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.