Setup Guides

Things every Web Developer wishes Web Designers knew

2012-01-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

As a web developer I work with many web designers. I have great respect for web designers as they can do things I couldn't. I can code but I have no eye for design, I can spot bad design easily but I don't have the talent to create good designs myself. Because of this I rely heavily on web designers in my projects. However there are a few key things I rarely find that web designers can do that would help greatly in the smooth running of projects. While web designers are artists they sometimes seem to forget that fundamentally they are working with technology and at least some basic understanding of the underlying principles of the technologies they use and the web in general is something that every web designer should have.

1. Source Control
Subversion, Git, Mercurial or whatever I would love my designers to be at least familiar with the basics of source control. It makes collaborating on code and pushing out updates so easy that it is basically essential to any web project. It's not very difficult conceptually so spend a day reading up on it to familiarise yourself with the basics.

2. How to set up a local dev environment
I know designers love their Macs but if you have bought a Mac it is essential that you know how to set up a basic dev environment in OSX. If you want to dev locally and you have decided to use OSX it is absolutely the web designer's responsibility to know how to configure and use their own equipment. I am quite willing to answer sensible/interesting questions about the setup but not questions like "I don't get it, can you do it for me?". I have as much(or as little) interest in learning how to set up a MAMP stack as you do in a setting up a LAMP stack so don't expect me to waste time figuring out how to get a web app running under OSX.

3. Virtualisation
This is a must. If you can't/won't figure out how to get the app you are working on running under OSX you must be able set up a virtual instance of the server to test/dev with. Also for testing various versions of IE you are basically going to have to understand this. It's not difficult to learn and can save hours of time and hassle and there are plenty of options out there for virtualisation. I use VirtualBox, it's free and does the job but there are a ton of other programs out there that you can use too.

If as a web designer you can master these basic technologies you will find working with web developers a lot easier(as well as garnering considerable respect from them). I don't want this post to come off as a rant but I strongly believe that if you want to work in the tech industry you must have a understanding and interest in the technologies that underpin your profession.

Living in the cloud

2011-11-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

These days many people own multiple internet enabled devices and it's becoming important to keep this data in sync across your phone, laptop, desktop and tablet. This is not only necessary for convenience but also because the personal data, like photos, contacts and documents, is increasingly becoming a very big part of people's lives and backing this data up is essential. Fortunately there are a bunch of services that make this super easy. So here is a list of the best apps for simplifying your digital life and keeping all your precious data safe.

What to use: Gmail

Gmail is awesome, email, contacts, phone calls, video conferencing, great search and lots more all from your browser. If you're not using Gmail already you should be. It's free to get a gmail address and access their services, you can even use your own domain if you don't want an @gmail address. Also you get a massive amount of storage so you'll never need to delete an email, it also automatically filters spam and viruses.

What not to do:

Do not use the free email account(s) you get from your ISP. Aside from making you look silly it's just bad practice to tie your email address to your ISP. What will you do if you want to change providers or move?

Contacts

What to use: Gmail + Android

There is a lot of heated debate on the internet about iOS vs Android but one place where Android is definitely ahead of the curve is cloud services. It integrates seamlessly with your Gmail, contacts and calendar. So if you add a contact on your phone it is instantly in your Gmail account, likewise, if you add an event to the calendar in Gmail it will instantly appear on your phone's calendar. If you lose, upgrade or reset your phone just sign in with your Gmail account and all your contacts, email and events will be there.

What not to do:

Don't keep your contacts all on a single device, like your phone, or spread across several devices with no centralised backup. What's your plan if you lose your phone? Also keeping your contacts centralised means you only need to make updates in one place.

Photos

What to use: Ubuntu One

Ubuntu One is great for backing up photos, you get 5GB free space and it will sync your files across Android devices and your computers. The Android client has a great feature where as soon as you take a photo on your phone it is backed up to Ubuntu One and synced to your Desktop, Laptop and Tablet.

Unfortunately at the moment Ubuntu One is only available on Ubuntu(and its variants), Android and Windows. So if you're on OSX check out DropBox.

What not to do:

Don't keep your photos on a bunch of poorly labeled DVDs. First off it's a hassle if you want to look through your photos and they are spread across multiple DVDs. Second, DVDs are a dead format, although they are still in wide use, they won't be for long(I don't own a single CD or DVD). Thirdly, DVDs can degrade over time.

Files

What to use: Ubuntu One or DropBox

There are two options here depending on what you want to do. Seeing as they both work in basically the same way I will outline the basic process here. When you install the DropBox or Ubuntu One client it will create a folder within your home folder. After installation any file placed in that folder will be automatically backed up to the server and synced to all your other devices.

Ubuntu One

For personal file storage I prefer Ubuntu One because of it's large free capacity and great Ubuntu and Android integration(as discussed previously).

DropBox

For storing files you want to share with other people and work on collaboratively nothing beats DropBox. It supports Linux, Windows and OSX.

What not to do:

Do not keep all your important files on a single computer or on random usb sticks and DVDs, it's annoying to maintain, not automated and prone to failure.

Bookmarks and History

What to use: Chrome Sync

This will sync your bookmarks, history, form data, etc across all your computers using your google account. It's really easy to set up and works flawlessly behind the scenes. Of course this assumes you are using Google Chrome as you web browser, if you're not using Chrome already then get it now.

Documents

What to use: Google Docs

Google Docs is a full featured office suite inside your browser providing document, spreadsheet and presentation apps. It also has amazing collaboration tools for real time editing of documents by multiple users. Add version control, sharing and access control to this and you have one awesome document management system. Admittedly the web interface isn't as full featured as Libre Office or MS Office but it is good enough for 99% of use cases. You can always edit documents on your desktop and just upload them to Google Docs.

What not to do:
Don't just keep all your important documents in poorly organised folders on your computer. Don't keep revising and re-sending documents via email, just add it to Google Docs and then give access to the person you want to share it with, they will even be able to see your changes in real time.

Books

What to use: Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle Store is a great way to buy books. They are cheaper, easier and can can be synced across all your devices and accessed from anywhere. It means you don't have to throw out your book collection every time you move to a different country and don't need to have bookshelves and piles of books cluttering up your house.

What not to do:
Whatever you want, I can't argue that I don't like the feel of a real book in my hands and in the right setting a bookshelf can look great but if you live a rather transient lifestyle like myself maintaining a physical book collection is not viable.

Games

What to use: Steam

Steam allows you to purchase games via their store and then install them locally to your computer. The great thing about it is you can install Steam on any computer, log in and all your games are there. This means no more game DVDs, remembering CD Keys etc.

What not to do:

Don't buy physical copies of games. They will often require you to have an optical drive and you will need to actually keep track of physical DVDs and CD keys.

The risks of cloud storage

While cloud storage is very reliable and hassle free it is worth remembering that your data is being stored on someone else's server. If the company storing your data closes, stops service or experiences technical failures it is possible you will lose data. Most free services provide a paid option which comes with guarantees about data loss. If this is a concern make sure you read the terms of service thoroughly.

The hosting of your data on someone else's server also raises some privacy concerns so again if this is something you worry about make sure you read the terms of service.

Note: I am not bothering to mention solutions like Deja Dup or Apple's Time Machine as I believe they are unnecessary. I like having a clean install of my OS and find it strange people go to great lengths to preserve their current install when 9 times out of 10 it would just be quicker to format and re-install(it only takes an hour). If you are using an OS like Ubuntu that works out of the box, comes with everything from word processing to torrent clients pre-installed and has an awesome app store then setting up after a fresh install is no hassle at all. Drive imaging backup tools only encourage people to stick with their slow bloated, years old installs.

Install memcached with PHP on Ubuntu 11.04

2011-10-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Memcached is a great tool for optimising your website. It can be used to cache commonly used data in memory for fast access. This can help greatly in increasing speed, reducing DB load and scaling your site. To find out more check out the memcached site here.

Here is a short guide to installing memcached on Ubuntu. This is a guide to installing via the command line but if you prefer a GUI you can install via the Ubuntu Software Center.

Open a terminal(Ctrl + Alt + T) and enter the following:

sudo apt-get install memcached

sudo apt-get install php5-memcache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

to test memcached is up and running enter:

telnet localhost 11211

if it connects you are good to go.
*Note to quit telnet enter Ctrl + ] then Ctrl + d then enter "quit" and hit enter.

To test that memcached is working with Apache and PHP see the instructions here

Install Humble Bundle on XBMC Live

2011-09-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased the latest Humble Bundle and wanted to get the games working with my XBMC Live setup. I have put together this guide for setting up Humble Bundle 3 games with your XBMC Live setup. This guide assumes you are using the install files provided as part of Humble Bundle but should work equally well for files downloaded directly from the game website.

I haven't finished writing guides for all games yet but I will add them to this post as they are published:

Install Revenge of the Titans in XBMC Live

Install Steel Storm in XBMC Live

Install Braid in XBMC Live

Install And Yet It Moves in XBMC Live

Install Osmos in XBMC Live

Have Fun!

Install And Yet It Moves on XBMC Live

2011-09-09T23:09:00.001-07:00

I recently purchased the Humble Bundle 3 and have been setting up the games to run on my XBMC Live Box. Here is a short guide to installing And Yet It Moves on XBMC Live.

Step 1 - get the .deb file
Download the deb file from the Humble Bundle website. You will need to transfer the deb file to the home folder on your XBMC Live box, my guide to using FileZilla to copy files to XBMC Live.

Step 2 - install the game
Open a terminal, see 3 ways to access the terminal on your XBMC Live box, and enter the following.

sudo apt-get install libtheora0 libopenal1
sudo dpkg -i andyetitmoves_1.2.1_i386.deb

Step 3 - create launcher script
There are 2 ways to do this the command line way or the GUI way

The command line way:

mkdir scripts

cd scripts

nano andyetitmoves.sh

now paste in this:
#!/bin/bash
fluxbox &
/usr/games/AndYetItMoves
killall -9 fluxbox

Now press Ctrl+X and then Y to save and exit

chmod +x andyetitmoves.sh

The GUI way:
Using FileZilla create a folder called "scripts" in the home folder on your XBMC Box.

Download this file and copy it to the "scripts" folder.

Give the file execute permissions, first right click and then select "File Permissions". Check all the "execute" checkboxes and hit ok.

Step 4 - Add shortcut to launcher
Now you just need to set up a shortcut to the game launcher script in the XBMC Launcher Addon. Follow my guide to Add a Shortcut to Launcher Add-on in XBMC to create a shortcut for the new script file.

