Make Tech Easier » Damien

Happy Birthday, Make Tech Easier

Damien — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:04:28 +0000

Yes, Make Tech Easier is now one year old. Happy Birthday!

For those of you who have been with us and giving us your support all the while, we’d like to take the opportunity to say THANKS to all of you. MTE won’t be what it is today without all your support. You are awesome.

A year ago, I started this blog as a personal passion and as a way to document all the hacks that I have done to my computer. Never did I thought that maintaining and updating this blog has now become my full time job. It is really great to do something you really like and make a living out of it. I can only say that it’s been a wonderful journey for me.

Here’s a quick review of the statistics for the past 1 year:

Total posts: 235
Total comments: 1365

we have a group of awesome writers that just joined the MTE team, so you will be expecting more quality posts/tutorials/tips/tricks/reviews in the future. At the same time, MTE is always on the lookout for good writers to join us. If you have what it takes to become a tech blogger, don’t hesitate, join us now!

The 5 most popular posts are as follow:

Traffic

In the first month of blogging, we already have more than 30,000 visitors to our site.
As of today, MTE is seeing more than 120,000 visitors per month and over 250,000 monthly page views.
It took 9 months to reach the top 100,000 in Alexa ranking. Now it is standing at a rank of 76,772
The three main sources of traffic are from Google, StumbleUpon and Digg

Google Pagerank has always been a constant 4 until recently that it dropped to 2, possibly because of selling of text link in the content. I have stopped the text link ad since then and hopefully we will see the pagerank back to 4 or higher in the next PR update.

Things that are happening in MTE

A total theme changeover in the upcoming weeks

A new theme that is cleaner, neater and better is on the way. It is under heavy development now. We should be able to get it up in the next 2 weeks.

New advertisement slot

We will be rolling out the feed advertising as new advertising options for our advertisers. Interested advertisers can get more detail on the Advertise page or simply contact us for more query.

Note: As part of our birthday celebration, we are giving away a 50% discount for all our advertisement options. There are only few slots left. Promotion valid till end of this week (22nd Nov 2008), or when all slots are filled, whichever come first.

Happy Birthday, Make Tech Easier originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

No related posts.

Write for Make Tech Easier

Damien — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:00:50 +0000

Are you seriously obsessed with your computer and have tons of computer tips and tricks up your sleeves? Are you always surfing the Web to look for cool useful software and eagerly share with your friends when you found one? If that is who you are, then you are the one we are looking for.

Make Tech Easier is a tech blog that covers tutorials for various operating system, cool software reviews and plenty of tips and tricks for the popular Web apps. We are in the process of expansion and are looking for writers to help us turn this site into something bigger and better.

Requirement

Here is what we are looking for:

Someone who is proficient with either Windows, Linux or Mac OS X
Someone who is able to write good reviews, detail tutorials and get the point across in a neutral unbiased way.
Someone who is willing to commit to produce at least one article per week and participate actively to the reader’s comments to your published post.
Someone who has a good working knowledge of WordPress

If you are interested in writing for us, just send an email to writers[at]maketecheasier.com. Include the following in your email:

Your name, email, IM and any other info that we can contact you
Links to your website/blog
Your experience in writing for other blogs. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have one.
A short paragraph of why you would be a good fit for the Make Tech Easier team
If you have a list of topics that you want to cover on, include that as well.

If you do not have your own website/blog and have no experience in writing for other blogs, we require you to submit two freshly written sample articles (one on app review and another on tutorial) for our assessment. If we like the articles, we will hire you, publish the article and pay you. If we don’t like it, we won’t hire you, won’t publish the piece and never to publish it behind your back.

Write for Make Tech Easier originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

No related posts.

How to Run Google Chrome in Ubuntu

Damien — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:52:49 +0000

Google has not released the Linux version of Google Chrome, but that doesn’t mean you can’t test it on your Ubuntu. With the release of wine 1.1.4, you can easily get Chrome running in your Ubuntu in no time.

Note: Google Chrome requires wine 1.1.4 to work. If you are not sure of the wine version in your ubuntu, type in

wine --version

in the terminal to check your wine version.

Download Google Chrome http://gpdl.google.com/chrome/install/149.27/chrome_installer.exe http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html to your home folder. (Do not download from the Google download site).

In your terminal, type

wine chrome_installer.exe

If you don’t like command line interface, simply right click on the chrome_installer.exe and select “Open with wine Windows Programs Loader“. This will install the Chrome as well.

The installation should complete very quickly.

Now, if you go to Applications->Wine->Programs->Google Chrome, you will see the entry to start Google Chrome. This entry contains conflicts which will load up a broken browser rather than the working one. To get the Chrome to work, we need to add another entry.

On the menubar, right click on Applications and select “Edit Menus“.

On the left pane, navigate to Applications->Wine->Programs->Google Chrome. On the right pane, click on the ‘New Item’. On the window that pops up, enter the following:

Type: Application
Name: Google Chrome (edited)
Command: wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/USERNAME/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe --new-http --in-process-plugins

Remember to change the USERNAME to your own username.

Now, go to Applications->Wine->Programs->Google Chrome and start Chrome by pressing Google Chrome (edited). Your Google browser should be in working condition now.

Screenshots

Chrome Home page

Chrome loading web page

Chrome with multiple tabs

How to Run Google Chrome in Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Install And Setup Jinzora Media Server In Ubuntu

Damien — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:31:00 +0000

If you have a huge collection of music and would like to build a media streaming server to manage your collection, then Jinzora is the right one for you.

