How to watch flash based videos on a slow computer in Linux

One of my computers is an old AMD XP 1700 (1.4 Ghz). When I try to watch videos from sites like Hulu and Veoh with Firefox or Opera the computer becomes extremely slow and unresponsive. Video playback is jerky.Flash has been a thorn in Linux's side for a long time and it seems that version 10 is no exception. It is a real pity that Flash is not open source so that the community can get involved and fix the issues.

While I was playing around with the XFce Desktop Environment, I tried the Epiphany browser. What a fantastic unknown gem. Here is a browser that can give Google's Chrome browser a run for it's money when comes to speed. Just by chance I tried to watch a flash video from veoh and to my amazement the video was watchable. CPU utilization via HTOP revealed that CPU was still at 100% (same for Opera and Firefox), but at least I could watch the video.

I am planning to blog more about Epiphany in the future. If anybody else out there had similar positive experiences with Epiphany drop me a note.

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Quick Reference Card to install a package via a cli package manager in Linux

This is just a short reference card (mostly for my own use) showing the different  command line commands to install a package for a particular disto.

Debian: su && apt-get install whatever_package
Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install whatever_package
PCLinuxOs: apt-get install whatever_package
Mint: sudo aptitude -y install whatever_package
Fedora: yum install whatever_package
Red Hat: yum install whatever_package
Mandriva: urpmi whatever_package
Mandrake: urpmi whatever_package
SUSE: yast -i whatever_package
Gentoo: emerge whatever_package
Sabayon (binary): equo install whatever_package
Sabayon (source): emerge install whatever_package
Foresight: sudo conary update whatever_package
Arch Linux: pacman -S whatever_package
Frugalware: pacman -S whatever_package
OpenBSD: pkg_add whatever_package

If you can contribute a command based on your distro that I can add to this list, I would appreciate an email.

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HTOP: Advanced System Process Monitor

Everybody knows that you can use the top command to display the top most CPU intensive tasks. Top is great if you want to kill a out of control process, but it has one serious flaw:it cannot scroll.



You can 'upgrade' top to htop by installing htop using the Advanced Package Tool:

sudo apt-get install htop

Comparison between htop and top

• In htop you can scroll the list vertically and horizontally to see all processes and complete command lines.

• In top you are subject to a delay for each unassigned key you press (especially annoying when multi-key escape sequences are triggered by accident).

• htop starts faster (top seems to collect data for a while before displaying anything).

• In htop you don't need to type the process number to kill a process, in 'top' you do.

• In htop you don't need to type the process number or the priority value to renice a process, in top you do.

• htop supports mouse operation, top doesn't.

• top is older, hence, more used and tested.

When you start htop it looks something like this:


Htop also works great with the Tilda konsole. Tilda is a Linux terminal taking after the likeness of many classic terminals from first person shooter games, Quake, Doom and Half-Life, etc. The terminal has no border and is hidden from the desktop till a key or keys are pressed.

You can install tilda by using the Advanced Package Tool:

sudo apt-get install tilda

When you start tilda you can right click inside the empty window and choose preferences. In the preferences you can change the way tilda behaves and looks. This is the preferences dialog:



I run tilda with htop all the time. When I notice the PC is getting slower, I press F1 and tilda opens with htop.I then select the runaway task(usually Firefox with cartoon network) with my mouse and hit F9 for kill.



Tilda also supports a tab interface so you are not stuck running a single command line program.

Read more about:

• Htop: http://htop.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=main
  
• Tilda: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tilda/

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Jolicloud,cool new OS for your Netbook

We are truly on our way to cloud computing.It's only a matter of time before we all disappear into digital space. I might be the first to go...

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Error - Smb4K The share could not be mounted

The fan on my Synology Nas server decided it was time for departure. I could hear the fan screaming a mile away. So I shut down the NAS and left it powered off for the time being. The problem is now every time my machine boots, Smb4k complains about not being able to mount one of the shares. I get this "share could not be mounted" greeting.


Opening the Smb4k GUI does not help. Nowhere can I find this particular share in the list. It appears that there is no way to clear this share and prevent Smb4k from mounting it the next time it starts. After spending a week looking at this warning pop-up message, I decided it was time to hunt this setting down. This walk-through is on KDE4.