Step 5 - Fix profile saving bug
There is a bug in the config file of the And Yet It Moves installer so that your profile and settings will not be saved, to fix the problem do the following:

edit this file

~/.Broken Rules/And Yet It Moves/common/commonConfig.xml

and change "Company" tag from "Broken Rules" to ".Broken Rules"

source ivl @ http://andyetitmoves.net

And that's it, you can now launch the game by going "Programs" -> "Launcher".

Install Osmos on XBMC Live

2011-09-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased the Humble Bundle 3 and have been setting up the games to run on my XBMC Live Box. Here is a short guide to installing Osmos on XBMC Live.

Step 1 - get the .deb file
Download the deb file from the Humble Bundle website. You will need to transfer the deb file to the home folder on your XBMC Live box, my guide to using FileZilla to copy files to XBMC Live.

Step 2 - install the game
Open a terminal, see 3 ways to access the terminal on your XBMC Live box, and enter the following.

sudo dpkg -i Osmos_1.6.1.deb

Step 3 - create launcher script
There are 2 ways to do this the command line way or the GUI way

The command line way:

mkdir scripts

cd scripts

nano osmos.sh

now paste in this:

#!/bin/bash
fluxbox &
/opt/Osmos/Osmos
killall -9 fluxbox

Now press Ctrl+X and then Y to save and exit

chmod +x osmos.sh

The GUI way:
Using FileZilla create a folder called "scripts" in the home folder on your XBMC Box.

Download this file and copy it to the "scripts" folder.

Give the file execute permissions, first right click and then select "File Permissions". Check all the "execute" checkboxes and hit ok.

Install Steel Storm on XBMC Live

2011-09-09T22:44:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased the Humble Bundle 3 and have been setting up the games to run on my XBMC Live Box. Here is a short guide to installing Steel Storm on XBMC Live.

Step 1 - get the .deb file
Download the deb file from the Humble Bundle website. You will need to transfer the deb file to the home folder on your XBMC Live box, my guide to using FileZilla to copy files to XBMC Live.

Step 2 - install the game
Open a terminal, see 3 ways to access the terminal on your XBMC Live box, and enter the following.

sudo apt-get install libsdl-net1.2

sudo dpkg -i steel-storm-burning-retribution_2.00.02818_i386.deb

Step 3 - create launcher script
There are 2 ways to do this the command line way or the GUI way

The command line way:

mkdir scripts

cd scripts

nano steel-storm.sh

now paste in this:

#!/bin/bash
fluxbox &
/opt/steelstorm/steelstorm -basedir /opt/steelstorm
killall -9 fluxbox

Now press Ctrl+X and then Y to save and exit

chmod +x steel-storm.sh

The GUI way:
Using FileZilla create a folder called "scripts" in the home folder on your XBMC Box.

Download this file and copy it to the "scripts" folder.

Give the file execute permissions, first right click and then select "File Permissions". Check all the "execute" checkboxes and hit ok.

Installing Braid on XBMC Live

2011-09-09T22:37:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased the Humble Bundle 3 and have been setting up the games to run on my XBMC Live Box. Here is a short guide to installing Braid on XBMC Live.

Step 1 - get the .deb file
Download the deb file from the Humble Bundle website. You will need to transfer the deb file to the home folder on your XBMC Live box, my guide to using FileZilla to copy files to XBMC Live.

Step 2 - install the game
Open a terminal, see 3 ways to access the terminal on your XBMC Live box, and enter the following.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-cg-toolkit

sudo dpkg -i braid_1.0.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb

Step 3 - create launcher script
There are 2 ways to do this the command line way or the GUI way

The command line way:

mkdir scripts

cd scripts

nano braid.sh

now paste in this:

#!/bin/bash
fluxbox &
/opt/braid/braid
killall -9 fluxbox

Now press Ctrl+X and then Y to save and exit

chmod +x braid.sh

The GUI way:
Using FileZilla create a folder called "scripts" in the home folder on your XBMC Box.

Download this file and copy it to the "scripts" folder.

Give the file execute permissions, first right click and then select "File Permissions". Check all the "execute" checkboxes and hit ok.

Installing Revenge Of the Titans on XBMC Live

2011-09-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased the Humble Bundle 3 and have been setting up the games to run on my XBMC Live Box. Here is a short guide to installing Revenge of the Titans on XBMC Live.

Step 1 - install Java
First follow my guide to installing Java on XBMC Live.

Step 2 - get the .deb file
Download the deb file from the Humble Bundle website. You will need to transfer the deb file to the home folder on your XBMC Live box, my guide to using FileZilla to copy files to XBMC Live.

Step 3 - install the game
Open a terminal, see 3 ways to access the terminal on your XBMC Live box, and enter the following.

sudo dpkg -i RevengeOfTheTitans-HIB-18012-i386.deb

Step 4 - create launcher script
There are 2 ways to do this the command line way or the GUI way

The command line way:

mkdir scripts

cd scripts

nano revenge_of_the_titans.sh

now paste in this:

#!/bin/bash
fluxbox &
/opt/revengeofthetitans/revenge.sh
killall -9 fluxbox

Now press Ctrl+X and then Y to save and exit

chmod +x revenge_of_the_titans.sh

The GUI way:
Using FileZilla create a folder called "scripts" in the home folder on your XBMC Box.

Download this file and copy it to the "scripts" folder.

Give the file execute permissions, first right click and then select "File Permissions". Check all the "execute" checkboxes and hit ok.

Step 5 - Add shortcut to launcher
Now you just need to set up a shortcut to the game launcher script in the XBMC Launcher Addon. Follow my guide to Add a Shortcut to Launcher Add-on in XBMC to create a shortcut for the new script file.

And that's it, you can now launch the game by going "Programs" -> "Launcher".

Add a Shortcut to Launcher Add-on in XBMC

2011-09-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

This is a short guide on installing and adding a shortcut to the XBMC Launcher Add-on. It is part of a series I am doing on installing Humble Bundle 3 on XBMC Live.

Installing Launcher Add-on
Go to "Settings" -> "Add-ons"

Now select "Program Add Ons"

Select Launcher and choose "Install"

Adding a Shortcut
Start the Launcher Add-on from the "Programs" menu, if it is the first time you have run it you will be prompted to add a shortcut straight away. Otherwise click on one of the existing menu items and select "Add New Launcher"

Choose "Stand Alone(Normal PC Executable)"

Select the location of the script file

Now just leave the script arguments blank and give the shortcut a sensible name.

And that's it you can now launch you script from the Launcher menu.

3 ways to access the terminal on your XBMC Live box

2011-09-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

There are a bunch of cool things that you can do with your XBMC Live install like set up games or install a browser but to do this you're going to need to get your hands dirty with a little command line work. Don't worry though it's super easy so here are three ways you can access the terminal on your XBMC Live box.

1 - SSH
This is my preferred method as it can be done remotely and I can access XBMC Live on my laptop from the comfort of the couch. Obviously your XBMC box will need to be connected to your network for this to work, you will also need the IP address of you XBMC box. If you don't already know the IP address of you XBMC box you can find it under Settings->System Info->Summary

If you are in Linux or OSX open a Terminal and type:

ssh <xbmc live user>@<xbmc IP address>

Enter you password when prompted and that's it you're in.

*NOTE: if you did not do a HDD install of XBMC Live and are running it off a memory stick use the default XBMC Live credentials.
Username: xbmc
Password: xbmc

2 - Terminal
This is probably the easiest one to access. Simply select "Exit" from the shutdown menu and you will drop into a Linux terminal. Enter your XBMC Live username and password to login.

3 - Fluxbox
If you prefer a GUI you can also access Terminal emulators through Fluxbox which comes with the default install of XBMC Live. To do this follow the steps outlined above(section 2) to access the terminal and after logging in type:

startx

and hit enter this will bring up the Fluxbox desktop.

Right click anywhere on the Fluxbox desktop to bring up the main menu the select:

Applications->Terminal Emulators->XTerm

If you found this helpful you might also like my guide to accessing files on XBMC Live.

Copy Files to XBMC Live with sFTP and FileZilla

2011-09-08T00:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick guide to connecting to XBMC Live via sFTP using FileZilla. This will enable you to copy files to and from your XBMC Live installation. By default XBMC Live installs an SSH server so you don't need to do any configuration on the actual XBMC box.

First you need to install FileZilla, if you are on Ubuntu just search for it in the Software Center or if you are using OSX or Windows you can download it here.

Next you need the IP address of your XBMC box, you can find this out by going to Settings->System Info->Summary

Now you have the IP address of your XBMC box open FileZilla and enter the following settings:

Host: your XBMC box IP address
Username: the username you chose during XBMC installation
Password: the password you chose during XBMC installation
Port: 22

*NOTE: if you did not do a HDD install of XBMC Live and are running it off a memory stick use the default XBMC Live credentials.
Username: xbmc
Password: xbmc

You can now easily copy files to and from you XBMC Live box.

Install Java(JRE) on XBMC Live

2011-09-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

I had some trouble getting the Sun Java 6 JRE running on my new XBMC Live 10.1 Dharma installation so I figured I would write it down for anyone else having similar problems. Here are the steps to get java up and running.

First drop into a command line or SSH into your XBMC HTPC. To do this you can go to the shutdown menu and select the "Exit" option. You then need to log in with your XBMC Live username and password that you set up during installation. Now you're at the terminal just enter the following:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts java-common sun-java6-bin unixodbc odbcinst1debian1 odbcinst

and that's it, have fun!

BTW: just out of interest what are you installing java for on XBMC Live for? I was doing it to get some humble bundle games working but I'm interested in what other people are doing with their setup so leave a comment if you found this useful.

XBMC TV v0.1 - Streaming XBMC Plugin

2011-08-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce the initial release of my XBMC Plugin, XBMCTV. The XBMCTV plugin provides easy access to thousands of streaming videos from many sources around the net. The plugin requires XBMC Dharma, if you're not familiar with XBMC you can read up about it here.

The current features:
Around 2000 videos available
Browse videos by category
View latest videos
Browse by channel
Browse by show

The latest version of the plugin can be found here:
http://jamespcole.com/xbmctv/www/plugin_builds/

To install the plugin just follow these steps:

Download the ZIP file and save to a location accessible by XBMC.

Open XBMC and browse to System > Add-ons > Install from zip file.