Jinzora is a Web based media streaming and management system. It is supported in various platforms and it allows you to access your music collection from any devices over the Internet.

Installing Jinzora in Ubuntu

Pre-installation

Before you can install Jinzora, you must set up a Web server first. If you have not done so, follow this tutorial to install LAMP on your Ubuntu machine.

Go to Jinzora and download the latest stable release for Linux/MacOS. (The current stable version is Jinzora 2.7.5)

Using Archive manager, extract the Jinzora2 folder to your home.

On the terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), copy the Jinzora2 folder to the root of the Web server

sudo cp jinzora2 /var/www
sudo cp -r jinzora2 /var/www

Run the configure script to change the file permission

cd /var/www/jinzora2
sudo sh configure.sh

Next, install the required files.

sudo apt-get install php5-gd
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Change php.ini setting

Some of the default setting in the php.ini did not meet the requirement of Jinzora2. We have to change it in order for Jinzora to work.

gksu gedit /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Search for

memory_limit = 16M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (16MB)

and change to the value to 64.

Search for

max_execution_time = 30 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds

and change the value to 300

Search for

post_max_size = 8M

and change the value to 32

Search for

upload_max_filesize = 2M

change the value to 32

Save and close the file. You are now set to install Jinzora

Installing Jinzora

Step 1:

Open your browser, point the URL to http://localhost/jinzora2

You will be greeted with Jinzora Welcome screen

Below the page, click the ‘Proceed to Requirements‘ to continue the installation.

Step 2:

Jinzora will now check your system to see if it meets the minimum requirement. Since we have installed the necessary files and do the required configuration in the pre-installation, you shouldn’t have any issue in this step (or see any fields in red).

Click the ‘Proceed to License‘ to continue.

Step 3:

This will bring you to the license agreement page. Check the box and click the ‘Proceed to Install Type‘.

Step 4:

Under the Installation Type dropdown box, select Standalone.

Under the Jukebox Mode, choose Streaming Only. If you plan on running a server side Jukebox utilizing MPD, select Jukebox & Streaming (We won’t be covering that in this tutorial).

Click ‘Proceed to Main Settings‘ to continue.

Step 5:

Here is where you configure your Jinzora account.

Set up the admin login credential.

Under the ‘Backend‘ dropdown box, select Database.

Under the ‘Frontend‘ dropdown box, you can choose how the Jinzora looks like in the web browser. This is not a permanent setting and can be changed later on. For a start, just select ‘Slick’.

Import Settings define how Jinzora handles your media tracks. If you have been diligently organize your audio files in proper folder order, select ‘Filesystem‘ under Data Structure. On the other hand, if you have carefully enter the meta data for each tracks, but all the tracks are jumbled up in one folder, select ‘Tag data’ under Data Structure.

Under the Media layout, select how you want Jinzora to display your media files – by Genres, Albums or Artists.

Once done, click ‘Proceed to Backend Setup‘ to proceed

Step 6:

In the backend setup, enter your MySQL username and password in the ‘Database User‘ and ‘Database password‘ fields (this is the same data as the one you entered when you install LAMP on your system).

Give your database a name (In this case, I labeled it ‘jinzora2′. You can give other name though). Make sure that the Database Server is set to ‘Localhost‘, Database Type is ‘MySQL‘ and Create database is set to ‘True‘ (This is important! If you did not set the Create Database to True, Jinzora will not create a database and the whole installation will fail).

Click ‘Proceed With Backend Install‘

Jinzora will proceed to install the database. If everything is fine, it will show the Create Database successful screen.

There is nothing much to do in this page. Click ‘Proceed to import Media‘

Step 7:

In the Media Directory field, enter the file path to your media files. If you are not sure, click the ‘browse‘ button to locate your media folder. If you keep your media files at more than one location, don’t worry, you have a chance to import them all in the next step. Right now, just select one of the locations.

Click ‘Import Media’.

Depending on the number of media files you have, this importing process might take a long time.

If you still have media files scattered in other locations, enter the file path and click ‘Import Media‘, else, click ‘Proceed to Save Config‘.

Step 8:

You have come to the end of Jinzora installation.

Click ‘Proceed to launch Jinzora‘ to launch Jinzora.

Step 9:

Before you launch Jinzora, it will ask if you want to share your annonymous stats. This is purely optional. If you are kind enough, select the ‘Share annonymous stats’, else select ‘No, thanks‘.

Click ‘Launch Jinzora’. Don’t worry, we are getting there.

Post Installation

You will now see the Jinzora login screen. Login with your username and password.

In the next screen, you will see an error message requesting you to remove the Install directory.

Now, back to your terminal, type the following:

sudo rm -R /var/www/jinzora2/install

Once done, refresh your browser. You should be logged in to the Jinzora home page.

On the left pane lies all the configuration options. You can change the look and style of Jinzora via the Interface and Style setting located at the bottom of the left pane.

Access your Jinzora Web Media server from other computer

If you want to access Jinzora from an external terminal, either in a cybercafe or with your mobile PDA, you can reach it by pointing the URL to http://your-ip-address:8888/jinzora2. You will have to enable the 8888 port to make this works. If you are not sure how to enable the 8888 port, check out www.portforward.com for detailed instructions.