Open Dolphin (KDE's file manager) and navigate to /home/.kde/share/apps/smb4k. This folder is under your user-id. Remember files and directories that start with "." are hidden and you have to tell the file manager that you want to view them. For Dolphin you can switch viewing hidden folders on by selecting View and then Show Hidden Files.

In the smb4k folder you will find the configuration file "custom_options.xml" that contains the mounted shares.



Very important: you must shutdown Smb4k before editing the configuration file (Smb4k will overwrite your changes if you don't).

Click on the file and it will open up with Konqueror. The offending share is NAS1/photo. The file that we are looking at here is actually a XML file. Lets use Konqueror's built-in editor to make changes to this file.


Select View from the menu options, View Mode and then select the Embedded Advanced Text Editor option.


A share definition is contained within the options tag. I want to delete the NAS1 share. Click and drag with the mouse so that the first options tag is highlighted. Select Edit and then Cut from the menus to delete the selected text. Click on save icon to save the file to disk. Konqueror will also make a backup of the file for you.



You can now start Smb4k and no more complaints about that missing share.

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Use your blackberry phone as modem (tethering)

You can now use your blackberry as a modem (tether) on Linux and Mac OS X. The utility is called Berry4all.


Disclaimer: I don't have a blackberry and therefore cannot test if this utility actually works. What I can do is walk you through the installation of Berry4all on KDE4.

Open a terminal and type in the following command:

sudo apt-get install python libusb-dev ppp python-usb python-wxgtk2.8

This will install all the necessary components that Berry4all depends on. Answer Y (uppercase) when you are prompt to install additional packages.

Now we are going to download the source code for Berry4all. Put the following url in your browser and download the compressed file to your desktop:

http://www.colar.net/websvn/filedetails.php?repname=src&path=%2Fbbtether%2Fbbtether.tgz

When the download is finished, navigate with Dolphin (KDE's file manager) to your desktop folder (or wherever you have downloaded the berry4all file). Right-click on the file and select the 'extract archive here, autodetect subfolder' option. This will extract (uncompress) the file and put the contents in a folder named bbtether. You can now select the bbtether folder and look at the contents.


It is at this point where people new to Linux fall out of the bus. All they see is a bunch of files and nothing looks like an executable. If you from the Windows world the first thing you going to look for is a file that ends with exe extension. No such luck. What you need to do is to train your eyes to look for files that ends with the '.sh' extension. These are shell scripts. If you look in the bbtether folder you will see there is a file called berry4all.sh

The berry4all.sh cannot be executed by itself. You can open this file with a text editor and you will see that all it contains are shell commands. You need to invoke a program that can read and execute the commands contained the berry4all.sh file. The program to use for that is called BASH (Bourne-Again SHell).

One way to execute berry4all.sh is to open a terminal, navigate to the bbtether folder and issuing the following command:

sh berry4all.sh

A better way is to create a shortcut that will do this for you without going through the terminal. Right-click anywhere in bbtether folder with Dolphin. Select the Create New option and then select the Link to Application option.

You will be presented with a window that will allow you to configure the properties of the shortcut. You can pick a new icon (simply click on the icon that looks like a question mark). You can also pick a meaningful name for the shortcut.

Click on the Application tab. This is where the real action happens.

In the command field enter the following text:

/bin/bash berry4all.sh

In the work path field enter the following text:

/home/your-user-id-here/Desktop/bbtether/

Click on Ok when you are done and you will now have a brand new shiny icon in the bbtether folder. Click on the icon to run Berry4all.


You can also use KDE's menu editor to add an item to your menus for berry4all (the fields that you fill in are the same as for the shortcut).

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Batch rename of photos using Gnome Commander

You can rename a large collection of photos very quickly by using Gnome Commander's built-in rename tool.

The filenames created by my Canon 1D are not very informative nor are they human friendly. I prefer to see the camera make and model, date and time of the photograph, ISO used and then finally the camera's image name.

This allows me to group the photos by year and date. By putting the ISO in the filename, I can group them by ISO. I can then run a specific script for noise reduction based on the ISO.

Before renaming the files:

After renaming the files:

Howto:
Navigate to the directory / folder that contains your photos. Select the ones you want to rename (use CTRL + A to select them all) and invoke the advance rename tool from the file menu.