Browse to the file you downloaded and select it.

source

After installation the plugin will appear under Videos > Video Add-ons > XBMCTV

At the moment the video collection is limited to a few thousand streams so if you have any video RSS feeds you want added then leave a link in the comments below. Also any feature requests are welcome just leave them in the comments.

Elementery OS Jupiter Review

2011-08-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

I've been using Elementary OS on my home development machine and netbook for a couple of months now and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with it. The current Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu 10.10 and is bought to you by the same team that creates the highly popular elementary themes and nautlius customisations for Ubuntu. I guess I woud call Elementary more of an Ubuntu remix than a full fledged distro, it's essentially the Ubuntu core with a different set of default installed apps and all the elementary team's sweet eye-candy and themes pre-installed and configured.

The default desktop configuration, looking minimal and quite spartan.

You'll get smaller set of installed apps compared to a regular Ubuntu install but the software center is pre-installed so you can install anything you want in just a couple of clicks. One of the things that lets the current release down in the default browser which is Midori, it looks nice and is webkit based but just isn't ready for general use yet, it has a ton of bugs and felt really unstable. No problem though you can just install Chrome, Chromium or Firefox easily.

Ubuntu Software Center in Elementary OS

The choice of colours and icons in Elementary makes it look a little like OSX which I was put off by at first, being a big fan of dark themes. Fortunately the rest of the Elementary configuration is very similar to the way I like to customise my Ubuntu setup anyway, with a minimal look, Docky, desktop icons turned off and elementary nautilus etc. However the Elementary theme gives the whole OS a light and breezy feel which makes it a pleasure to use and somehow seems much snappier than a standard Ubuntu install. Perhaps due to the smaller number of pre-installed apps. Although after a while you notice the similarity to OSX is only slight and that the UI/UX is actually quite different. I also added compiz to my setup for some extra bells and whistles and as you would expect everything works flawlessly.

Compiz widow switching in Elementary OS

Compiz workspace switcher Elementary OS

While the current 'Jupiter' release is bassed on Ubuntu 10.10 the new 'Luna' release will be based on Ubuntu 11.10 and should be arriving around November. The upcoming 'Luna' release will bring a whole bunch if improvements including Elementary's very own app launcher alled 'Slingshot'.

Overall the first release of Elementary OS is a great start and even though it is a first release it is very stable and I have been using it every day with no issues. So if you want a fast, pretty and lightweight version of Ubuntu then give Elementary OS a try.

AMOLED Screens Will Change the Future of UI Design

2011-07-19T17:02:00.000-07:00

The latest Super AMOLED Plus screen such as the one featured in the new Samsung Galaxy S II will begin having a real impact on UI design.

Why is that? you ask.

The latest generation of AMOLED screen use little to no power when displaying black pixels. This means that on a mobile devices it is much more power efficient to use black pixels as much as possible. I think this will mean that in the coming years mobile devices will increasingly use darker UIs in order to increase the battery life of their devices. Android seems to have already made the decision to have black backgrounds on their UI quite a while ago and it makes me wonder whether this choice was purely aesthetic or a very far sighted engineering decision based on the likelihood that in future mobile screens would have 0 power black pixels.

Does this mean we could see a revision of the rather light iOS UI in the coming years to a more efficient and stern black based UI? Probably not, but it is interesting that the latest Meego builds for the N900 also use a light coloured theme by default but in the upcoming Nokia N9 running Meego with an AMOLED screen they have opted for a very black theme. See here: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/21/nokia-n9-first-hands-on/

Anyway only time will tell but for my $0.02 I'd say that in future of UI design black is the new black.

Enable Docky Settings in Elementary OS

2011-06-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

I've been testing out the latest Elementary OS(Jupiter) on my Netbook. Elementary uses Docky as the default dock, it's a great app and I have used it extensively on standard Ubuntu. By default the dock does not autohide and on my 1024x768 netbook it's using way too much screen space. For some reason the Elementary team have decided to hide the dock settings by default.

To enable the Docky settings icon to appear in the dock do the following:

Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or using the menus go Applications->Accessories->Terminal

Enter this at the terminal and hit enter:

gconftool-2 --set "/apps/docky-2/Docky/Items/DockyItem/ShowDockyItem" --type bool "true"

The Docky settings icon should appear on the left hand side of the dock.

It's the anchor icon on the far left

Alternatively you can do it via a GUI using gconf-editor. To start gconf-editor open a terminal type gconf-editor and hit enter.

Select the "ShowDockyItem" option

Installing LAMP on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

2011-06-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

This is a short guide to setting up LAMP(Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal.
If you are using 10.10 you can check out my LAMP setup guide here.

First step is pretty easy, open a terminal and enter the following:

sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

During the installation process you will be asked to enter you MySQL root password, after that you have a basic lamp stack set up.

The following steps are optional but recommended:

Install CURL for php.

sudo apt-get install php5-curl

Install mod rewrite for url rewriting.

sudo a2enmod rewrite

sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

This will open your sites config file, now find the XML block that looks like this:

<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

change the AllowOverride directive from "None" to "All". The result should look like this

<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

now save and close the file.

Next restart Apache for the changes to take effect.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

And that's it, happy coding!

Installing Google Chrome in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

2011-06-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

The deb package from Google Chrome download site does not currently work with Ubuntu 11.04(Natty Narwhal). Luckily it's easy to just add the chrome PPA and install from the command line.

Open a terminal(Ctrl + Alt + T) and enter the following:

sudo -s

echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -

apt-get update

sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

exit

And now chrome should be installed, have fun.

Simple PHP oAuth example for Facebook Graph API

2011-02-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

I needed to implement oAuth for the the Facebook graph API today and couldn't find any straight forward php examples so I thought I would post this in case any else is in a similar situation.

The basic process for the authentication is outlined here so I won't go into the details of it. In the example below the bit you'll need to take note of is the "scope" parameter in the link, this defines the permissions you are requesting. To see a full list of available permissions click here.

You'll also need to sign up for an API key first and register your application with Facebook, you can sign up here.

Step 1:
In your page make a link like this:

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=<?=FACEBOOK_APP_ID?>&redirect_uri=
<?=urlencode('http://yoursite.com/fb_oauth_return.php')?>
&scope=offline_access,user_checkins,friends_checkins">Connect with Facebook</a>

Step 2:
Create a page called fb_oauth_return.php which contains the following code

<?
if(!isset($_GET["error"]))
{

 if(isset($_GET["code"]))
 {
  $code = $_GET["code"];    
  $url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id='.FACEBOOK_APP_ID.'&redirect_uri='.urlencode('http://yoursite.com/fb_oauth_return.php').'&client_secret='.FACEBOOK_SECRET.'&code='.$code;
  
  $curl_handle=curl_init();
  curl_setopt($curl_handle,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
  curl_setopt($curl_handle,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,6);
  curl_setopt($curl_handle,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
  $buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
  curl_close($curl_handle);    
  if(strpos($buffer, 'access_token=') === 0)
  {
   //if you requested offline acces save this token to db 
   //for use later   
   $token = str_replace('access_token=', '', $buffer);
      
   //this is just to demo how to use the token and 
   //retrieves the users facebook_id
   $url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/me/?access_token='.$token;
   $curl_handle=curl_init();
   curl_setopt($curl_handle,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
   curl_setopt($curl_handle,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,2);
   curl_setopt($curl_handle,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
   $buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
   curl_close($curl_handle);
   $jobj = json_decode($buffer);
   $facebook_id = $jobj->id;
   
   
  }
  else
  {
   //do error stuff
  }
 }
}
else
{
 //do error stuff
}
?>

And that's it. If you requested offline access you'll need to save the token to your database so that you can use it to make requests on the user's behalf later.

Nokia + WP7 and the fate of Meego

2011-02-11T12:34:00.000-08:00

Big news for Nokia and WP7 fans today with the announcement of a partnership between Nokia and Micosoft to release a range of WP7 based Nokia handsets. Hopefully for Nokia this can help increase their flagging smartphone market share. However for me this raises some importatnt questions about the fate of Meego which I was really looking forward to seeing hit the handset market this year. Sadly it looks like there will not be the proliferation of Meego devices I was hoping to see. Nokia released a rather cryptic statement about future Meego development:

"MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices."

What this actually means remains to be seen but they have confirmed they will release one Meego handset this year. Given that the scope of Meego is quite broad, aimed at everything from in vehicle systems to netbooks we may see it popping up on other devices soon it's clear that it will not be Nokia's focus for it's return to the smartphone market in the short term.

I hope there is still a future for Meego on handsets especially with the announcement of the Dalvik Alien VM for running Android apps on non Android devices which would combine the existing Android development ecosystem with Nokia's handsets. Given that Meego is a partnership between Intel and Nokia I would be interested to hear Intel's thoughts on this new deal.

This is certainly sad news for fans of Maemo 5, Meego and open source operating systems generally but WP7 is a solid mobile OS and Nokia definitely need to move away from Symbian if they want to be taken seriously in the high end smartphone market. This new gambit with WP7's success will be highly dependent on how much traction WP7 can achieve with consumers over the next year or so. I'm also guessing that Microsoft is hoping to piggy back on Nokia's brand reputation and following in order to get the general public interested in WP7 which, while still in it's early stages, has yet to gain much of a following amongst consumers.

While Maemo 5 is a truly excellent mobile OS and Meego has tons of potential I fear that this may be the end of Meego handsets as a serious competitor to Android and iOS, at least in 2011.

Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12427680
http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/item/12571_Alien_Dalvik_hopes_to_bring_An.php

Backpacking Essentials for the Geek - what to take with you

2011-02-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

I usually write about tech but this week I thought I would try something a little different and talk about setting up the perfect backpack for the travelling geek. If you're planning a long backpacking trip there are a few items I find make life on the road a bit more comfortable.

The essentials:

1. A Netbook
Netbooks are a blessing for the modern backpacker and provide several advantages over lugging around a laptop. Most 9-inch netbooks weigh less than a kilogram but provide you with a fully functional computer that you can take anywhere. They are also crazy cheap($300 - $400) so losing/getting wet/stolen is not the huge financial blow it would be with an expensive laptop. Your netbook will let you do all your skype calling, emailing, photo uploading as well as watching episodes and movies in bed on your downtime nights. Also given that most hotels and hostels have wifi you can get internet access pretty much anywhere and you can now avoid using the painfully slow, virus laden public access computers in your hostel. Personally I use an Asus T91 running Ubuntu, it's only 9" and weighs around 900 grams so you barely notice you are carrying it.