More installation options:

Install Jinzora in Windows: Lifehacker

Install Jinzora in Mac OSX: SimpleHelp

How To Install And Setup Jinzora Media Server In Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Quick And Easy Way To Install Songbird In Ubuntu

Damien — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:58:32 +0000

Songbird is an open source media player that allows you to play music, watch video and surf the Web at the same time. Built with codes from Firefox and VLC, Songbird inherits the features of the two most powerful open source applications, thus making it one of the best desktop media player around

The most noticeable advantage of Songbird over other desktop media player is that it supports almost all the media formats and devices (including iPod) and it is fully customizable. With the same add-ons capability as Firefox, you can install extensions in Songbird to improve its functionality and change the themes/skins to your liking. Some of the useful extensions include Media Flow, iPod Device Support, Last.fm and CoverFetcher.

Install Songbird on Ubuntu

Before getdeb.net comes out with the latest version of Songbird deb file, the following is so far the easiest way to get Songbird running on Ubuntu.

1) Go to http://www.getsongbird.com and download Songbird to your home folder.

2) Using the Archive Manager, extract the Songbird folder to your home folder.

3) Open the Songbird folder and double click on the songbird file to execute the application.

That’s it.

If you want to create a shortcut on your Application menu, right-click on the Applications menu and select ‘Edit Menus‘

On the left pane, select Sound & Video.

On the right pane, click on the ‘New Item‘.

Fill in the field with as the same as the images below (remember to change the damien to your own username)

Click on the icon button and navigate to the path /home/yourusername/Songbird/chrome/icons/default. You should see the icon of Songbird. Select it and press OK twice.

You should now see the Songbird entry on your Application -> Sound & Video -> Songbird.

A much easier method of installing Songbird

If you find that the above method is not simple enough and you don’t mind using an older version of Songbird, you can:

Go to http://www.getdeb.net/search.php?keywords=songbird

Download Songbird 0.6.1 to your home folder.

Double click the downloaded .deb file to install the Songbird.

Once installed, you can open Songbird via Applications->Sound & Video -> Songbird.

Some Screenshots

Songbird playlist view

Songbird with MediaFlow extension

installing Songbird extension

Dark Super Feather

KMSM4 Feather and Web browsing on a new tab

Quick And Easy Way To Install Songbird In Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

28 Coolest Firefox About:Config Tricks

Damien — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:24:03 +0000

You may have installed countless add-on in Firefox to enhance your using experience, but if you want to get the most out of Firefox, you really have to hack your way into the about:config.

The about:config page contains most (if not, all) of Firefox configuration options. It is so far the most effective, and the most powerful way to tweak and enhance your Firefox performance. Here are 28 of the popular tweaks.

Accessing your about:config page

In your Firefox, type about:config in the address bar.

You will be shown a warning page. Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button to proceed.

On the main page, you will see a long list of configuration entries. Enter the name of the key you want to update in the “Filter” field. The list will narrow to only the entries that match your keyword as you type.

To modify the value, simply double click on the entry value field and update the entry. That’s all!

Isn’t that simple? Now, let’s get to the tweaking.

1) Adjust the Smart Location Bar’s Number of Suggestions

In Firefox 3, when you start typing in the location bar, a drop-down list of suggestion URLs will be shown. If you want it to show more than 12 suggestions (12 is the default), you can adjust the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults keys and get it to show the number you want.

Config name: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
Default: 12
Modified value: Set to your desired number of suggestion. If you want to disable it all together, set it to -1

2) Disable the session restore function

Firefox 3 automatically saves your session every 10 secs so that whenever it crashes, it can restore all your tabs. While this is a useful feature, some of you might find it irritating. To disable this function, toggle the value of browser.sessionstore.enabled to False

Config name: browser.sessionstore.enabled
Default: True
Modified value: False if you want to disable the session restore function

3) Adjust the Session Restore Saving Frequency

Same as above, if you decided to keep the session restore feature on, but want to reduce the session saving frequency, change the value of browser.sessionstore.interval so that Firefox will save the session at a longer interval.

Config name: browser.sessionstore.interval
Default: 10000 (in msecs, equivalent to 10secs)
Modified value: Set it to your desired value. 1000 means 1 sec and 60000 means 1 minute.

4) Enable Advanced Color Profile Support

Firefox has this advanced color profile features that display higher image quality. It is not enabled by default as it has a negative effect on the performance of the browser. If you are concern with the image quality rather than the performance, you can activated it via the gfx.color_management.enabled setting

Config name: gfx.color_management.enabled
Default: False
Modified value: True (if you want to activate the color profile support feature)

5) Disable Antivirus Scanning

This is mainly for Windows users. By default, Firefox 3 automatically scan the downloaded file with the default anti-virus application to make sure it is free of virus. If you download a big file, it could take a long time for the whole scanning process to complete. To increase the performance of the browser, you might want to consider disabling the anti-virus scanning via the browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone key.

Config name: browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
Default: True
Modified value: False (if you want to disable it)

6) Configuring The Scrolling Tabs

When you opened many tabs, Firefox will not keep on reducing the tab width. Instead, it shows a scrolling bar so that the min width (100px) is conserved and you can scroll to find your tabs. If you are those who don’t like the scrolling tab function and prefer Firefox to show all the tabs, regardless how small it is, you can set the value of browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 0 to disable it. Similarly, if you want Firefox to display more tabs before showing the scrolling button, you can reduce the default value to a lower value, say 75 pixels.

Config name: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
Default: 100
Modified value: 0 if you want to disable the scrolling functions, other values to set the min width value

7) Show/Disable Close button on Tabs

Some people love to see the Close (the red X) button on every tabs, but some hate it. Whatever is it, you can configure it to your preferences via the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting.