Use the template field to format the output of the filename. You can use spaces, characters and best of all variables. As you build the template with variable names, the bottom of window will show you what the end result of the rename will look like.

The most useful field names are under the Metatag button. For photographers there are two sub options that offer photographic specific variables: image and Exif. Exif data is embedded within the image file itself when the photo is taken by the camera. With the Advanced Rename Tool you can extract any Exif tag and use it to build the filename.

Below is a subset of the tags you can use:

Image options	Exif options

In the example above, I used the rename tool to rename images but you can also use it rename audio files. Click here to see the full listing of Metatags supported by Gnome Commander's Advanced Rename Tool.

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Dropbox: share files effortlessly anywhere and everywhere across Windows, Linux and Mac

Finally a cross platform storage solution that really works.



I've been patiently waiting for Google Drive / GDrive to come out since 2005. I've looked at various on-line storage offerings and they all fall short in one way or another. The first thing that I check under the features list, is to see that they support Linux. I've looked at Skydrive and Livedrive and they fail the Linux check miserably.

My typical work day involves using at least 3-4 different computers. Some are running Windows, others run Linux and some run inside a virtual machine via Virtualbox. Won't it be great to store important documents, screen prints, notes and other stuff that you need everyday in a central location that can be accessed by any operating system in any location. Well that utility is Dropbox.

Here is an YouTube video demonstrating Dropbox:



I've only been using Dropbox for a few weeks, but I can already tell it is changing the way I do things. I've tried this in Gnome, KDE4 and inside Virtualbox with no issues.

Dropbox is supported on x86 and x86_64 versions of Ubuntu 9.04, Ubuntu 8.10, Ubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu 7.10, and Fedora Core 9. There have also been reports of users getting Dropbox to work on different versions of Gentoo, Arch Linux, OpenSUSE, and Debian. If you are having trouble getting Dropbox to run on your Linux system check if you have the following software dependencies installed:

• GTK 2.12 or higher
• GLib 2.14 or higher
• Nautilus 2.16 or higher
• Libnotify 0.4.4 or higher

If you are tired of carting files around on an USB stick or tired of configuring the host and guest os in Virtualbox to share files, this is your utility. If files are lost locally in a sudden hard drive crash, just reinstall Dropbox and your files are automatically synced back to your new hard drive. Sharing files with others is a snap and accessing your own files remotely is also just as easy with a web interface to your dropbox.

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Install Java plugin for Firefox Ubuntu

Install the following packages via Synaptic:
- sun-java6-bin
- sun-java-jre
- sun-java-plugin ... (This one is important for Firefox)

Note: Don't use KPackageKit if you are using KDE4. There is a license that you must agree upon which does not come up if you are using KPackageKit.



Restart Firefox and type in the following url:
about:plugins

Scroll down and make sure you see libnpjp2.so



To test that everything is working go to the following page:

http://java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

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Fixing Smb4k Network Neighborhood Scanning

If Smb4k complains about not being able to sign in to local host when you select Scan Network then you are missing a configuration setting.



In the configuration settings under 'Network' there is a field that allows you to specify the broadcast scan areas. For my network I filled the field in with: 192.168.1.0,192.168.1.254
This tells Smb4k to scan from 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.254.



This setting appears to be extremely important for Smb4k and makes a big difference to some of the interface features.

Author suggested related Posts:

• Mapping network drive for-picasa-linux.
  

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KDE4 Alt-F2 equivalent for Gnome

Pressing Alt + F2 in KDE brings up a program with the name of Krunner. From here you can launch every application on your system, do calculations, opening web pages and if I can find the right plug-in it will make coffee too.



Krunner's abilities can be extended with a slew of plug-ins.



When you press Alt + PF2 in Gnome you get the 'Run Application' dialog. The Run Application is smarter than the Windows run command, but is nowhere close to Krunner's abilities. When you type the program name for application in, you have to start with the exact name. For example: you can't type terminal, you have to type gnome-terminal.



The best alternative is to use a utility called Gnome-Do. Install Gnome-Do via the package manager.



You can bring up Gnome-Do by pressing the Super Key and Space bar together. Then you just start typing part of the name of your application and Gnome-Do will find it for you. Press enter and Gnome-Do will run the application. Press the down arrow and Gnome-Do will bring up additional options.