Asus eee Netbook, 9" and 900 grams awesome for your backpack

2. A carrier unlocked Smartphone
In most countries getting a pre-paid SIM card takes about ten minutes and is super cheap so having an unlocked phone will end up saving you a ton of money and hassle in the long run. If you're like me and you're not willing to take an awesome expensive camera around with you I find my HTC Hero and HTC Desire have great cameras and replace the need to take a point and click with me. It's also an Mp3 player and GPS so that's two less things to carry.

3. Spare Rechargeable Batteries
I always carry rechargeable batteries with generic plugs for recharging my phone, Nintendo DS and kindle when I don't have access to mains power as well as a spare phone battery. Having your mp3 player running out of power 5 hours into a 30 hour train ride is no fun so make sure you always have backup power.

Something like this portable battery pack

4. Headphones and Adapters
A good pair of bud earphones is essential, you can take over the ear style ones but you always need to be precious with them so they don't get crushed and ultimately I don't think the added sound quality is worth the effort. The ear plug style buds are best for this as they blog out more external sound which you will really appreciate when you are on a bus with blaring Hindi pop music. Also take a headphone splitter so that you can share what you are watching/listening to with the person next to you. I also recommend picking up an adapter for the headphone jacks they use on airplanes so you can use your own headphones with the in flight entertainment.

These do a great job of blocking out external sound

5. Cables, Adapters and Chargers
The possibilities here are endless but these are what I always take:
- A short length of cat 5
- Mini USB to USB
- Micro USB to USB
- 3.5mm jack to stereo RCA
- 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo cord
- VGA Cable
- DVI to VGA Adapter
- Headphone Splitter
- AC Power adapters for various countries
- AC power to USB

- Car to USB

- A multi-card reader

6. Data Storage (The Cloud is your friend)
You'll want somewhere to store your data while you are on the road and if you want to bring episodes and movies with you then you'll need some storage. There are a few options here either and external drive, usb sticks and memory cards. The external drive will give you the most bang for your buck but after having two of them die on me while travelling I decided to buy a bunch of large memory sticks and memory cards instead, a little pricier but worth it. Make sure you back up your photos to the cloud using something like DropBox or Ubuntu One as often as possible, backing up photos to your memory stick won't do you any good if you lose your backpack.

7. A torch + spare batteries

This one is a no brainer and you'll be surprised how often you use it. I use a mini maglite which does a great job.

Definitely worth the space in your pack

8. Passport Photos and a Pen

Most countries still require filling out visa applications and entry cards so having a pen means you can fill everything out and get through customs as fast as possible. Also most countries will require a passport photo attached to the visa application and not needing to get photos at the only photo booth in the airport will save some serious hassle and cash. Just remember not to put the photos in with your check-in luggage!

Nice to have:
1. A Nintendo DS
Amazing battery life, tons of games and r4 cards plus wifi multiplayer, why wouldn't you want to.

2. A Kindle
Awesome for reading on the go. Great battery life, small and light plus the global 3g coverage if you go for the more expensive model means you can shop for books online almost anywhere.

3. A hip flask
Really great to have on a long train trip or a long day of hiking or trekking where space and weight are at a premium.

4. Travel speakers
If you can get some good travel speakers they really come in handy.

Installing Skype on Meego 1.1

2010-12-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

To install skype on Meego 1.1 first head over the skype downloads page and download the latest Fedora rpm. Now open a terminal and type:

sudo zypper install skype-2.1.0.81-fc10.i586.rpm

You will receive a warning like this:
Problem: nothing provides qt4-x11 >= 4.2 needed by skype-2.1.0.81-fc10.i586
Solution 1: do not install skype-2.1.0.81-fc10.i586
Solution 2: break skype by ignoring some of its dependencies
Choose from above solutions by number or cancel [1/2/c] (c): c

Just select option 2 and continue with the installation.

Skype running on Meego 1.1

Notice in the screen shot the font is all messed up? That's because of the missing QT4 dependency. Everything still works fine though so it's not a huge deal. Hopefully the QT4 dependency will be added to the 1.1 repository soon and the problem will be fixed. I'm pleased to report that my mic and webcam worked without any configuration. If anyone knows a solution to the font problem please leave a comment.

Installing Dropbox on Meego 1.1

2010-12-18T03:35:00.000-08:00

Installing Dropbox on Meego 1.1 is pretty straight forward. Head over to the Dropbox Linux Downloads page and download the latest Dropbox Fedora rpm. Then open a terminal and enter:

sudo zypper install nautilus-dropbox-0.6.7-1.fedora.i386.rpm

now reboot and then open Dropbox from the applications menu.

Here's one I prepared earlier

Installing the latest XBMC Dharma Release in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-12-17T20:08:00.000-08:00

To install the latest builds of XBMC Dharma in Ubuntu 10.10 open a terminal and enter the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc-svn/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

And it's that easy!
You can now find XBMC under Applications -> Sound and Video -> XBMC Media Center

Jolicloud 1.1 Review

2010-12-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

The latest version of Jolicloud 1.1 was released a few days ago so naturally I decided to install it and see what has changed since the 1.0 release. For those of you not familiar with Jolicloud it is a great little Ubuntu based, cloud oriented operating system aimed at netbooks and low end hardware. They have even started selling their own hardware too with the recent release of the Jolibook. Things are looking good with a lot of UI and user experience improvements.

The new Jolicloud desktop, looking good.

Probably the biggest change is in the underlying Ubuntu version which has been upgraded from 9.04 to 10.04 LTS.

One of my favourite things about Jolicloud is the hardware support which is comprehensive and hassle free, even my troublesome GMA 500 graphics card works out of the box.

The Jolicloud App Store

Overall there aren't a whole lot of changes on the surface but the Ubuntu upgrade and a general tightening up of the UI and UX makes Jolicloud a whole lot nicer.

What phone to buy and why

2010-11-26T06:34:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked by someone which phone would be the best phone for them which got me thinking about the different reasons people choose their phones. As far as I can tell there are 3 main categories of phone buyers with very different expectations and usage patterns. Phone users seem to fall into 1 of 3 categories:

People who just want a phone for making calls and SMS.
People who want power, choice and openness.
People that want a fashion accessory.

Luckily there lots of choices out there to meet every niche so I'll give a rundown of the top 3 choices in order of handset sales.

Nokia:
If you want a phone that just makes calls and SMS and does it well get a Nokia. You can spend anything from $80 to $700 on a Nokia depending on what features you want. I've owned many Nokia's over the years and they have all been awesome at just being a phone(and admittedly not much else). I recently purchased a Nokia N900 based on Maemo 5 which strikes a nice balance between being a phone but also providing the features you expect in a modern smartphone. I've only used the N8 in a store but it seemed pretty nice and has actually gotten pretty good reviews despite being based on the older Symbian operating system.

Android:
If you like choice, freedom and power you'll want to grab something running Android and you are certainly spoiled for choice with nearly every major hardware vendor(except Nokia and Apple) providing a range of Android based devices. Android has a ton of Apps available and you'll be able to find one to suit almost anything you want to do. Android works well for both the geek and non-geek with a nice UI and easy integration with google services, Facebook, Twitter etc. If you're a geek you'll love the ability to hack, modify and customise your phone to your hearts content. Also the Android Market's fairly open policies mean you'll be able to enjoy features iPhone users can only dream of(without jail breaking) like flash, native apps for remotely controlling torrents or even downloading them directly to your phone. You can also easily change your input methods to alternative keyboards like Swype, install third party UI's or use your phone as a wireless router.

iPhone:
If you want something that will look great next to your chai latte while you work on your screenplay at Starbucks then this is the phone for you. We've all used iPhone's and you pretty much know what you are getting into, they are solid and usable, but in comparison to the multitude of Android devices available you'll get better value if you shop elsewhere. The iPhone UI is also in need of some overhauling and hasn't changed a lot since the original iPhone and is starting to look a little 2007. In the last year iPhone has fallen behind Android in terms of features and sales with 3 Android phones being sold for every 2 iPhones sold. That being said the iPhone is still a classic and iconic piece of hardware.

In the end they all do pretty much the things that we expect from a phone, make calls, SMS and email, play mp3's and video, browse the web(except for the low end Nokias) so the choice is really just down to personal preference and dependent on your needs and budget. I realise that there are a ton more choices out there but I just wanted to cover the top 3 selling phones at the moment. Windows Phone 7 might shake things up a bit but there are no reliable sales figures yet and until features like tethering and cut & paste are added it's probably not the best choice for most people. I'll be picking up a WP7 phone after christmas so I'll be taking a closer look at what WP7 offers soon(especially the development side of things).

Dual Boot Meego on the Nokia N900

2010-11-03T01:24:00.000-07:00

Last week the latest image of Meego for the Nokia N900 was officially released so I figured I'd pick up an N900 and give it a try.

The Nokia N900

While Meego is coming along(particularly the Netbook version) the latest N900 release is definitely just for developers, testers and hackers and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everyday use. There are a lot of rough edges at the moment but it's nice to get a look at what Intel and Nokia have in store for us. While you probably won't see Meego handsets hitting the market till around Q3 2011 hopefully we'll see some more complete and usable builds for the N900 coming out before then. I'll be taking a more in depth look at Meego and the N900 in general but for now here is a short video of Meego running on my N900 dual booted with Maemo 5.

If you're interested in dual booting Meego and Maemo 5 you can follow the instruction found here:
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/Dual_Boot

Installing Synergy on Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Synergy is a great program that lets you share your keyboard and mouse between multiple computers. It's a must have if you have multiple computers on your desk and has some great features like a shared clipboard so you can cut and paste text from one computer to another. If you haven't used Synergy before it's works like a normal multi-monitor setup except when you move your cursor off the edge of your screen you are controlling a different computer. A good example is when I have my laptop at work I put it next to my desktop machine and have synergy set up so that when I move the cursor off the right hand side of my screen the mouse and keyboard attached to my desktop are now moving the cursor and typing on the laptop. For this to work you need to have both computers connected to a network and Synergy installed.

One of the best things about Synergy is that it is cross platform and works with Linux, Windows and OSX. The easiest way to use Synergy on Ubuntu is to install QuickSynergy which provides a GUI for managing screens and connections.

