existence trainer

i am assuming you either you have a hard copy of an article/book/etc., or else a pdf file of a scanned in document that you wish you clean up and make into a high quality djvu file. also, i am a linux user, i have no idea (and couldn't care less) how to do it on windows/mac. here is how i do it. tools gscan2pdf (my fav scanning program presently) scan tailor (brilliant piece of software) steps if you have a hardcopy, i recommend using gscan2pdf (the name is deceiving, it also outputs djvu). it may, in fact, do almost everything you need to get your documents cleaned up. play with it; it is a powerful tool.  if you have a pdf file, the first thing you need to do is to convert it to a multipage tiff file. the highest quality way to convert it that I have found is by using the following ghostscript command: gs -SDEVICE=tiffg3 -r600x600 -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -sOutputFile="output.tif" -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -- "input.pdf" this seems to output a much higher quali...

Only two things really: More bug fixing and more hardware regression testing. I think the Ubuntu community at large would take very kindly to pushing the release back to 10.06 so that there would be a couple of solid months of doing nothing else besides testing and fixing. I really want Ubuntu to succeed. 9.10 was way to buggy to be a proper release, and I'm afraid that Canonicals commitment to a regular schedule will trump making it as solid and bug-free as possible. Consider that Windows 7 had what seemed like almost a full year of beta testing, a couple of extra months to make Lucid the best Linux distro release to date would be a refreshing and appreciated change. Consider it, please.

check out mp3splt . Its not in the Jaunty repos, but it is in Karmic!

Here are some tools that Ubuntu, or Linux generally, seems to lack: A good WYSIWYG html editor. Up until about a year ago, I was pretty satisfied with quanta plus. Since then I have become increasingly disappointed with it, mainly because no one seems to be porting it to Qt4, or developing it substantially. What had such great potential seems to be languishing. KompoZer crashes a lot - I'm waiting for the new version to come out (still in alpha), but I'm less than certain it will be better (and NVU is dead). Bluefish - although its not a WYSIWYG editor, I still think it could be good if they'd ever release a new version that updates a lot of antiquated crap in there (like not knowing how to open a browser easily) Decent blogging software Mainly I use scribefire (I'm using it now) - its ok - but it only offers the simplest options for blogging. If I want any type of formating that goes beyond a bullet point, I've got to know my html (which it visually formats in a ve...

I'm beginning to get frustrated with certain aspects of the Ubuntu development cycle, and in this post I'm going to try my best to spell out my complaint and what I think should be done about it. My Complaint First, let me say that I'm a huge Ubuntu fan. Since Gutsy (when I first started using Ubuntu) each of the iterations of Ubuntu has made large, important strides to becoming a preeminent OS. Many of the things that annoyed me about the desktop experience have been have been fixed or minimized, and with the release of Jaunty I've had very few complaints about things not doing what I want/expect them to, very few crashes, and less annoyances than at any other time using a linux based OS. As I've written before, Jaunty is the first time a Linux vendor has released a distribution that I'd pretty much recommend to anyone. As you can see, I'm a very happy user. So my complaint then isn't about the great work being done on Ubuntu, its rather an end-user com...

Jaunty is very good. Its the first version of a linux distribution that I'd pretty much recommend to anyone to try (with only a few minor caveats about possible hardware issues and the fact that Linux users still can't watch netflix). It has made vast improvements over Hardy from a year ago. Its stable, snappy, and quite a number of annoyances that I onced experienced have been fixed or minimized. Below I go through these in more detail. Now, though I want to focus on what I hope for the next version of Ubuntu (codenamed "Karmic Koala"). Cloud computing is the wave of the future, so I'm very happy this development cycle is making this a focus. But I'm doubtful they will go far enough to really make a lot of difference for most people. What people want now is to be able to sync up there data with various computers they possess and with online services they rely on. To this effect: Evolution needs to sync seamlessly with Google calander, email, and contacts. Evo...