Gnome-Do can also be extended with additional abilities with the use of plug-ins.



Between Krunner and Gnome-Do who needs menus anymore ?

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Mapping a network drive for Picasa Linux via Gui

Are you getting tired of editing fstab every time you want to mount a network share ? Are you getting tired of adding a network place only to realize that your application does not use network places (ahem digiKam) or running a program under Wine (e.g. Picasa) and there is no network neighborhood ?

The best way to do this without editing configuration files or firing commands into the terminal is to use a utility called Smb4k. Read more at: http://smb4k.berlios.de/

This tutorial shows how to map a network drive using KDE4 and Smb4k. Gnome would be similar.

Install:
Make sure that the software sources are setup correctly. Smb4k is in 'universe'.



Install smb4k via package management.



Run smb4k. You should be able to find under the menus. In KDE it is under utilities.

You can configure Smb4k to auto unmount and remount when you start and stop smb4k.



Smb4k will run in system tray. It is the blue earth ball.



On the main interface panel for Smb4k click on the network search tab. Type in the name of your Nas server. I have two: nas1(a Synology DS-106e) and nas2(a Synology CS407e). You can use an IP address too. Mounting the share is as simple as double clicking the share you want from the list.



Smb4k showing all the mounted shares.



Smb4k mounts the share under your home folder and under a folder with the name of smb4k. In my example I mounted the photos share from nas1.



The beauty of mounting the shared folder under your home folder is that you do not need to change a single setting in Picasa. Picasa will pick up the mounted network share automatically.



Note: I had problems initially to see the shares on one of my NAS servers, but after setting one of the NAS servers to local master browser, the problems went away.

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Asus Eee Pc 901 with Xandros - first impression

I recently purchased two refurbished netbooks. The first one is the Acer Aspire One (160gig drive and Windows XP). The second one is the Asus Eee Pc 901 (4gig ssd and Xandros Linux). I read (along with everyone else) about the failure of Linux with Netbooks and that now Netbooks are dominated by Windows XP. I was very interested to note my own impression of using a Netbook with a supplied Linux distribution.

Within one hour of using Xandros on the Asus, I was using a level of profanity only found on sea going vessels. If this was my first experience with Linux I would run for the hills. I was going to write down a whole list of things that did not work correctly on Asus/Xandros, but I realized it that would be waste of time. If you are in the market for a refurbished netbook with Xandros, realize that it is unusable and that you will have to install your own OS.

Luckily in the Linux world you have a choice and you have two great choices (and more arriving every day):

1.) Ubuntu Netbook Remix: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-netbook




2.) Moblin: http://moblin.org/



I really liked Moblin. It has a very different interface that takes a bit of time to get used to. Boot times are really fast - a few seconds. The only thing I don't like about it is that it comes with the Chrome browser instead of Firefox or Opera. Granted the Chrome browser's interface fit in well with the rest of the Moblin interface, but Chrome on Linux at the present moment is a disaster (crash-r-us).

Ubuntu Netbook Remix runs like a champ on both my netbooks (the Asus and the Acer). Everything works: webcam, sound and all the special function keys like adjusting the contrast, etc. I was also able to connect my HTC Touch Pro phone and connect to the internet via the phone's internet connect sharing software (ICS). The only fly in the ointment might be if you are a Skype user, but this might be something to do with sound server in Jaunty (9.04). Things worked fine in 8.04 - but with time that will be fixed.

If you are interested in trying Ubuntu Netbook Remix on your Netbook the best online resource for getting a bootable USB key is via PendriveLinux: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-ubuntu-netbook-remix-install/

Note of caution: If you want to install Ubuntu UNR (netbook remix) on a netbook that comes with Windows and you want to dual-boot, the best practice is to resize your hard disk with GParted first. The UNR installer only offered a co-exist option that creates a silly 4 gig partition.

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Can't start root mode krusader

If you get the "Can't start root mode Krusader, because kdesu is missing from the path" when you try to invoke the "Start Root Mode Krusader" option here is what you need to do.

Go to settings, configure krusader.



Select Dependencies tab and put /usr/bin/kdesudo in the kdesu field. Click apply.



Select 'Start Root Mode Krusader' from the tools menu.



Now you get the correct password prompt and you are set.

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