Tag Archives: ubuntu

KeePassX: The Perfect Password App

October 16, 2011

Recently, I’ve been having some trouble with passwords. Either the login name is a string I never use, and therefore never commit to memory (like my real phone number that I mask with Google Voice), or the password policy forces me to use a password that I’ll never remember (like sites that keep track of your past passwords, or require 11 characters of alternating symbols, letters and numbers, etc.). Since I use spamgourmet, any site that requires an email address [...]

Extracting M2TS length from a BDMV directory in Linux

January 14, 2010

I was having the hardest time getting various programs to echo the runtime of m2ts files in Linux, and it turns out someone wrote a parser for the files in the BDMV/PLAYLIST directory, which have all of this information. Get bdtools. I got Version 1.4. You can find it here. ./configure && make && sudo make install Try running mpls_dump. I got this error when running: mpls_dump: error while loading shared libraries: libbd-1.0.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such [...]

Calibre with the Nook on Ubuntu

January 1, 2010

Calibre is about the best thing since sliced bread. It is able to convert basically any type of Ebook format into EPUB, which is what my Nook reads natively. It seamlessly syncs with the Nook as well, which is a huge plus, and all of this happens in Linux. I highly recommend this software. Just make sure not to queue up too many jobs, or it might DOS your computer for a bit. The PDF conversion is especially intensive. It [...]

Compiling ConvertLit on Ubuntu Linux 9.10

December 31, 2009

So, ConvertLit seems to be a good solution for those looking to convert LIT ebooks into EPUB (well, into HTML, but then into EPUB…). Unfortunately, the developers seem to be unable to properly make a good source tarball for version 1.8. Here’s what I did: Download Version 1.8 source from here. unzip clit18src.zip -d convertlit sudo apt-get install libtommath-dev Download this to the convertlit directory. patch -p1 -i clit18.source.patch You should see the clit18/Makefile was patched cd lib && make [...]

Getting Skype Working on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic x86-64

November 19, 2009

So, recently, I installed Ubuntu karmic cleanly on my main desktop machine here at home, and I have really liked it. I even switched to KDE, and everything has been working better than it had been in GNOME. I tried setting up Skype the other day, and ran into an issue with the microphone. It turns out that since the new Skype uses PulseAudio, there’s a further configuration step that’s not so obvious. I found out here that you have [...]

SMPlayer, Lirc, and IRExec on Ubuntu Karmic

November 7, 2009

I used to use lirc with mplayer to allow my Packard Bell crappy remote to work awesomely, but I have since lost that configuration and switched to smplayer, since it’s awesome. Today, I figured out how to control smplayer using similar means.

Importing MySQL 1.4 Amarok data into Amarok 2.2 Nightly

September 28, 2009

I was having a bunch of trouble today importing my old MySQL amarok database into the new nightly version of amarok I installed. The Amarok Wiki had a great section on how to convert a MySQL Amarok collection into an SQLlite one. This was the key to importing my old 1.4 collection into the new 2.2 nightly version of Amarok.

SSD in the M1530

March 28, 2009

Today, I finally set up my new OCZ SSD hard drive: All I had to do to convert my M1530 running Ubuntu over was use the cp command: mkdir /mnt/root && mount root_partition /mnt/root mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/target cp -a /mnt/root/ /mnt/target/ You might also have to repeat for other partitions like boot and home. cp -a is awesome. It does exactly what you need for this process. Now my computer runs perfectly (other than me having to tweak grub a [...]

Enabling typing of the Euro symbol in Ubuntu

October 9, 2008

In today’s troubled world, it’s nice to be able to talk about different currencies. The Euro is one that has gotten very popular lately, and you can actually type the character in Linux. In Ubuntu, you can select a Third-level chooser key to enable foreign characters to be typed. I chose the right ALT key for mine. Here’s how I did it: Open System -> Preferences -> Keyboard and go to the Layouts Tab. Click Layout Options Pull down the [...]

OSCON Sessions, Day 2

July 25, 2008

Oh man, what a day. I attended quite a few talks, grabbed a lot of swag, and entered a few contests. I ended up buying the Arduino Starter Kit from MAKE so I can do some awesome embedded Ruby like I saw at FOSCON. It looks really fun – I can’t wait to try it out. The talks I attended were half-way decent, but I learned a lot more on the first day. Hadoop and EC2 A good overview of [...]

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