Here are the posts where I've provided tutorials on how to get things working on either Linux in general or Ubuntu in particular: Accessing your Ubuntu Box from Anywhere My fstab Here are some quick troubleshooting tips I've encountered when using Ubuntu or the software on it: Import Openoffice Spreadsheet into a Writer Table Download Streaming Media on Linux Useful Intrepid Repos TOR Configuration in Ubuntu and Firefox Restore and Backup Virtualbox VDI files

Back in April, when I was using Hardy, I wrote this about what I'd like to see in future versions of Ubuntu. Now that Intrepid is out, its time to re-evalute the list to see what made it and what didn't A GUI wrapper for utf: YES. Its called gutf. That said, I still haven't figured out how to set up internet connection sharing with it :( Until then, I'll stick with Firestareter Two-way synchronization between evolution and Google calander: YES (at least partial). In Hardy there was one-way synchronization. In Intrepid, although its somewhat hidden, its there. My Impression - not ready for prime time. For better or worse, cloud computing is going to be a big part of the way we do things. Google, of all companies, will be front and center in this. Advanced Desktop settings already pre-installed (or some simplified version of it). NO. This still confuses me - if you are going to make compiz a default part of the Desktop out of the box, then why not have a configuration to...

If you are interested in Debian (esp. because Lenny was just released - yay), but don't want to install it on your system, let me introduce you to the Debian Live website. Here you can download live cds of this most venerable of distributions.

Give this a try: mplayer mms://url -dumpstream -dumpfile foo.wmv

If you run linux and have .lit files then its a problem reading them. Fortunately you can use wine to get Microsoft Reader up and running. There is one extra step to get it working, though. First, download msvcirt.dll from here . Unzip it and place it in ~/.wine/drive_c/windows. Now download Microsoft Reader and install it using wine.

If you can't reply to email on hotmail in Ubuntu, the following tip should help. Its Microsoft, again, trying to be incompatible with non-microsoft products (this is type of reason hardcore computer geeks hate microsoft, bastards) - but there is a way to get it working: Type "about:config" (without the quotes) in Firefox address bar. In the "filter" box type: general.useragent.override If nothing shows up under "Preference Name", then right click the main window (i.e., under preference name) and choose "New" and then "String". Enter the following preference name: general.useragent.override For the string value, if your computer is a 32-bit architecture, then use: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86; en; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092510 Firefox/3.0.3 (all one line). If it is a 64-bit architecture, use: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092510 Firefox/3.0.3 There, that should make it work.

Athough more extensive directions can be found here , I had a hard time using it without getting a bunch of errors in the process, so I've set up this up as a guide that worked for me. I'm assuming you are using Intrepid Ubuntu on a 32-bit machine. Make sure you have enabled multiverse, universe, and the various source code repos. On the command line: sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg wget http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-export-snapshot.tar.bz2 tar jxvf ffmpeg-export-snapshot.tar.bz2 cd ffmpeg-*/ sudo apt-get install liba52-dev libdts-dev libgsm1-dev libvorbis-dev  libxvidcore4 libxvidcore-dev libdc1394-22-dev libfaac-dev  libmp3lame-dev libx264-dev  libfaad-dev libtheora-dev libsdl1.2-dev ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --disable-debug --enable-shared --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-pthreads --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis  --enable-libxvid Assumi...

Alright, it doesn't work great and crashes quite a bit, but at least its up and working. If you want to get it running I'm assuming you have a licensed version of Mac OS X "Tiger" that you have copied to an .iso file. Here's how to do it: 1. Through Synaptic or apt-get, install: pearpc 2. Next you need to create a virtual partition to install it onto. To create a 3 gig virtual drive, use the following command: dd if=/dev/zero of=3gigharddisk.img bs=516096 seek=6241 count=0 To creating a 6 gig virtual drive: dd if=/dev/zero of=6gigharddisk.img bs=516096 seek=12482 count=0 3. Now navigate to /etc/ppc and open ppc.conf in an editor (in root). Here is a stripped down version of my config file: ## PearPC Configuration File ## Start Resolution ppc_start_resolution = "800x600x15" ## Redraw interval (in ms) redraw_interval_msec = 20 ## Key codes key_toggle_mouse_grab = "F12" key_toggle_full_screen = "Alt+Return" ## Loader prom_bootmethod = ...