Config name: browser.tabs.closeButtons
Default: 1
Modified values:

0 – display a close button on the active tab only
1- display close buttons on all tabs
2- don’t display any close buttons
3- display a single close button at the end of the tab strip

8) Extend Scripts Execution Time

In Firefox 3, a script is only given 10 seconds to respond, after which it will issue a unresponsive script warning. If you are hooked on a slow network connection, you might want to increase the script execution time via dom.max_script_run_time to cut down on the frequency of the no script warning.

Config name: dom.max_script_run_time
Default:10 (in secs)
Modified value: 20, or any values greater than 10

9) Handling JavaScript Popups

When you come across a site that executes a javascript open new window function, and if the popup window is without all the usual window features, i.e. back/forward/reload buttons, status bar etc, Firefox will automatically treat it as a popup and will not open it as a new tab. However, if you find this to be a nuisance and wanted to open all new windows in a new tabs, you can specify it via the browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction setting.

Config name: browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction
Default: 2 – Open all JavaScript windows the same way as you have Firefox handle new windows unless the JavaScript call specifies how to display the window
Modified values:

0 – open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows
1 – do not open any new windows
2- open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows unless the Javascript specify how to display the window

10) Enable Spell Checking In All Text Fields

The default spell checking function only checks for multi-line text boxes. You can get it to spell-check for single line text box as well.

Config name: layout.spellcheckDefault
Default: 1 (spell checker for multi-lines text boxes only)
Modified values:

0 – disable the spell checker
2 – enable the spell checker for all text boxes

11) Open Search Box Results In New Tab

When you search using the search box at the top right hand corner of the browser, it will display the search results in the current tab. If you don’t want the search to interfere with your current tab, you can tweak the browser.search.openintab to make it open in a new tab.

Config Name: browser.search.openintab
Default: False
Modified value: True (open search box results in new tab)

12) Lower The Physical Memory Used When Minimized

This tweak is mainly for Windows users. When you minimize Firefox, it will send Firefox to your virtual memory and free up your physical memory for other programs to use. Firefox will reduce its physical memory usage, when minimized, to approximately 10MB (give or take some) and when you maximize Firefox it will take back the memory that it needs.

The preference name does not exist and needs to be created.

Right click on the background and select New->Boolean.

Enter the name when prompted: config.trim_on_minimize
Enter the values: True

13) Speed up your Firefox

Several tweaks required for this

Config name: network.http.pipelining
Default: False
Modified value: True

Config name: network.http.proxy.pipelining
Default: False
Modified value: True

Config name: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Default: 4
Modified value: any value higher than 4, but not more than 8

Config name: network.http.max-connections
Default: 30
Modified value: 96

Config name: network.http.max-connections-per-server
Default: 15
Modified value: 32

14) Increase/Decrease the Amount of Disk Cache

When a page is loaded, Firefox will cache it into the hard disk so that it doesn’t need to be download again for redisplaying. The bigger the storage size you cater for Firefox, the more pages it can cache.

Before you increase the disk cache size, make sure that browser.cache.disk.enabled browser.cache.disk.enable is set to True.

Config name: browser.cache.disk.capacity
Default: 50000 (in KB)
Modified value:

0 – disable disk caching
any value lower than 50000 reduces the disk cache
any value higher than 50000 increases the disk cache.

15) Select all text when click on the URL bar

In Windows and Mac, Firefox highlights all text when you click on the URL bar. In Linux, it does not select all the text. Instead, it places the cursor at the insertion point. Regardless which platform you are using, you can now tweak it to either select all or place cursor at insertion point.

Config name: browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll
Modified value:

False – place cursor at insertion point
True – select all text on click

16) Autofill Address in URL Bar

Other than the smart location feature, you can also get your URL bar to autofill the address as you type the URL.

Config name: browser.urlbar.autofill
Default: False
Modified value: True (Have Firefox autofill the address as you type in the URL bar)

17) Same Zoom Level For Every Site

Firefox remembers your zoom preference for each site and set it to your preferences whenever you load the page. If you want the zoom level to be consistent from site to site, you can toggle the value of browser.zoom.siteSpecific from True to False.

Config name: browser.zoom.siteSpecific
Default: True
Modified value: False (enable same zoom preferences for every sites)

18) Setting your zoom limit

If you find that the max/min zoom level is still not sufficient for your viewing, you can change the zoom limit to suit your viewing habits.

Config name: zoom.maxPercent
Default: 300 (percent)
Modified value: any value higher than 300

Config name: zoom.minPercent
Default: 30 (percent)
value: any value

19) Configure Your Backspace Button

In Firefox, you can set your backspace to better use by getting it to either go back to the previous page or act as page up function.

Config name: browser.backspace_action
Default: 2 (does nothing)
Modified value:

0 – go back previous page
1- page up

20) Increase Offline Cache

If you do not have access to Internet most of the time, you might want to increase the offline cache so that you can continue to work offline. By default, Firefox 3 caches 500MB of data from supported offline Web apps. You can change that value to whatever amount of your choice.

Config name: browser.cache.offline.capacity
Default: 512000 (in KB)
Modified value: any value higher than 512000 will increase the cache value

21) Auto Export Firefox 3 bookmarks to bookmarks.html

Unlike the previous version, Firefox 3 backup the bookmarks file in places.sqlite rather than the usual bookmarks.html. Since bookmarks.html allows us to export and sync our bookmarks with other browser, it will be very useful if Firefox 3 can backup the bookmark to the bookmarks.html as well.

