existence trainer

in this post i am basically going to explain why i am unhappy with the direction of ubuntu, and why xubuntu - and the xfce way - appeals to me so much more. ubuntu, unity, and xubuntu for the past few releases (basically since maverick), the company behind ubuntu has tried to redefine how we interact with our desktop through the development of unity. i've been very supportive of these efforts overall. making design decisions is tough and treacherous, and if anyone has a vision to improve the desktop linux experience, then i applaud their efforts. now i want to evaluate these efforts. does unity improve the desktop experience? meh. definitely a mixed bag. the main problem is that everything feels half baked right now, and the improvements in the next version of ubuntu (quantal) don't really fix most of the issues i have. when analyzed from a user experience point of view, the changes canonical has brought to ubuntu can be largely divided into the following categories (i...

a couple of weeks back, there was a huge community backlash to the news that the newest version of ubuntu (quantal 12.10) would send ALL queries made in the dash, via the shopping lens, to canonical as a way to help build revenue. that's right, EVERYTHING you type into the dash (when you search for programs or files or anything) will be sent to canonical for the purpose of advertising directly on your desktop. i protested as loud as anyone. canonical's response (besides defending their position) has been to include a program that can disable all internet activity from the dash. unfortunately, i find this solution unsatisfactory for the following reasons: it is opt-out vs. opt in this angers me. it works to build revenue by relying on people's ignorance of what canonical is doing with their queries. not everyone pays as much attention to the development of ubuntu as i do, and most will be ignorant of what canonical is up to. this is shitty. and unethical. it is not ...

neither aircack-ng nor reaver is in the repos in ubuntu 12.04. aircrack was dropped in the precise cycle because it was dropped by debian temporarily in order to sort out some licensing and maintenance issues, and reaver is fairly new and just didn't make it in time. fortunately both packages are in 12.10. by far the easiest way to get these packages to work in 12.04 is to download the quantal versions and install them in precise. i've done so, and i haven't run into any problems. :) the packages can be found here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/aircrack-ng http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/reaver once installed, run: ifconfig to figure out your wifi interface. then put it in monitor mode: sudo airmon start wlan1 next, run 'airodump' to figure out the BSSID of the network you are aiming to penetrate: sudo airodump mon0 when you have found it, cntr-c to exit. then run 'wash' on it to see if reaver is possibly going to be successful....

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.

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...

# /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda1 during installation UUID=7132a62f-0906-4831-bdc3-f8ba0427ca88 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 # none was on /dev/sda5 during installation UUID=c903185e-8b77-49cd-bdcb-f2e8bc4228bd none swap sw 0 0 /dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0 /dev/sda6 /media/storage1 ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 2 /dev/sdb1 /media/storage2 ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 2

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

Over the past couple of weeks, I have experience a larger number of stubborn problems on my Ubuntu Intrepid machine. Here are just a couple of the problems I've been experiencing: A number of annoying Firefox problems. Two in particular: (1) When I'm downloading files, sometimes firefox will tell me that its got just a few more seconds to download when in fact it has finished downloading. This is annoying because it leaves *.part files all over the place. (2) When I shut down firefox, it has become more frequent that it doesn't fully shut down, and instead I have to go into the system monitor to kill it manually. VLC stopped working for me on *.mp4 and *.wmv files. In fact the only sorts of videos it seems to play consistently are *.mpeg files. And yes, I have all the codecs installed (so fuck off). I have to use mplayer instead. When I insert my flash drive into the USB port, it no longer automatically mounts it. Instead I have to go to Places->Computer and double click...

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 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.

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...

The Virtualbox 2.0.4 Intrepid Repo is not listed on the download site, but it DOES exist: deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free If you want to try OpenOffice 3.0 (which I haven't, though I'm tempted), here is the repo: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main If you want to try Amarok 2.0 beta 3 (I love the direction it is going!), then you can add the following repo: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/project-neon/ubuntu intrepid main To use the latest version of Wine , add the following: deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt intrepid main #WineHQ - Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" Finally, if you want to try the beta of Songbird (0.7) , you can find a link to it here .

When Hardy first came out, I was somewhat disappointed. I was experiencing a large number of bugs and unusual system instability. I even listed some of my main complaints here and here . I've continued to use Hardy, but I've had my eye on the next version of Ubuntu, code-named "Intrepid Ibex", which comes out at the end of the month (October). Rather than wait until it is entirely ready, two nights ago I decided to go ahead and update my entire system to Intrepid and file bug reports when needed. (Although it is not recommended on production machines, the process of updating to the next version is really easy. It can be done running the following command: sudo update-manager -d ) So far, I've been pleased with my experience. There is nothing revolutionary about Intrepid, but it does feel a lot more stable than Hardy (ironically, even in its present alpha stage). In all honesty, it is the experience I was hoping for with Hardy. Better late than never, I guess. ...

Get it here .

A great tutorial can be found here . From the article: In case you are wondering, Dropbox is an online storage site that allows you to back up and sync your files right from your desktop. It comes with a desktop application that you can install in your OS and backing up files is just a simple drag and drop to the Dropbox folder in your hard drive. Any files added/removed from the folder will be automatically sync with the online server as long as you are connected to the Internet.

Lately a bunch of sites have been moving from Flash to either Silverlight or Adobe AIR for their video feeds. Unfortunately, neither are officially supported yet on the Linux platform in general, or on Ubuntu in particular (that said, there is a lot of hard work being done to change this: check out mono and Adobe AIR for Linux ). Its easy to feel left behind. For example, I wanted to watch the live feed from foxnews.com on the huricane Ike. Unfortunately, it requires Adobe AIR. What could I do? I'm not one to feel sorry for myself, so I figured I'd do some hacking and tinkering around and see if I could get it to work anyway. And I did! Here is what you need to do: First, download the alpha of Adobe AIR for Linux here . Using the command line navigate to the download, and type: chmod 755 adobeair_linux_*.bin Type: ./adobeair_linux_*.bin [this will execute gksu automatically] Follow the directions. Once it is installed: close and restart Firefox [I'm not sure this step is...

Mark Shuttleworth just sent out an message giving the broad sketches of his vision for the iteration of Ubuntu after Intrepid Ibex, code named "Jaunty Jackalope". One thing I love about the way that Ubuntu code names work is that they are meant to reveal something about the focus of that development cycle, and ultimately the distribution itself. In the message Shuttleworth reveals three primary goals for Jaunty, which he decribes as follows: "The Jackalope is known for being so fast that it's extremely hard to catch, and breeds only when lightning flashes. Let's see if we can make booting or resuming Ubuntu blindingly quick." "Another goal is the the blurring of web services and desktop applications. "Is it a deer? Is it a bunny? Or is it a weblication - a desktop application that seamlessly integrates the web!"" "Those bizarre-but-fearsome antlers might well remind one of the intricate pattern of collaboration between developers in...