Looking to buy a Dell laptop? Here are some recommendations: Nowadays you want to get at least 2 gigabytes of RAM (I know it sound excessive, but if you are going to be using Vista, you will need it). Avoid celeron processors (the company is not doing that great lately) So I would probably avoid the low end Inspiron 1525 (the celeron one), the "Intel Pentium Dual Core" version definitely looks better. The XPS series is definitely the best, but only if you need all of the power it offers (but it comes at a price). Regarding the operating system: I guess you might as well get it with Windows Vista (Dell does offer Linux Ubuntu machines, but they aren't really cheaper). That said, I've totally abandoned Windows for Linux, and don't have any desire or need to go back. Its finally at a place where it is very user friendly and just requires a slight alteration of thinking in certain respects. If you buy one with Vista, you can always try Linux and then go back if yo...

It has gotten a lot easier to discover the artist of a song you hear on the radio or in a movie nowadays. Most of the times its sufficient to take down some of the lyrics and do a google search on them. But sometimes it is not so simple - think about electronica or other music without lyrics. I have a couple of clips on my computer which include samples of music that I would love to know the artist of. How, then can I find out? Here is one way that I've found (if there are better ways, please let me know by leaving a comment). First, you need to extract the audio from the video file. For avi, mpg, or flv files you can do either: ffmpeg -i my_video_file.avi extracted_audio.mp3 or mplayer -dumpaudio my_video_file.avi -dumpfile extracted_audio.mp3 You may need to extract the part that you want using Audacity. Now the question is: How do we go about identifying the extracted audio? The method I used was to install MusicBrainz Picard . which can use audio fingerprinting to identify the ...

This link seems to work in VLC, but I'm having problems getting it to work in mplayer and Amarok. http://citadelcc-wls-am.wm.llnwd.net/citadelcc_WLS_AM EDIT: The following works in Amarok: mms://68.142.72.86:80/citadelcc_WLS_AM?MSWMExt=.asf

There are certain applications on Windows that are just better than anything on Linux. When it comes to PIMs, a LOT of them are better than those available on Linux. In fact, most of the Linux one's suck. I've written about this before , but I'm annoyed enough now that I want to revisit it. In particular I want to compare what I think is a pretty good freeware PIM on Windows - Essential PIM, with the best thing that Linux has to offer presently - Evolution. By in large, there is not much of a comparison. EssentialPIM is FAR better than Evolution as a PIM. It is flexible in ways I doubt Evolution will Ever be (which makes me sad - because I want Linux to have superior or at least equally compatible apps). Here is a list of features that make EssentialPIM superior (and this is by no means exhaustive): Screen Real Estate First, EssentialPIM has much better screen real estate. EssentialPIM has a menubar, and then the rest of the window is used by some aspect of the program. Evo...

Using Virtualbox, I've started playing around with the two mini-distributions of Linux: SliTak and Damn Small Linux (and I'm looking forward to playing around with more). Overall I'm really impressed with these two distributions! Here are my first impressions of how they compare. Damn Small Linux (DSL) I've been using this one for a while on an old 400MHz machine with 64mb of RAM. Its only a 50mb distribution that is very full-featured, including most everything you would expect from a Desktop distro (wordprocessor, browser, music player, etc). You can also install any number of apps through the MyDSL Browser. The developers of this distribution are constantly improving it, releasing new beta versions almost every month. The target audience seems to be older, slower computers. I thought, before trying SliTak, that the reason that a lot of the software on this distribution is dated is because it is less bloated, less resource intensive, and functions better on old hard...

Two Types of Installation Here are two related ways to view *.docx files in ubuntu. Troubleshooting Note : If, after following the instructions below you get one of the following two errors, then the following should help you out (at least they did for me). (This error occurs when installing the command line version:) OdfConverter: error while loading shared libraries: libgif.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (This error occurs when installing it directly into openoffice:) Read-Error. Data could not be read from the file. Then the following should help you out (at least they did it for me). Type the command: locate libtiff.so I had libtiff.so.4, but I need libtiff.so.3. Make the following symbolic link: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3 Then use the command sudo ldconfig to update the library cache. Thanks to the poster at http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Ubuntu/2006-04/msg02897.html for this helpful instructions! Comma...