The QuickSynergy UI on Ubuntu 10.10

There are two ways to install QuickSynergy, either open the Ubuntu Software Center and search for "synergy" or type the following at the terminal:

sudo apt-get install quicksynergy

The QuickSynergy icon will now appear in your "Accessories" menu.

I have also written up a guide to installing QuickSynergy in Meego:
http://setupguides.blogspot.com/2010/09/installing-synergy-in-meego.html

Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP5(LAMP) on Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

Setting up LAMP(Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP) stacks is something I do quite often and in Ubuntu 10.10 it's really easy. Just open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install tasksel

and then:

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

and that's it, you will be prompted to enter information during the installation such as MySQL password etc. during the installation process.

To check apache is up and running visit http://127.0.0.1 in your browser.

Note: the default web root is /var/www

Some other useful stuff:

I always need to use CURL too, to install CURL for php just type this:

sudo apt-get install php5-curl

and mod rewrite for apache:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

After installing mode rewrite or CURL you need to restart apache like this:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install Modern Warfare 2(MW2) on Ubuntu 10.10 with Steam

2010-10-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

Installing Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2(MW2) with Steam is very simple in Ubuntu 10.10. I assume that running the standard MW2 installation in Wine will also work fine but seeing as I am a Steam user I decided to take the extra step of installing MW2 via Steam. Everything works great too, I am running the game at 1920x1080 with no lag or choppiness. The installation is basically the same as the Windows installation except for the extra step of installing Wine.

Step 1: Install Wine
To install steam and play the game you will need to first install Wine. To install the latest version of Wine simply open the "Ubuntu Software Center" and the search for "wine" and the install "Wine Microsoft Windows Compatibility Later(Beta Realease)".

Installing Wine via the Ubuntu Software Center

Step 2: Install Steam
To install Steam just head over to the steam website http://store.steampowered.com/about/ and download the Windows installer. After you have downloaded the installer you need to give the file execute permissions before you can run it so just right click the file and go "Properties" -> "Permissions Tab" and then check "Allow executing file as program". Now just double click the installer and the Steam install wizard will appear and you can just follow the steps as you normally would

Steam running in Ubuntu 10.10 with Wine

Step 3: Install MW2
This step is pretty damn easy, just install MW2 via Steam like you would normally on Windows and then you are good to go. Note: the installing DirectX step of the MW2 installer took a while to complete, don't worry it works just give it a few minutes.

MW2 running like a dream on Ubuntu 10.10

So that's really it, super easy and working perfectly.

I'm really pleased with the performance of MW2 using Wine and Steam, up until now I have kept a dual boot with Win7 for playing games but now I can finally do away with Windows altogether.

Calibrating Touchscreen in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

After installing Ubuntu 10.10 on my Asus eee T91 I was pleased to notice the touchscreen was working out of the box. Unfortunately the calibration was off and I could not find the calibration utility.

These instructions are now deprecated and I recommend using the xinput_calibrator utility which can be found here:

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xinput_calibrator

This old method is left here for reference only.

I was able to successfully calibrate my screen using the following method:

Open a terminal and type the following:

xinput list

You should see something like this:

⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]

⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ IDEACOM IDC 6680 id=8 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ IDEACOM IDC 6680 id=9 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=13 [slave pointer (2)]

⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]

↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ Sleep Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ USB 2.0 Camera id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ Asus EeePC extra buttons id=11 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=12 [slave keyboard (3)]

Note where it has the first "IDEACOM IDC 6680", that's your touchscreen. There should be an id in the second column ie. "id=8"

pass the id into the next command(I'm using 8 as the example)

xinput set-int-prop 8 "Evdev Axis Calibration" 32 300 7900 400 7800

That should have set your screen calibration, the last 4 values are the actual calibration numbers. You may need to tweak these numbers for your monitor, so just fiddle with the values and rerun the command until you are happy with the calibration.

At the moment you will lose your calibration when you reboot so to make it permanent do the following:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/Xsession.d/98x11-common_touchscreen

Paste you calibration command from the step above into the file and save.

This will run the command on bootup so your calibration is now set. If anyone finds a better way to do this please post a comment.

These instructions were adapted from posts on this thread on the Ubuntu forums:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1237709&page=35

Note: I have been experiencing a bug using the touchscreen where every 4th press or so it seems to register as a drag operation rather than a click. If anyone finds a solution to this please post a comment.

Installing Elegant Gnome on Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite things about Ubuntu is the ability to customize the UI and installing Elegant Gnome is one of the first things I do after a fresh installation. Elegant Gnome is a theme pack that gives your desktop a very slick look(compared to the default theme) including matching Firefox and Chrome themes and an awesome icon set.

My netbook with Elegant Gnome showing the nautilus theme, also using Docky

To install this theme in Ubuntu 10.10 just do the following:

Open a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

nautilus -q

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elegant-gnome/ppa && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install elegant-gnome ttf-droid

then go Applications -> Accessories -> Elegant Gnome and select install pack

After reboot go to System -> Administration ->Update Manager and update otherwise nautilus UI will be missing icons.

Adapted from the 10.04 instructions found here:

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/09/elegant-gnome-theme-pack-07-released.html

Fixing Docky compositing error in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-11T00:33:00.000-07:00

After installing Ubuntu 10.10 on my Asus eee T91 with the GMA500 drivers and no compiz enabled I installed Docky and received the following error:

"Docky requires compositing to work properly. Please enable compositing and restart docky."

To fix this error type the following at the terminal:

gconftool-2 -s --type bool /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager true

then restart Docky.

Here's one I prepared earlier, running with the new GMA500 PPA and no Compiz

Note: If you are wondering about the theme and icons check out my post on installing Elegant Gnome here.

Installing gma500(poulsbo) drivers in Ubuntu 10.10

2010-10-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

To install the GMA500 drivers on your Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meercat install do the following:
Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config

then reboot.

Your screen resolution should now be correct.

NOTE: using the gma500(poulsbo) with Ubuntu is not recommended for new Ubuntu users as you will not have the full Ubuntu experience due to the proprietary nature of the drivers. Please understand this is not an Ubuntu issue but is related to copyright and intellectual property rights associated with this chipset. If you are a new Ubuntu user and want out of the box support for the gma500 Jolicloud does a pretty good job.

Hope this helps.

I also recommend checking out my guide to installing Elegant Gnome a great theme for Ubuntu.

The Mobile Platform Wars

2010-09-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

We live in exciting times for mobile operating systems, like watching the birth and evolution of the desktop operating system we are now witnessing the same process take place on our mobile devices. While for many the battle of mobile platforms seems to be a two horse race between Android(Google) and iOS(Apple) we are really just at the beginning of ensuing struggle for market dominance with two new mobile operating systems(Windows Phone 7 and Meego) scheduled to arrive within a year. We are about to see 6 big players Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry OS, WebOS and Meego fighting for your hard earned dollars. Each one of these have huge industry players behind them so it's bound to be a tough fight. Here is a list of major backers for each operating system, some of the biggest companies in the tech world.

Android: Google
iOS: Apple
Windows Phone 7: Microsoft
Meego: Intel and Nokia
Blackberry: RIM
WebOS: HP

While Nokia's Symbian still remains the clear market leader at 40% share globally, over double the size of the next biggest contender, Android at 17%, it is rapidly losing market share. With Symbian^3 released earlier this year and Symbian^4 slated for release next year it's clear that Symbian will be around for a while on Nokia's low cost handsets. Despite the fact it doesn't get much press the market for cheaper "dumb phones" is still huge particularly in the developing world where demand for rugged, low cost, low power handsets still remains the dominant market force. Nokia is now pinning its hopes for a slice of the smartphone market on its partnership with Intel to create a range of Intel powered mobile devices running their newly developed OS Meego. You won' be getting you're hands on a Meego handset any time soon though, possibly mid 2011 at the earliest. Meego is also Intel's bid for a piece of the lucrative smartphone processor market which is currently dominated by ARM.

How many major players can the market for smartphones support? At the moment there are really two markets for smartphones, the consumer market and the business market. The consumer market is dominated by Android and iOS and the business market mainly by Blackberry and Windows CE. It's difficult to say at the moment whether this two market situation will remain or if WP7 will bring in consumers or if Android can win over businesses. The lacklustre response to RIM's latest flagship, the BlackBerry Torch, is a huge blow to RIM who, like Nokia, have fallen behind Android and iOS in terms of popularity, usability and features and are rapidly losing market share. The desktop operating system market only manages to support 3 major players, Windows(Microsoft), OSX(Apple) and Linux(Mainly Ubuntu by Canonical and also various other Linux distros). If it is fair to draw the comparison then someone is going to lose out and with so much money at stake failure will be disastrous for those involved.

The recent purchase of Palm by HP and the upcoming release of WebOS 2.0 means that we'll start seeing a bunch of new hardware hitting the market soon. HP's plans to enter the consumer tablet market will mean we should start seeing WebOS tablets appearing in 2011 as well as a range of smarthpones.

Android and WP7 will also be vying for the affections of phone manufacturers given that they do not produce their own hardware but rather supply their OS to manufacturers such as HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorolla and more. Depending on the reception that WP7 gets with consumers it could replace Android as the current favourite with both manufacturers and consumers.

Adding to this is the burgeoning market for tablets which opens up another battleground for the mobile OS market. With the release of the iPad and a ton of Android and Windows 7 powered tablets and more on the way as well as RIM's announcement of it's new PlayBook things are just starting to heat up in the tablet world.

In the current App driven market there is also the need for any mobile platform to attract developers. Each mobile OS needs to provide developers with a set of easy to use tools and a clear revenue stream like Google's Android Market and Apple's App store. The ability to attract developers can make or break a mobile platform as consumers now expect the high degree of customisability and choice provided by having a huge pool of applications to choose from. Can WP7 and Meego's new development environment be able to lure developers away from Android and iOS? It's way too early to say but it's clear that winning the hearts and minds of developers will be critical to success.

Who will win? It's far too early too tell but one things for sure, the next few years are going to be mighty interesting and critical to the future success of some of the biggest names in technology.

Meego on HTC Desire, Nexus One and Dell Streak

2010-09-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

If you've been following the development of Meego and are hanging out for some hardware to actually run the handset version on you might be in luck. Some crafty guys have managed to get the Meego running on the HTC Desire, Dell Streak and Nexus One using a modified version of the ARM based Nokia N900 ROM. The project seems to be in its early stages and of course the Meego handset edition is nowhere near ready for prime time at the moment but if you're like me and you're dying to try it out without forking out for an N900 then things are looking promising.

