Absence makes ubuntu grow fonder

Have I abandoned this blog? Not quite. Have I left Ubuntu behind? I have to be honest and state that when I saw the changes that were being made to version 11.04, I started searching for a replacement distro. I had tried the beta and was not impressed with the design or layout that was being implemented. I listened to podcasts that shared my disappointment in the distro interface overhaul that was taking place over at Canonical. I considered switching to some of the other distros that I have tried in the past. In the end, I decided to stick it out, but made some compromises. I didn't like Unity, so I disabled it after installing Ubuntu 11.04. I made some other tweaks and modifications to my system that suits the way I use my computer. I may publish those changes in future, but then everyone has their own personal settings, and my changes may not be what you're looking for. I'm looking forward to the future, and what Ubuntu has in store. Linux is growing and maturing very quickly these days and it's great to be able to follow along and watch it happen.

Ubuntu Questions and Answers

Do you have a question about Ubuntu that you can't find an answer for? Are you struggling to get your system up and running? Some glitch or gremlin keeping your computer from recognizing a printer or scanner? You can get answers to your question from the Questions for Ubuntu site. Head over to the Questions for Ubuntu launchpad site. Log in and type in a question. Provide clear and detailed information in your questions and you should get an answer fairly quickly. You can even log in to lend a hand in answering questions if you see an answer that you know the answer to. You don't even need to be an Ubuntu guru to answer. You may have struggled with a similar problem recently and found the answer somewhere. Pass along the answer and help someone else in a similar situation. Pay it forward. This helps everyone in the community out. And we all grow in our knowledge using Ubuntu that much more!

Mobile Media Mood

My wife has an old Nokia phone. She asked me if I could change the ringtone for her. I tried copying an mp3 file and a wav file, but neither worked. It turns out that the phone uses its own awb format for files.
I searched the ubuntu forums for a quick fix on converting mp3s to amr format. There are a few posts on using ffmpeg to do the conversion, but I couldn't find/install the codecs needed for the amr format. I hope to explore this more in the future, but just don't have the time at the moment.
In the end, I cheated and downloaded a simple media converter that works brilliantly. It's called Mobile Media Converter. It's currently on version 1.7.1
You can download it from the site or from my own box.net account.
This was a quick and easy way of converting an audio file to what I consider an obsolete audio format. Hopefully I can find a good deal on a new phone for my wife so that she can retire her relic.

Joining AVI files together

Just a quick post on something I was trying to do today. I wanted to join two avi files together into one movie file.
I installed mencoder first:

sudo apt-get install mencoder

Then I used the command:

mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy firstpart1.avi secondpart2.avi -o fullmovie.avi

-ovc tells mencoder to keep the original video file
-oac tells mencoder to keep the original audio file
-o specifies the final output file name

Now it's off to watch the movie.

Pass the fork and dig in

The Openoffice community has rebranded itself as The Document Foundation. This foundation is currently working on the development of LIbreoffice. Libreoffice is an independant fork of Openoffice which was formed by the community of developers working on Openoffice. In the LibreOffice press release the foundation invites Oracle "to become a member of the new Foundation, and donate the brand the community has grown during the past ten years. Pending this decision, the brand "LibreOffice" has been chosen for the software going forward." They're waiting for a response from Oracle.
In the meantime, a beta is available for download. Here's how to do it.
Grab the tar.gz file from here and extract it on your pc. This will download the .deb files you'll need. Open terminal and navigate to the folder named DEBS
Type in the command
sudo dpkg -i *
Move to the folder named DEBS/desktop_integration and repeat the command
sudo dpkg -i *
The LibreOffice 3.3 icons should now be available under Applications>Office.

Firefox addons added after install

Having completed my fresh install, I now like to start customizing the look and feel of Ubuntu.
Firefox offers a whole host of addons and themes that you can use enhance your online experience. There are several that I always install after a new installation. (I have posted addons in the past, but here is an updated post.)

Xmarks is the first one that I install. I have used this addon of for quite some time now, starting when it was called Foxmarks. It allows me to keep a backup of my bookmarks that I can access from any system either via the xmarks addon or the online database. It also allows you to store passwords as well if you wish.

I've recently discovered an addon for storing passwords called LastPass. I heard about it while listening to Security Now with Steve Gibson. He raved about it so much that I had to try it for myself. It works well and I no longer have to dig through my old notebook searching for the odd password any longer.

Autofill Forms does exactly what the name says. It allows you to complete online entry forms without typing in all your info each time. This is a great addon for those who like to enter contests. Can't say that it helps you win more often though.

Stumbleupon is one addon that I couldn't live without. It's more like an addiction than an addon. You'll have to try it and see for yourself.

Downloadhelper allows you to download and store online media content locally. Handy for media of all kinds.

Download Statusbar is simply a monitor bar for your downloads. I'm surprised that this isn't built in to Firefox by default.

Colorfultabs is eye candy that changes each of your open tabs to a different color.

Personas is a new addon that allows you to personalize your browser with skins.

I use several others such as Cooliris, Firefoxsync, No Squint, Optimize Google, and FEBE.

These are my addons that I use for now, but I'm always on the lookout for new and useful addons. If you know of any more, leave me a note.

Steps to a complete Ubuntu install

This post is more for archival information. I usually do a complete re-installation of Ubuntu with each major release, and I want to document the extra steps I take to personalize my system to my liking. This may or may not be of interest to others, but it will show the steps I take after I remove the CD of a freshly installed system.

1. First step after closing cd tray and rebooting is to kill all the default Ubuntu Sounds, expecially the startup sound. Whoever thought this was a good idea? Silence is golden, they say.

2. I like to delete the bottom panel to give me more desktop space. I also add the Window List and the Workspace Switcher from the bottom panel to the top panel as I don't want to lose them.
3. Speaking of the top panel, I also add icons for Terminal, Synaptic P.Mgr, and Force Quit. Later on I add an icon for Thunderbird, after it gets installed along with an icon for the Downloads folder for quick access to downloaded files.
4. I deactivate the screensaver and disable the lock screen as well from the screensaver settings. I hate the screen going to sleep when I step away for a few minutes and find that I'm being prompted for my password again.
5. The Ubuntu gurus decided that the menu buttons would be much better on the left rather than the right. No choices given on install, but I apply the fix here by hitting ALT-F2 and typing gconf-editor. From here, find Apps>Metacity>General and change the old button_layout text to read 'menu:minimum,maximum,close' (without quotes) Ahh, buttons back where they belong.
6. This is the point where I take a break and install the necessary Updates. Time for a coffee.

I'll add a follow up to this post listing all the programs that I find useful and can't live without.