3gp Video Coversion

I recently was in need of converting a video to 3GP format so I was able to play it on my HTC tp, Now there are a lot of programs for doing this in a windows environment and I even have one however I wanted to find a way to do it running Ubuntu. I was able to do it with Pitivi This program actually does a whole lot and I was very impressed with it. I was able to load it from Synaptic package manager.





This video is all ready in 3GP format but I only loaded it for representation.

Protect Your Computer

The other day I stumbled across a nice Open source program that allows you to try and find your laptop if it is stolen. It can even use WIFI to try and get a location for you. The free version allows you to keep track of three devices, you can pay for premium if you need to. I installed it on my laptop and marked it as missing to see just how it works and it sounded an alarm and displayed a screen that said it was stolen. You can change the text displayed on the pop up screen from your control panel and customize what you want done in the event your computer is stolen or lost. It even has an option to snap a picture from your webcam if your laptop has one.
http://preyproject.com/

Fox cuts Dish feed for FX, sports channels

well when I first found out we no longer had FX and some FOX channels It was while trying to watch something on FX and I was pissed to the point of changing providers. Then I got on-line and did some reading and the more I thought about it I began to realize Dish actually stood up for its customers by refusing to cave in and pay more meaning they actually care a little bit about their customers by not raising our rates unexpectedly. I know others feel differently about that and will switch providers but I am going to stick with Dish. R.I.P. FOX been nice knowing ya, well not really never really watched a whole lot anyhow.

Gettysburg

Today we decided to do some sight seeing close to home so we went to Gettysburg and spent the day. Its a shame we had never gone before its less than 60 miles from our house and it was the first time me or my wife had ever been. We had an excellent time there and we will be returning again in the near future to spend some more time looking around.

We spent a great deal of time in the museum but it was a day well spent and our kids really enjoyed it.

NAS Server

I found a new program Freenas based upon free BSD that allows you to use an old computer for network storage. It uses hardly any resources you can set it up as a headless server and hide it away in a corner someplace. It took very little time to set it up and get it on line. I have a lot of old hardware sitting around and was going to get another portable hard drive so I thought I would try this and save myself some money. So far so good the firewall seems simple enough as well.This is the web interface to set it up from another computer.

Fedora

Fedora website

Office 2007 setup runs

Normally I don't waste time on Windows but this might actually help someone.

A few weeks ago my wife got me a new dell laptop and it came with Win 7 and a free trial of office 2007 pre-installed. My wife has a laptop with the trial version of office on it as well. We decided to buy Office since you can install it on 3 machines and she needs it for work. Hers is working fine but mine was a nightmare after 2 attempts to uninstall office, the uninstaller said I had to have the disk which I didn't have since it was pre installed, needless to say I found the answer on Microsoft's website. Well after a complete reinstall of office I discovered every time I try to open a document it ran the installer program. I found a LOT of post's in forums and such looking for an answer. I tried everything I saw and nothing worked so I took a process viewer I have and installed it to see exactly what processes were running and when so I could track it down "guess Microsoft can't figure that out?" anyhow it was the setup.exe from the original Office trial prog in the Microsoft shared/office12/office setup controller file. I renamed the file setup.exe.old and now it magically works fine. This was after about 3 hours of wasted time reading and trying everything I could. That my friends is why I mostly stick to LINUX things don't "just Run" unless you execute them.

Windows In Mandriva

Here is a screen shot of Windows 7 running in virtual box on my Mandriva machine, I wanted to see how it performs on this system I dual boot with XP. I have a Dell laptop with windows 7 on it and I am pleased with it, as much as I dislike Windows I still need it for certain work related things. As for my every day needs I use Mandriva.

Spring Cleaning

with the warmer weather approaching I noticed my computer was running a little warmer so after a quick inspection I noticed all of the winters dust had settled inside my computer.

So a little help from the vacuum and I was all set, I think thats one thing a lot of people tend to forget about and it can really slow your computer down and damage the hardware inside with the extreme heat and all. For instance this picture

this was one someone brought me to fix late last summer, I still dont know how it even still managed to boot or do much of anything. I like to take a shop vac and put the hose in the exhaust port and blow the dust out that way you don't risk static damaging anything also you can keep the hose back a foot or so where if you are using the vacuum to suck the dust out you need to make contact or get very close to delicate parts.

redirects

sorry all the redirect has been removed as far as i can tell.

Slideshow Wallpaper

Here is a real simple XML script I changed around a little to fit my needs and I thought I would share, If you get sick of your wallpaper and would like it to change through out the day this script will do just that, it changes about every 30 minutes right now.I have only tried this with Gnome I am not sure how it will work with KDE it should be ok. If anyone tries this on KDE let me know. I have tried with Ubuntu and Mandriva also.

<background><br /> <starttime><br /> <year>2010</year><br /> <month>03</month><br /> <day>14</day><br /> <hour>6</hour><br /> <minute>00</minute><br /> <second>00</second><br /> </starttime><br /> <!-- This animation will start at 6 am. --><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file1.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file1.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file2.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file2.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file2.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file3.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file3.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file3.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file4.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file4.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file4.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file5.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file5.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file5.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file6.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file6.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file6.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file7.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file7.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file7.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file8.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file8.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file8.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file9.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> <static><br /> <duration>1795.0</duration><br /> <file>/home/file9.jpg</file><br /> </static><br /> <transition><br /> <duration>5.0</duration><br /> <from>/home/file9.jpg</from><br /> <to>/home/file1.jpg</to><br /> </transition><br /> </background>

It will do 9 different wallpapers the way it is right now and you can add or remove as many as you want, all you must do is follow my example {/home/file#.jpg} you must be sure at the end you loop back to the first image in your show. what you need to do is create a folder where you plan to save them and put all the images there to begin with, then direct the script where to find them {/home/file.jpg} when you are done this save as an XML file in the same folder. now go to your desktop and right click and select background, then ADD and select the XML file.You can also go to System in the taskbar and preferences and appearance.

Lightscribe & Linux

while I was using Ubuntu I was able to get lightscribe working properly however with Mandriva I could only get the simple label maker to work

I found this Fedora help page that solved my problem so I now have the Image printing Lightscribe as well.

After all the pages I have had to visit to find this information I hope it helps someone else who has similar problem. The only thing the Linux version is lacking is a quick tab in the program to add the tracks from the cd or dvd.I know the Nero software that came with my drive has this feature but I would rather go without than have to depend on Windows for that one feature.

Laptop

Well after a lot of thinking about it we finally got a new laptop. We got an Acer with Windows 7 on it, my wife needed it for when she works from home. I wasnt so sure about windows 7 after the bad rap Vista got but so far it seems to work pretty well. I will continue using Linux myself but my wife has to use Windows for work.

Switch between Terminal and Gnome

I have had some people ask me how to quickly switch to a terminal from within Gnome and back again, well UBUNTU has a shortcut you can do this with F1-F6 will get you a terminal and F7 will return you to your X-server if you left it intact.
If for instance you are updating your graphics driver or anything and you need to Kill the X-server you can do so in UBUNTU by typing

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Also another neat thing some people don't know about the terminal in Linux is when you are typing in a file name if you are in the right directory and type the first letter of the word and click Tab it will appear remember Linux is case sensitive as well. Some times it will also give you a lot of choices as well.

Video Card

I bought a new video card this week since my other was lacking performance in the gaming dept. I have been playing Call of Duty and Timeshift. I really like Timeshift it is one of the better games I have played.

The card I got got works very well with Linux It detected it on boot up and everything has worked without a hitch.