Config name: browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML
Default: False
Modified value: True (auto export bookmarks file to bookmarks.html)

22) Disable Extension Compatibility Checks

This is useful if you want to use an extension that is not supported by your version of Firefox badly. It is not recommended, but you can still do it at your own risk.

Right click and select New->Boolean. Enter extensions.checkCompatibility in the field. Enter False in the next field.

Right click again and select New->Boolean. Enter extensions.checkUpdateSecurity into the field and enter False into the next field.

23) Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-on

Everytime you wanted to install a Firefox add-on, you will have to wait for several secs before the actual installation starts. If you are tired of waiting, you can turn the function security.dialog_enable_delay off so that the installation will start immediately upon clicking.

Config name: security.dialog_enable_delay
Default: 2000 (in msec)
Modified value:

0 – start installation immediately
any other value (in msec)

24) View Source in Your Favorite Editor

This is very useful for developers who are always using the ‘view source‘ function. This tweak allows you to view the source code in an external editor.

There are two configuration need to be made:
Config name: view_source.editor.external
Default: False
Modified value: True ( enable view source using external text editor)

Config name: view_source.editor.path
Default: blank
Modified value: insert the file path to your editor here.

25) Increasing ‘Save Link As‘ timeout value

When you right click and select the ‘Save Link As…‘, the browser will request the content disposition header from the URL so as to determine the filename. If the URL did not deliver the header within 1 sec, Firefox will issue a timeout value. This could happen very frequently in a slow network connection environment. To prevent this issue from happening frequently, you can increase the timeout value so as to reduce the possibility of a timeout.

Config name: Browser.download.saveLinkAsFilenameTimeout
Default: 1000 (1 sec)
Modified value: any value higher than 1000 (value is in msec)

26) Animate Fullscreen Toolbar Collapse mode

In Firefox’s fullscreen mode, toolbars and the tab strip are hidden at the top of the screen and only shown on mouseover. To draw attention to this, there is an animation of the toolbar sliding upwards and off-screen when fullscreen mode is toggled on. For performance issue, the animation of the collapse of the toolbar only appear for the first time. For some reason that you may love/hate the animation, you can adjust Browser.fullscreen.animateUp to switch it on/off for every collapse.

Config name: Browser.fullscreen.animateUp
Default: 1 (animate the toolbar collapse only the first time)
Modified value:

0 -disable the animation
2- enable the animation for every collapse

27) Autohide Toolbar in Fullscreen mode

In fullscreen mode, the toolbar is set to autohide and appear upon mouseover. If you have a need to view the toolbar at all time, you can toggle the value of browser.fullscreen.autohide to False to always show the toolbar.

Config name: browser.fullscreen.autohide
Default: True (always autohide)
Modified value: False (always show the toolbar)

28) Increase Add-On search result

If you go to Tools->Add-ons->Get Add-ons and perform a search there, Firefox will only fetch and display 5 matching results. If you want Firefox to show more than 5 results (say 10), you can adjust extensions.getAddons.maxResults to get it to display more results.

Config name: extensions.getAddons.maxResults
Default: 5
Modified value: any value more than 5

This list of about:config is definitely not the complete list. If you have any tricks not listed here, please add it in the comment.

28 Coolest Firefox About:Config Tricks originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

4 Ways To Play Windows Game On Linux

Damien — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:34:26 +0000

Playing Windows games on Linux is not really a difficult task. Most gamers are reluctant to migrate to Linux because they have this misconception that Windows games cannot be played on Linux. How wrong they are. If you are one of those avid gamers that I mentioned above, here are 4 ways that you can play Windows games on Linux.

1) Wine

The obvious way to install any Windows applications on Linux is via Wine. At the time when WineHQ released the stable 1.0 version, it has already supported more than 200 Windows games. Before you install any games on Linux, you can first check out Wine AppDB whether your game is already supported in Wine.

2) PlayOnLinux

PlayOnLinux (POL) is a python based script based on Wine code. It is a useful tool that aim to help Linux users run Windows games on Linux without having to go through the scary command line interface. The main features of POL lies in its ability to allow each application to be installed within its own wineprefix. What this means is that one can easily install/modify/remove Windows games without affecting the systems or other applications. POL is open source and has a strong community support on their POL forum. Being a python script, it is not limited to any Linux distribution. Whether you are using Ubuntu, Fedora or Gentoo, you can find installation and usage instructions on the POL site.

3) CrossOver Games

CrossOver Games is an addition to the popular CrossOver series. Unlike other CrossOver products, which are aimed primarily at office productivity applications, CrossOver Games focuses on the stability of installing Windows games on Linux (and Mac OSX). As the same as PlayOnLinux, CrossOver Games provides a click and install method that makes it simple for anyone to use. The latest version of CrossOver Games has already tested to work with more than a hundred Windows games, including the popular World of Warcraft, Half-Life2 and Counterstrike.

CrossOver Games costs $39.95

4) Cedega

Formerly known as WineX, Cedega is a proprietary software from Transgaming Technologies specifically designed for running game written for Windows under Linux. Being a proprietary product, users must subscribe to Transgaming membership to enjoy the full functionality of Cedega.

As a fork of Wine, Cedega strength lies in implement the Mircosoft DirectX API on Linux. Installation of games using Cedega is make to mimics the experience that Windows users have. You insert the disc, run setup.exe, wait for the game to finish installing and finally enjoy your game.

4 Ways To Play Windows Game On Linux originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Miro: Watch Internet TV On Your Desktop

Damien — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:34:27 +0000

For those who prefer to watch videos and movies behind the computer screen rather than the television, Miro is definitely the best application for you.

