making everything on my personal computer at home or using RealVNC to access my computer at home and then email the finished product back to my work station. This is when I discovered something wonderful.....

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

That's right folks. GIMP is not only available for Linux, but also for Mac OS X and Windows. My life has become so much better/easier after discovering GIMP. Give it a shot....trust me.

GIMP

Please note that this is NOT me creating this video. Created by GIMP Know How.

OpenShot Video Editor

2009-10-21T00:01:00.009-04:00

When I made my transition to Ubuntu there were quite a few hurdles that I needed to jump. One of these hurdles was finding a good video editor. There were some other programs that I tried first, but they just didn't cut it for me. They either didn't have the features that I was looking for, or they were just too clunky and not very user friendly. Then I stumbled on to a thread in the Ubuntu Forums that talked about good video editors that are available. One of the posters mentioned OpenShot. Since this was the only one that I had not heard of yet, I decided to give it a whirl.

People always say that your first impression of something is always the most important one. Well my first impression of this program was purely based on it's visual layout. Needless to say, the program looked really nice. It has a great layout and looking at it's features you can see that it's quite robust.

Here is a little snippet from Linux and Free software

OpenShot is a video editor for Linux. The project was started by Jonathan Thomas in 2008. The goal of OpenShot is to be a free, stable and user friendly video editor. It is licensed under GNU general public license. OpenShot supports many video and audio file formats. You can resize, trim and cut clips. There are also video transitions with real time previews and many other features.

Over time the program has grown by leaps and bounds. The creator has added the ability to combine your video with special effects and they have also recently added their own PPA giving users the chance to install and have the program updated more easily.

One of the things that I find to be very important to me is having the choice of stripping the audio out of an imported video and then add my own audio track in the background. With OpenShot, I have the ability to do this plus much more. Long story short, I suggest giving this program a try. You wont be let down.

OpenShot Video Editor

Screencast of OpenShot 0.8.2 from Jonathan Thomas on Vimeo.