You can read the juicy details over at the Meego wiki:
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/MSMQSD

You can check out a video of Meego actually running on the HTC Desire below:

Video Source: http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/MSMQSD

Installing Synergy in Meego

2010-09-23T01:19:00.000-07:00

I love Meego on my Asus eee 1000HA and figured I would incorporate it into my work setup as a third screen for email etc.

The Meego home screen for those not familiar with it.

Obviously I wanted to be able to control everything from the same keyboard and mouse so I figured I would use one of my favourite apps - Synergy. If you haven't used Synergy before check it out here. It allows you to use a single keyboard and mouse to control several computers, great if you have multiple computers on your desk.

One of the great features is that it is cross platform and works with Linux, Windows and OSX. As it turns out it is really simple to set up in Meego, just one line at the terminal in fact:

sudo yum install quicksynergy

FYI: to open the terminal in Meego go:
"applications" tab ->System->Terminal

This actually installed quicksynergy which includes a GUI for managing connections. To start quicksynergy just type "quicksynergy" at the terminal or go:
"applications" tab ->Internet->QuickSynergy

The QuickSynergy UI running in Meego V1.0

If you are interested in running Meego you need to check your hardware compatibility first, a list of supported hardware is here. As you'll notice it's a pretty short list, I'm using it on a Asus 1000HA
which is one of the few supported platforms. If you do have the right hardware it's well worth checking out.

XBMC ABC Australia, BBC, CBC and more Radio Plugin

2010-09-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

**NOTE: this will no longer work in the latest releases of XBMC Dharma and is left here in case anyone is still running older versions

This is a simple plugin I wrote to access some of my favourite radio stations on XBMC. Currently supports ABC Australia, BBC, CBC, Deutsche Welle(English) and RRR Melbourne.

The Plugin can be downloaded here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/XBMC-radio-plugin.zip

To install the plugin in XBMC simply unzip file above and then copy the folder into the appropriate XBMC plugin folder. For installation instructions for your particular platform(Linux, Windows, OSX, Live) see this post in the XBMC wiki.

You will need to place the plugin in your music plugins folder.

If you have any stations you want me to add leave a link to the stream in the comments and I will add it.

If you are into HTPCs I recommend checking out the Boxee Box. It's released around Novemeber 2010 and looks freakin' sweet.

You can pre-order them now on Amazon.com.

ABC Australia XBMC Video Plugin

2010-09-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

**NOTE: this will no longer work in the latest releases of XBMC Dharma and is left here in case anyone is still running older versions

This simple XBMC plugin allows you to watch ABC Australia shows in XBMC.

The plugin can be downloaded here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/XBMC_ABC%20Australia-plugin.zip

If you are using XBMC live you can just FTP in to copy the files across.

NOTE: Most shows will work from outside Australia but some streams are geo-locked(meaning they can't be watched outside of Australia)

Setting a static IP in XBMC Live

2010-09-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are not familiar with XBMC I highly recommend checking it out. It started out as a mod for the original XBox and has since developed into a really nice, cross-platform(Linux, OSX, Windows) HTPC interface. XBMC has since spawned several successful variants such as Boxee and Plex.

Also on offer is XBMC Live which is a stripped down version of Ubuntu designed to just run XBMC and give your HTPC a nice set top box kind of feel, without having to deal with the underlying operating system. You can boot XBMC Live from CD, USB or do a HDD install for a permanent installation.

Up till now i have been running Ubuntu 10.04 UNR with XBMC installed but I figured I'd try out XBMC live because I liked the neatness of having an entire OS devoted to the single task I want to use the computer for. Also just for the hell of it, i love XBMC and trying out new operating systems.

There's a great guide to setting up your own XBMC box over at LifeHacker:

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-silent-standalone-xbmc-media-center-on-the-cheap

My conclusion: Pretty Damn Good!

I've only been using the new setup for a week so I'm going to hold back my verdict of "Totally Awesome" until I have done some more testing but so far - perfect!

If you're after a weekend project you'll be disappointed because the entire install took 20 minutes and everything worked flawlessly( at least on my acer Revo R1600). That includes all codecs and my cheap generic MCE remote with all the buttons working and mapped as they should be.

However one of the first things I wanted to do was set up a static IP for the box. In the current release you cannot do this via the XBMC interface(I believe this feature will be added soon) so it's time to get our hands dirty editing some files.

Step 1. Open a terminal

to do this click on the power icon in the bottom left hand corner of the XBMC interface then select "Close XBMC".

Step 2. Login and start X

you will be prompted for your username and password, you need to enter them to continue. After entering your login information succesfully run the command "startx". This will log you into a basic GUI running on Fluxbox.

Step 3. Edit your interfaces file

Right click anywhere on the Fluxbox desktop to bring up the main menu the select:

Applications->Terminal Emulators->XTerm

sudo xedit /etc/network/interfaces

the file will look something like this:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

you need to change it to look like this:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.4
gateway 192.168.0.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255

Obviously substituting the example values with the values for you own network.

These settings relate to your network, if you're not sure what these are use the values listed below:

netmask 255.255.255.0

network 192.168.[whatever ip range you are using].0

broadcast 192.168.[whatever ip range you are using].255

After editing you can save and close the file, the static ip address is now set but there is one more step to go, you now need to set your DNS server so you can access sites etc by url.

Step 4. Set your DNS

run this command at the terminal:

sudo xedit /etc/resolv.conf

set the DNS server like so:

nameserver 8.8.8.8

Now save and close the file.

NOTE: I have used the google DNS address (8.8.8.8) you can put your own value here or just use 8.8.8.8.

Now restart your machine and you should be good to go.

Insteon SmartLinc Review

2010-09-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

One line Summary: Not Very Good

I've wanted to get into home automation for a while so I thought I would splash out on an Insteon Smartlinc Plugin Starter Kit, i figured it would be a good weekend project and for $200 i thought - why not? I was pretty disappointed to find out the device is poorly made and does not work as advertised.

First off despite being controlled via a web interface it cannot be accessed by any device running linux. Well actually it can be accessed but because of the bug the load times are intolerable, just to navigate to the button to turn off a light will involve about 2 minutes of loading. "How can that be?" you ask. Amazingly the device does not implement networking protocols correctly and was clearly under tested. Due to this bug it will not communicate properly over a network with any linux device. "Who cares? linux has a pretty small user base" I hear you thinking. Well, ever heard of a little operating system called Android? That's right this device WILL NOT WORK WITH ANDROID. Despite the description on SmartHome's website saying "direct communication via the Internet or Wi-Fi from an iPhone, iPod touch or any other Web-enabled PC, Phone or PDA". After talking to Insteon and SmartHome they are aware of the bug but have no plans to fix it(or update their product description). So if you are running android or linux do not buy this device.

You can check out a detailed assessment of the bug here.

The second huge problem with this device is that despite being a web device you can only(reliably) access it from one browser on one device at a time. Due to the incredibly shoddy design the mechanism for determining a devices's status(On or Off) will only work for one client at a time. That means for instance if you left your browser logged in at home and then go out or to another computer you have no way of know if you devices are on or off. Again Insteon and SmartHome are aware of this and have no plans to fix it(or mention it in the product description apparently, so it's a nice surprise for you after you spend the $200).

There are a bunch more bugs as well(ie. dimming does not work etc.) they have been outlined here.

So in conclusion: the device is poorly designed, tested and coded. It may work for your circumstances and setup but it certainly didn't for me and many others. I could not recommend anyone buying this device. If Insteon was actually going to fix the bugs with a firmware update I might change this opinion as the hardware seems like ok quality but as it stands the device is essentially useless for my needs - despite clearly stating it should work in the product description.

Detect when a user stops typing with jQuery

2010-08-30T12:41:00.001-07:00

When writing forms I frequently find I need to do some of my validation server side(for example checking if a username is already taken) but want to have a responsive real-time field validation displayed to the user. Obviously this effect can be achieved using AJAX but if you want to validate while the user is typing sending an AJAX request on every keypress is a very inefficient way of doing things. It seems to me that a "onInputFinished" event is needed so that you can detect and take action when a user stops typing in an input field.

I had a bit of a google around and couldn't find an elegant solution for it so I decided to roll my own using jQuery. This simple jQuery script allow you to add the "onfinishinput" attribute to HTML input fields in the same way you would use normal onclick and onkeyup events.

you can check out a working example here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/js-example/example.html

Using the Script:

After including the script on your page you can use the new event like this:

<input type="text" onfinishinput="alert('You typed ' + input_field.val())" />

NOTE: instead of using "this" when referring to the element use "input_field" like the example above.

Installing the Script:

The script can be downloaded from here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/js-example/onfinishinput.js

The script requires jQuery to function, the latest jQuery can be downloaded from here:

http://jquery.com/

Just include the scripts on your page and you are ready to go.

Playing AVI MP3 DIVX and MP4 in Meego

2010-06-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

I recently installed Meego V1.0 on my Asus eee 1000HA and I must say I am very pleased with it. One of the most obvious omissions from this release is the ability to play divx, avi, mp3 and mp4 files. I did some googling and managed to figure out how to do it but the process is rather long and involved so I decided to combine it all into a script so you can install or your codecs with one line at the terminal.

One of the few bits of hardware fully supported by Meego.

Since the release of Meego 1.1 there have been some changes so there are now 2 different scripts.

*Note: because of all the compiling the script does it can take over an hour to run so I strongly advise connecting to AC power before running it.

For Meego 1.0
Download the script from here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/divx1-0

Now open a terminal and type:

chmod a+x ./divx1-0
sudo ./divx1-0

For Meego 1.1

Download the script from here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/divx1-1

Now open a terminal and type:

chmod a+x ./divx1-1

sudo ./divx1-1

*Note: you must first cd to the directory where you downloaded the file. ie. if it is in "Downloads" type "cd Downloads" first.

Now reboot(it wouldn't work for me until after a reboot)

This script is based on information found at:

http://www.garypigott.net/result-ive-got-divx-working-on-moblin-2-1/

Thanks to Eduardo Gonçalves for the advice on the 1.1 script.

Now you can enjoy your MP3's and AVI's on Meego.

You can also check out the thread about this on the Meego forums at:

http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?p=3897#post3897

XBMC Web Remote Control for Android and iPhone

2010-05-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

**NOTE: this will no longer work in the latest releases of XBMC Dharma and is left here in case anyone is still running older versions.