Miro is an open source application that turns your desktop into an Internet TV. You can subscribe to unlimited channels and have Miro download the videos for you. Be it Windows, Mac or Linux, Miro works in all the platforms.

A variety of video formats are supported by Miro. Be it Quicktime, wmv, avi, xvid, mpeg 1, 2, 3, 4 or H.264, you can play them in Miro. Other than that, you can also save videos from Youtube, Google Video, Dailymotion, Veoh and other video sites. What is even better is that you can save a search term and get Miro to download new videos as they are posted.

Miro is also a bit torrent client that can download your torrents. Simply load the torrent files and Miro will automatically start the downloading.

Installing Miro on Ubuntu

The version of Miro on Ubuntu repository is 1.1.2, which is an outdated version. To get the latest version (1.2.6) on your desktop, do the following in the terminal:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file

deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/miro/linux/repositories/ubuntu hardy/

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install miro

After you have installed Miro, go to Applications->Sound & video -> Miro Internet TV.

Miro will load and guide you through the configuring process.

Once loaded up, you can see all the channels on the left pane. To add new channel, go to Channels->Add channels.

Miro Configuration

Go to Video->Options, this is where you can configure your Miro

You can set Miro to update your channel automatically by the hour or by the day.

Limit the number of downloads at any point of time.

Select the folder that you want the videos to be stored.

There is no need to worry about lack of hard drive space. You can set the download files expiry date. Once the expiry date is due, Miro will automatically delete them from your hard disk. You can also limit the minimum free space that you want to preserve on your hard disk.

This is where you configure the playback option. In Linux, the default video renderer is Xine. It crashes Miro after time I open a video. Change the renderer to Gstreamer will solve the problem.

Get Miro

Miro: Watch Internet TV On Your Desktop originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

4 Hidden WordPress Features That Are unknown to Many

Damien — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:34:58 +0000

You might already have used WordPress for a long time and get the hang of it. Well, here are 4 hidden WordPress features for you to maximize your WordPress blog and get the most out of it.

1) Turn off post revision

One of the new feature in WordPress 2.6 is the post revision. This is a great feature that does a version control for all your posts. At any point of time, you can see what was changed in the post, by whom and when and revert back to the previous post if necessary. For a multi-authors blog, this is a splendid feature, but for single user, this could possibly lead to many duplicate of the same post that junk up your database.

By default, the post revisioning feature is turned ON by default and there is no options to turn it off in the Admin menu. To disable it, you have to download your wp-config.php file from the server (using any FTP program), add the following line:

define(’WP_POST_REVISIONS’, false);

after the line define (’WPLANG’, ”);

Now if you want to keep the post revisioning feature, but limit the number of revision copy, you can paste this line instead

define(’WP_POST_REVISIONS’, no_of_revision);

and replace the no_of_revision by the no of revision copy you want to keep.

Now, don’t forget to save the file and upload it back to your server.

2) Configuring secret keys

WordPress 2.6 includes three secret keys AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, and LOGGED_IN_KEY to make your login session more secure and more difficult for hacker to crack.

Similarly, there is no way to add this in the Admin menu. You have to configure it via the wp-config.php file.

Open up your wp-config.php (Assuming you are using WordPress 2.6 and have downloaded the file from your server), you should see the following three lines:

define(’AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); // Change this to a unique phrase.
define(’SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); // Change this to a unique phrase.
define(’LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); // Change this to a unique phrase.

Now, go to http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/. You should see the same three lines of code with a random weird string in the place of ‘put your unique phrase here‘.

Copy the three lines from the site and replace the same three lines of code on the wp-config.php.

Save and upload the wp-config.php to your server.

(If you are using WP2.5, you will only see one line define(’SECRET_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);. You can get the unique SECRET_KEY from http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.0/)

3) Split long post into two or more pages

Sometimes you have written a long post and it become very lengthy and uncomfortable for your reader to read. What you can do is to split it into several short posts. To do it, simply add a

to the part of the post that you want to split.

To show the pagination at the bottom of the post, insert the line

to your theme single.php after the line

4) Add a thumbnail for each post

Have you ever wondered how others manage to embed a thumbnail for every single post? Well, you can simply do it by adding a custom field into your post.

In your WordPress Write section, scroll down to find ‘Custom Fields‘. Click on it to reveal the input fields. Under the Key, type ‘thumbnail‘. Under the value, type the URL of the thumbnail image that you want to embed. Click ‘Add Custom Field‘.

To display the thumbnail on your blog, you can query it by inserting the following line to your wp theme.

ID, ‘thumbnail’, true); ?>” alt=”" width=”80″ height=”80″ />

4 Hidden WordPress Features That Are unknown to Many originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

11 Ways To Secure Your WordPress Blog

Damien — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:30:10 +0000

Securing your WordPress blog is the most important thing that you must do after you have set it up on your server. There shouldn’t be any reason for you to leave your WordPress wide open for hackers to creep in and steal your information and/or destroy your data. Here are 11 ways that you can use to secure your WordPress blog.

1) Encrypt your login

Whenever you try to login to your website, your password is sent unencrypted. If you are on a public network, hacker can easily ‘sniff’ out your login credential using network sniffer. The best way is to encrypt your login with the Chap Secure Login plugin. This plugin adds a random hash to your password and authenticate your login with the CHAP protocol.

2) Stop brute force attack

Hackers can easily crack your login password and credential using brute force attack. To prevent that from happening, you can install the login lockdown plugin. This plugin records the IP address and timestamp of every failed WordPress login attempt. Once a certain number of failed attempts are detected, it will disable the login function for all requests from that range.

3) Use a strong password

Make sure you use a strong password that is difficult for others to guess. Use a combination of digits, special characters and upper/lower case to form your password. You can also use the password checker on WordPress 2.5 and above to check the strength of your password.

4) Protect your wp-admin folder

Your wp-admin folder contains all the important information and it is the last place that you want to give access to others. Use AskApache Password Protect to password protect the directory and give access right only to authorized personnel.

5) Remove WordPress version info

A large number of WordPress theme include the WordPress version info in the meta tag. Hackers can easily get hold of this information and plan specific attack targeting the security vulnerability for that version.

To remove the WordPress version info, log in to your WordPress dashboard. Go to Design->Theme Editor. On the right, click on the Header file. On the left where you see a lot of codes, look for a line that looks like

” />

Delete it and press Update File.

Update: In WP2.6 and above, WordPress automatically includes the version in the Wp_head section. To fix this, you can simply install the WP-Security Scan plugin.

6) Hide your plugins folder

If you go to your http://yourwebsite.com/wp-content/plugins, you can see a list of plugins that you are using for your blog. You can easily hide this page by uploading an empty index.html to the plugin directory.

Open your text editor. Save the blank document as index.html.

Using a ftp program, upload the index.html to the /wp-content/plugins folder.

7) Change your login name

The default username is admin. You can make it more difficult for the hacker to crack your login credential by changing the login name.

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Users and set up a new user account. Give this new user administrator role. Log out and log in again with the new user account.

Go to Users again. This time, check the box beside admin and press Delete. When it asks for deletion confirmation, select the “Attribute all posts and links to:” and select your new username from the dropdown bar. This will transfer all the posts to your new user account. Press Confirm Deletion.

8) upgrade to the latest version of WordPress and plugins

The latest version of WordPress always contains bugs fixes for any security vulnerabilities, therefore it is important to keep yourself updated at all times. The latest version is WP 2.6 (as of this post). You can download it here.

9) Do a regular security scan

Install the wp-security-scan plugin and perform a regular scan of your blog setting for any security loopholes. This plugin can also help you to change your database prefix from wp_ to a custom prefix.

10) Backup your wordpress database

No matter how secure your site is, you still want to prepare for the worst. Install the wp-database-backup plugin and schedule it to backup your database daily.

11) Define user privilege

If there is more than one author for your blog, you can install the role-manager plugin to define the capabilities for each user group. This will give you, the blog owner, the ability to control what users can and cannot do in the blog.

11 Ways To Secure Your WordPress Blog originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Setting up Subversion Version control in Ubuntu

Damien — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:37:00 +0000

When developing a project, you may want to keep a version control of all your files so that you can easily revert to an earlier page (or the previous revision) to fix any bugs or in the event that someone accidentally deleted your files.

In Ubuntu, the easiest way to do version control is to set up a Subversion (SVN) server.

Install SVN and Apache

sudo apt-get install subversion libapache2-svn

Next, we are going to create a directory to hold your repository.

sudo svnadmin create /var/lib/svn

Give apache the access right to the repository

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/lib/svn
sudo chmod 770 -R /var/lib/svn

Configure Apache for SVN access

gksu gedit /etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_svn.conf

Uncomment the codes by removing the ‘#’ in front of the following lines:

…
DAV svn
…
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Subversion Repository”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd
…

Require valid-user

If you have only one repository for your SVN, uncomment the following line

SVNPath /var/lib/svn

Else if you are setting up multiple repositories, uncomment this line

SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn

Remember that at any time, only SVNPath or SVNParentPath is uncommented. Do not uncomment both at the same time.

Create a password for your username

sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd yourusername

Restart apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now open your browser and go to http://localhost/svn. If you see the following, the your installation is successful.

Importing your project into SVN

You have successfully installed and configured SVN, now we need to import our project files to the SVN.

sudo apt-get install rapidsvn

Go to Applications->Programming->RapidSVN

In the RapidSVN, go to Repository->Import

In the window, enter the following:

Click OK. Enter your username and password. Your project should be in the SVN now.

Setting up Subversion Version control in Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

AMSN Can’t Connect in Ubuntu…

Damien — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:55:51 +0000

After running the update manager and installed a bunch of files, you find that your AMSN is no longer able to connect. If this is the case, then you are not alone. I have this issue after I finished updating my system. It seems that the updated version of Tcl/tk client is conflicting with AMSN (I was using AMSN 0.97).

If you are having the same issue, you can simply upgrade your AMSN to the latest 0.97.2 version to get it back to working mode again.

First, remove your existing installation of AMSN

sudo apt-get autoremove amsn

Download amsn 0.97.2 from GetDeb.

Double click on the deb file to start the installation.

Once it is done, your AMSN should be able to connect now.

AMSN Can’t Connect in Ubuntu… originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Syncing Your iCal with Google Calendar

Damien — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:52:02 +0000

While Windows and Linux users can easily sync their desktop calendars to Google Calendar via GCal Daemon, there is no free and easy option to sync Mac Leopard iCal with Google Cal. All this is set to change as Calgoo, the online and desktop syncing application, become free.

Once configured, Calgoo Connect will sync your desktop and online calendar automatically in the background. Be it PC, Mac or any terminal in the cybercafe (and even your iPhone/iPod Touch), you will sure to have the updated version of your appointment schedule with you.

Installing Calgoo Connect

First, go to http://www.calgoo.com/connect/index.do and sign up for a free account. Once you are done, download the Calgoo Connect app.