For those of you who don't know XBMC it is Home Theatre PC software. What's that you ask? Basically it is software you can run on you computer when it is connected to your television to give you a nice TV and remote control friendly interface for watching movies and listening to music etc. One of the best things about XBMC is that it runs on Linux, Windows and OSX so you can bask in its awesomeness no matter what OS you run.

Unfortunately the current XBMC web interface doesn't really work too well on small touchscreens like those on Android and iPhone so I decided to go ahead and write my own.

This is the Beta version of what I am calling XMBC Web Remote(XBMC-WR). It uses XBMC's built in webserver so installing it is as easy as copying it to XBMC's web folder. The XBMC Web Remote allows you to easily browse, play and queue up music and video from your phone or other touchscreen device.

Some of the key features:

-Ability to browse your Music, Video and Picture libraries

-Queue up videos and music

-View video and music playlists

-Play, pause, volume, etc.

-Menu navigation buttons

The Main Menu screen:

Selecting a video:

Playback Controls:

Installation on Ubuntu:

Step 1 - Enable XBMC web interface

Open XBMC and from the main menu select "System" then "Network".

In the Network Settings menu select "Enable control of XBMC via HTTP".

Step 2 - Install XBMC Remote

Open a terminal and then run the following commands..

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6217043/remote.zip

sudo unzip -d/usr/share/xbmc/web remote.zip

Installation on Windows

Step 1 - Enable XBMC web interface

Open XBMC and from the main menu select "System" then "Network".

In the Network Settings menu select "Enable control of XBMC via HTTP".

Step 2 - Install XBMC Remote

Download and run the installer

Installation on OSX

Step 1 - Enable XBMC web interface

Open XBMC and from the main menu select "System" then "Network".

In the Network Settings menu select "Enable control of XBMC via HTTP".

Step 2 - Install XBMC Remote

I'm not sure where the XBMC install folder is in OSX, I don't have a Mac to test it on. You should be able to download the zip file here and extract it to the "web" folder in you XBMC installation directory. If someone could test this out and let me know I'd appreciate it.

To test that the install is working start XBMC if it is not already running. Next open a browser (preferably Chrome as animations etc will only work in webkit based browsers) and go to the address

http://127.0.0.1:8080/remote

*Note: this assumes you are using the default port 8080

To use the remote from your Android device or iPhone just open a browser and go to:

http://<the ip of your XBMC box>:8080/remote

Any feedback, comments and feature requests are welcome. It is still in Beta so if there is something you would like added let me know and I'll do my best to get it in the final version.

You can check out the XBMC forums thread about the web remote at:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=74343

Blumpit Firefox Plugin for Touchscreens Review and Walkthrough

2010-05-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

I recently tried out a rather nifty Firefox plugin called Blumpit which is designed specifically for touchscreen devices. Blumpit is currently in alpha so it is still a work in progress but the alpha release is relatively stable and functional. My inital thoughts on Blumpit: Almost Awesome! When I say awesome I mean not just the product, but the idea. The use of a Firefox plugin to achieve the end result(ease of browsing on a touch screen) is a very novel idea and also means cross-platform compatibility. When I say almost I mean the product is still in the alpha stage and is not yet considered finished so there are plenty of rough edges. If the Blumpit team can polish it up before the final release then they will have a very slick applic ation which offers a universal touchscreen browsing experience regardless of the OS platform(as long as it runs Firefox).

I think the best feature of Blumpit is the the on screen keyboard. It works well and appears automatically when you click a text input on a web page and slides back into the bottom of the screen when not needed. Another nice feature is the "Web Applications" screen which functions kind of like a desktop, with big glassy icons for all your favourite web apps.

I guess the niche I could see Blumpit filling is for use on convertible netbooks/laptops which combine both a keyboard and a swivel around touchscreen for use in tablet mode. If you are using a touchscreen only device you are probably better off using a touchscreen oriented operating system like Android. I'm using it with the Asus eee T91 and Blumpit provides a quick and easy way for me to switch from a full desktop operating system to a touch based interface without the need to reboot.

One feature that is quite obviously missing from the alpha version is touch screen scrolling, however this can be easily overcome by installing Grab and Drag plugin for Firefox. Another feature that is missing is multi-tabbed browsing which I sincerely hope will be coming in the 1.0 release. Autocomplete on the search box is also missing but will hopefully be in the next release too.

Moblin Netbook Remix Reviewed

2010-04-20T23:35:00.000-07:00

One of the best things to come out of the competition between the many netbook operating systems is the innovation in interface design to accommodate the small screen and the new computing niche netbooks occupy. Netbooks, for me at least, are predominately used for "on the couch" computing and a hardy computer to take backpacking. This new style of computing calls for a different kind of user experience and each netbook OS has its own way of trying to do this. Moblin certainly changes things up, with its sleek clean UI, minimalist icons and tabbed layout it offers an interesting take on netbook interface design.

Now with Ubuntu 9.10 Moblin Remix you can have a pretty Moblin interface running on top of Ubuntu 9.10. I decided to take the latest release for a spin to see how well the Moblin Remix interface works.

The main Moblin screen combines a bunch of widget like components. On the top left you can see your calendar entries for the day and below it your shortcuts to commonly used applications. The center column contains a list of recently opened files and websites. On the right is your Twitter feed which is cool but could be made way cooler by integrating your Facebook feed as well, something like the way Gwibber does it would be sweet.

There is lots of potential here for tighter integration with social networking services, for example on the "Status" tab you can update your Twitter and Google Talk status. Integration with more networks would certainly make this a much better and more useful feature.

On the "People" tab you can view your Google Talk contacts but again no Facebook contacts.

Ubuntu Moblin Remix also includes the "Software Center" for installing common applications. It works fairly well but is pretty sparsely populated at the moment. Hopefully we'll see more apps in future releases.

The Moblin UI uses a concept of "Zones" which is an interesting spin on the traditional alt+tab way of managing windows.

I found the browser a bit cumbersome but I could see how you would get used to it(admittedly I just installed Chrome after the first day).

One of my favourite things about Ubuntu Moblin Remix is the Ubuntu bit. Being able to have a nice netbook UI but with the application and driver support of Ubuntu behind it is really nice. But in the end while the interface looks better than Jolicloud and UNR(IMHO) it seems less usable. I will definitely be trying the next version when it is released but at the moment I just don't think it is ready to be my full time OS. The main problem with Moblin Netbook Remix is that it is not quite finished. There are some glaring omissions from the current release and the whole thing just feels a bit beta-ish. Hopefully the next release will see some big improvements, in particular better use of it's potential to integrate with social networking services.

Installing Ubuntu(Jolicloud) on Acer Aspire Revo R1600

2010-04-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

I recently purchased an Acer Revo R1600 ($249CAD) and seeing as it only came with FreeDos I decided to install Ubuntu on it.

It also comes with a keyboard and mouse

First I tried a live boot with Ubuntu 9.10 and noticed everything was working except the wireless card(Atheros 5000). The wireless did not seem to be detected at all, ifconfig showed no wireless entries and the network manager did not show it either. I decided to install anyway and see if I could get the wireless working. After a lot of googling compiling drivers etc. I still didn't have working wireless. Seeing as wireless is crucial because I am setting up my R1600 as a Home Theatre PC(HTPC). I decided to give the Ubuntu 10.04 Beta a try. Things were a little better, the card was detected but did not function at all.

At this point I figured I would try Jolicloud. If you are not familiar with Jolicloud it is an Ubuntu variant based on version 9.04 designed specifically for netbooks. It has some great features including an "App Store" and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix(UNR) interface which is ideal for small screens or touchscreens. The thing I love most about Jolicloud is the Hardware support. Basically all netbook hardware runs out the box(and on a live boot) including wireless cards, webcams, graphics cards including NVIDIA and the problematic GMA 500 and it even comes with codecs pre-installed.

I tried a live boot of Jolicloud from a usb stick and all the hardware worked flawlessly. The screen was running native resolution at 1920X1080 and the wireless card was detected and working. After an install to the hardrive and an install of XBMC my HTPC is up and running.

Even though Jolicloud is a netbook OS it scales well to larger resolutions, automatically switching to window mode rather than using Maximus which is specifically for small screens. It still uses UNR at higher resolutions but seeing as I am using it as a HTPC and have XBMC running on the occasions when I need to jump out of XBMC to do something UNR works quite well when using the PC from the couch.

All in all 5 stars for Jolicloud. The installation was easy, the hardware support is amazing, I haven't installed a single driver or codec myself and everything is working perfectly.

Some useful links:

Jolicloud Installation Guides

How to install XBMC

Acer Revo R1600 Technical specs

Configuring the D-link DWA-552 PCI Wireless card for Ubuntu 9.10

2010-04-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

When I initially installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on my new dev box with a D-link DWA-552 PCI Wireless card it worked out of the box but experienced frequent dropouts. The dropouts were very frequent(every couple of minutes) and could only be fixed by disconnecting from the network and the re-connecting. After some serious screwing around I installed wicd and the card has worked flawlessly since.

To install wicd simply go to System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager and search for "wicd" then mark for installation and hit apply. This will remove the default network manager and install wicd. You will then need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

After playing around with wicd for a while I think it is better than the default network manager(although not as pretty). It has a lot more options etc.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Enabling Screen Rotate Button for Asus t91 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2010-01-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

After a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on my Asus T91 the screen rotation button was not functioning. After a bit of googling I found this post:

http://www.ced-network.net/blog/2009/08/14/asus-eeepc-t91-and-ubuntu-904jaunty/

The instructions on the are for Ubuntu 9.04 so i have tested them in 9.10. To enable the screen resolution button open a terminal and type the following:

sudo gedit /etc/acpi/events/asus-rotate-t91

then place these two lines in the file and save:

event=hotkey (ATKD|HOTK) 0000007b
action=/etc/acpi/rotatescreen.sh

Now reboot and your screen rotate button should work.

Fixing Asus t91 Microphone on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-12-29T03:02:00.000-08:00

After installing skype on my asus eee t91 running ubuntu 9.10 karmic koala i was unable to get the microphone working in skype(although the web cam worked straight away).

I fixed the problem by doing the following(you'll need to enable backports repositories if you haven't already):
open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic

then reboot.

after rebooting open a terminal and type:

pavucontrol

after running pavucontrol select the input tab and then you can unlock channels and adjust levels etc.

You need to upgrade your alsa version to fix this issue. Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala comes with alsa 1.0.20 in order for the mic to work you need to upgrade to version 1.0.21

To check your current version type this at the terminal:

cat /proc/asound/version

you should get something like this:

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.20.
Compiled on Dec 2 2009 for kernel 2.6.31-16-generic (SMP).

You can install the latest 1.0.21 version by doing the following.

open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/unstable

then type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

After this jump into skype and make a test call, the mic should now be working.

Thanks to this post for the instructions:

http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/ubuntu-karmic-upgrade-alsa-to-1021-from.html

*Note: before finding this solution I had fiddled with some other sound settings so short of doing a fresh install i can't guarantee these are the only steps to getting the mic working. If this solution does not work for you please leave a comment.

Touch Screen for Asus eee T91 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-11-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Getting your T91 touchscreen in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala requires the following steps.

When i did this i configured the graphics card first and the the resolution to 1024x600. I'm not sure if this is a required step but i'd recommend doing it. To find out how you can see my blog post here.

First you need to install the evtouch drivers, open a terminal and type the following

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-evtouch

then reboot, after that the touchscreen will be working but most likely not correctly calibrated. There is an issue with the evtouch screen calibration in 9.10 so you need to run the calibration with no X server running.

The first command will stop X and take you to a terminal so either remember the steps after it or have another computer handy. Open a terminal and type:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

after this you will be asked to log in.

then :

cd /usr/bin

now run the calibration utility.

sudo calibrate_touchscreen

There were no instructions when i ran the calibration tool so here is what you need to do.

once it opens run your stylus around the edge of the screen then hit enter.

The top left cross will then go red, press the center of it and then release, the next cross should then go red. Do this for all 9 crosses and the configuration utility will exit when you click the last one.

next restart X by running

startx

Note, if i didn't restart X and just rebooted from the command line the new configuration was not saved, not sure why.

hope this helps, good luck!

Desktop Effects and Compiz for Asus eee T91 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-11-28T03:42:00.000-08:00

To enable advanced desktop effects/compiz on your Asus eee T91 in Ubuntu 9.10 you will first need to install the Poulsbo(psb) drivers. For instructions on installing the psb drivers check out my post here

Once you have the drivers installed you need to tell Compiz to use them

Open a terminal and type the following:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/compiz

find the "Driver Whitelist" (around line 61) it will look something like this

# Driver whitelist

WHITELIST="nvidia intel ati radeon radeonhd i810 fglrx"

add psb to the front of the list so it looks like this:

# Driver whitelist

WHITELIST="psb nvidia intel ati radeon radeonhd i810 fglrx"

Then reboot

You will now be able to enable desktop effects via System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects.

If you want to have the full Compiz including desktop cube etc open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install compiz compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra emerald librsvg2-common

Then reboot

You can now access Compiz settings via System->Preferences->CompizConfig Settings Manager.

Fixing screen resolution for Asus T91 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-11-28T03:21:00.000-08:00

After a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10 on my new Asus T91 the screen resolution is set to 800x600 and can't be changed. To fix this problem you need to install Poulsbo(psb) drivers.

NOTE: while the following instructions will still work there is a newer method available which is recommended please see:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCardsPoulsbo

I followed the steps over at this page http://poulsbo-karmic.angelfire.com/

for convenience i'll repost them up here in english but all credit for the fix goes to the original author.

Open a terminal and type:

wget http://poulsbo-karmic.angelfire.com/files/poulsbo1.tar.gz


tar -zxvf poulsbo1.tar.gz

cd poulsbo1

sudo ./install.pl
Then reboot, you should now be able to set the screen resolution to 1024x600.

Fixing wireless network card for Asus eee T91 on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2009-11-28T03:02:00.001-08:00

After doing a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10(Karmic Koala) on my new Asus eee T91 i was pleased to notice the wireless was working out of the box. However after a few days of use i noticed the wireless networking was very slow and would drop out while working with large files. After a bit of research and reading about similar problems in Ubuntu 9.04 I came up with the following solution.

While the wireless will work out of the box it will run slowly and intermittently drop out.

to fix this do the following:

Open a terminal and enter the following:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and then uncomment(remove the hash at the start of the line) these two lines.

deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb-src http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-backports main restricted universe multiverse

then save the file and close it.

next type:

sudo apt-get update

then:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-karmic

then reboot

Since doing this the wireless has worked perfectly, no drop outs and good speeds.

Hope this helps, i will have guides on setting up the screen drivers, touchscreen and compiz coming soon.

Building a Secure Remotely Accessible BitTorrent Server for Windows using uTorrent and TOR

2009-03-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

This tutorial will guide you through setting up a secure torrent download server for you home network.

What do i mean by "torrent download server"?

This basically means that you will have one computer on your network that downloads torrents and the other computers on your network can access this computer via their browsers in order to start/stop torrents etc.

Using this setup has several advantages

-There is a centralised place where all the users on your network can see all the torrents currently downloaded/downloading.

-There is a centralised location on your network for all your latest downloads.

-Only this computer needs to be left on in order for everyone on your networks torrents to download.

-You can access your download server from remote locations ie. work/friends places etc.

What do i mean by "secure torrent download server"?

Assuming you have read the explanation above the "secure" part refers to the use of TOR. TOR allows you to hide your IP address and not reveal what you are downloading and where from to anyone who might be watching your network traffic. This may seem a little paranoid but in these days of court cases and litigation for internet piracy it might be wise to protect your privacy online when downloading torrents. For a detailed description of how TOR works check out their website here.

What do i mean by "remotely accessible"?

This means you can use your download server's torrent client from other computers. In this case via your browser. In basic terms this means that instead of interacting with the utorrent interface directly you simply type an address in your browser and a HTML + AJAX based interface is used instead. The uTorrent webUI does an amazing job of replicating uTorrents actual interface that you'll barely even notice the difference.

What you'll need

This tutorial assumes you have a PC running Windows XP SP2. It has not been tested with Vista but it may work. If you do get this working on Vista please leave a comment below.

1. Installing uTorrent

1.1 Download the latest uTorrent from here

If you are unfamiliar with uTorrent or have not used it before you can check out screenshots here

1.2 Install uTorrent

Just run through the installer, it's pretty straight forward. If you need help there is a good tutorial here

The tutorial is actually for version 1.6 but should still be relevant.

1.3 Configure uTorrent

1.3.1 Define Output Directories

First you'll want to create some output directories for uTorrent, this is where files will be saved when you download them. In uTorrent go Options->Preferences then in the tree on the left hand side select "Directories".

Choose somewhere sensible to save your torrents to for example "C:\latest_downloads\downloading" and "C:\latest_downloads\finished". If these directories do not exist you will need to create them.

1.3.2 Create Network Shares

Next you'll need to create shares to these folders so that users on the network can access the downloaded files. To do this open windows explorer and navigate to the folders you set up in the step above. Right click on the folder and then select "Properties", then click the "Sharing" Tab.

Note the selected settings below, you can call the share whatever you wish, in this case i have called it "latest_downloads".

1.3.3 Checking it's working

To make sure that your shares are working you can go start run(or press windows key + r) then type \\the IP address of your download server\the name of the share you just created. For example \\192.168.1.252\latest_downloads. If everything is ok this should bring up your new network share.

1.3.4 Mapping Network Drives

To make it easier to access your downloads you may want to "Map a Network Drive" to this share. This means that the share will appear as a drive in windows explorer and you won't have to type the share name all the time. If you don't know how to do this there is a tutorial available here.

1.4 Enable uTorrent webUI

Now it's time to get the uTorrent webUI up and running. This will allow you to start, stop, view and remove torrents(as well as much more) remotely using your browser from any computer.

There are detailed instructions located here on how to enable it if you need them but here's the short version.

In uTorrent go Options->Preferences then select the "Web UI" option in the tree on the left. Click the "Enable Web UI" checkbox and setup a username and password, then hit ok.

1.4.1 Checking it's working

Open your browser and go to the following address, http://your ip:your port/gui/

for example http://192.168.1.252:8081/gui/

2. Installing TOR
2.1 Download and install TOR

To download and install TOR follow the instructions here.

The instructions are fairly detailed and walk you through getting TOR set up.

If the link for testing that TOR is working is broken(as it wasn't when i tried it) simply configure the browser to use the TOR(Privoxy) as a proxy. The default port for HTTP on Privoxy is 8118. Unless you have allowed remote connections already in privoxy you will need to do this on the computer you installed TOR on, so use 127.0.0.1 as the proxy address and 8118 as the port unless you have specified otherwise. Then visit a site like http://www.showmemyip.com/ to see your IP address, note the IP address displayed and then turn the proxy off and hit refresh. If the IP address changes TOR is up and running.

3. Configure uTorrent to work with TOR

To configure uTorrent to use TOR we will need to set the proxy settings in uTorrent. Go Options->Preferences and then select "Connection" from the tree on the left hand side.

Select "Socks5" as the Type of proxy then enter the ip address of the TOR proxy(in this case as they are both on the same machine the address is 127.0.0.1, otherwise you will need to enable remote connections in privoxy, see section 4 for details on how to do this). Next enter the port number for the TOR proxy, the default is 9050. Next enable "Use proxy server for peer-to-peer connections". Then hit OK.

Now you have:
- A torrent client available from any computer on your network.
- A network share containing your latest downloads.
- The security of knowing your downloads are not being traced.

Alright that should be it, you're configured and ready to go. To check that it's all OK start a new torrent and make sure the download starts(give it a little time, ten minutes or so). Check out the next section for info on some optional extras you may want.

4. Extras

One aditional thing you may wish to do is set up TOR to work as a proxy for other machines on your network. To do this you will need to edit the privoxy config. On the computer where you have installed TOR you should see a blue circle with a white "P" on it in the taskbar(next to the clock). Right click on this and select Edit->Main Configuration. This should open the configuration file in notepad. Hit ctrl+g and go to line 668 and comment out the line "listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118" by putting a hash in front of it. Then below add a line like the following:

listen-address lan ip:8118

for example

listen-address 192.168.1.252:8118

Make sure there is # at the start of the line.

Hit save and then close notepad.

You can now set applications on other computers on your network to use this computer as a proxy, for example you can use it in your browser for anonymous web surfing. Just use the address and port number you configured above.

Another thing to mention is that if you want your web interface to be accessible externally(ie. at work/friends houses etc.) you may need to set up port forwarding in your router. Instructions for this will be different depending on your particular hardware so you'll need to check out how to do this for your router.