Double click to mount the downloaded file and drag it to your Application folder.

When you first open Calgoo Connect, it will prompt you to enter your username and password.

Once done, it will bring you to the main screen where you can click to add a connector.

Start by clicking on the sentence “Click here to add a new Connector to synchronize your Apple iCal and Google Calendars”.

You will be presented with four options. Choose the first one “Sync iCal with Google Calendar”. If you want to include 30 Boxes and do a multiple sync, then select the fourth choice.

Enter a name for the connector.

Calgoo Connect will now scan your iCal for existing calendar. Check the one that you want to sync.

Next, enter your Google Calendar login credential. Similarly, Calgoo connect scan your Google account for all the available cal. Check the one that you want to sync.

Confirm the detail and click Finish to start the synchronization. It will take a while.

More configuration to enhance your experience

Press the Preference button (the wheel icon) to go into configuration page. Here, you can set your duplicated event criteria and configure Calgoo Connect to remove duplicated event when syncing sources.

Next, you can set how often you want it to sync.

Select how you want it to connect to Internet and whether it should run when you boot up your Mac.

‘

That’s all.

Syncing Your iCal with Google Calendar originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Setting Up a LAMP Server In Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Damien — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:29:16 +0000

LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It is the most widely used combination for setting up a Web Server. By far, the easiest way to install LAMP server is simply installing the Ubuntu Server Edition itself. However, many of us have installed the Ubuntu Desktop edition, only to find that we need to set up a LAMP server later on. In the following tutorial, I am going to show you how to install and configure a LAMP server in your Ubuntu Hardy Heron in less than 10 minutes.

Installing Apache, Php and MySql

In your Ubuntu desktop, go to System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager.

Scroll down the list to search for apache2. Check the box beside it and select ‘Mark for installation‘. This will also install other dependency packages. When prompted, click ‘Mark‘.

Next, scroll down the list and search for php5. Similarly, place a check beside the box and select ‘Mark for installation‘.

Do the same for ‘mysql-server‘ and ‘phpmyadmin‘

Once you are done, click ‘Apply‘ on the top icon bar.

The Synaptic Package Manager will now fetch all the files and install it in your Ubuntu.

When installing MySQL, you will be prompted to enter and reconfirm your password. Make sure that you enter a password that you can remember.

Also, the phpmyadmin will ask you which version of apache to use. Select apache2

Testing your installation

Once you have finished installing the LAMP, you will need to test if it is working.

Open your browser and point the URL to http://localhost

If you see the words ‘It works’, then apache is working fine.

Next, you want to create a php file to test your php setting.

gksu gedit /var/www/testphp.php

paste the following line to the file

Save and close the file.

In your browser, point the URL to http://localhost/testphp.php. You should see all the php information on the browser. If it prompt you to download the file, then your php configuration is not successful. Go to Synaptic Package Manager and reinstall php5

Testing of phpmyadmin

On your browser, go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin. It should loads up the phpmyadmin login page. Log in with the user name root and the password you supplied when installing.

This will bring you to the main screen of phpmyadmin.

Putting it all together

To test if the apache, php5, MySQL and phpmyadmin are working together, we can test it out by installing Wordpress.

Download WordPress here.

Extract the wordpress folder to your home folder.

Inside the folder, open up the wp-config-sample.php file. Edit the following information.

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘root’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password

Remember to change the ‘yourpasswordhere‘ to the password that you supplied during the MySQL installation.

Save the file as wp-config.php.

Next in your phpmyadmin, create a new database call wordpress.

Open a terminal, copy the wordpress folder to the apache working directory (the working directory is located at /var/www)

sudo cp -R wordpress /var/www/

Once done, on your browser, go to http://localhost/wordpress. The famous 5 minutes installation will show on screen. Follow the instructions. If is your LAMP configuration is good, your wordpress will be up in 1 minute.

That’s it. Enjoy!

[Reference: Lijamex's Blog, Howto Forge]

Setting Up a LAMP Server In Ubuntu Hardy Heron originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Portable Firefox For OS X

Damien — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:00:20 +0000

When Portable Apps released their portable Firefox, it is meant to be used only on Windows. Now, with the release of Portable Firefox OSX, Mac users can also enjoy the benefit of bringing the Firefox everywhere they go, even on their iPod.

Portable Firefox OSX is developed by FreeSMUG (Free Open Source Software Mac User Group) and is meant to be used on any Mac OS X computer. It can be installed on any portable devices such as USB thumb drive, iPod, portable hard drive or memory card as long as it has 57MB of free space and in a format readable by Mac.

The installation is easy. On your Mac desktop, simply drag the “Portable Firefox OS X” folder to your portable device. That’s it. To use it, click “Portable Firefox” from your portable device. No configuration is required.

A good thing about Portable Firefox For OSX is that upon installation, it will also import your existing Firefox profile over. Your entire profile, including your bookmarks, preferences, passwords, extensions, history and cookies will all be ported over such that when you open Portable Firefox, all your settings and configurations are fully intact.

Download Portable Firefox for OSX

Portable Firefox For OS X originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Turn Any Applications To A Widget In Ubuntu

Damien — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:41:04 +0000

If you have installed CompizConfig Setting Manager in you Ubuntu, you can easily activate the widget-layer plugin and hide/show your desktop widgets in a Mac dashboard style.

In addition, with some simple configuration, you can also turn any windows/applications into widgets so that they can run in the background (such as playing music) without messing up your desktop. This can also be very useful if you are frequently watching/reading porn confidential stuffs. When someone (such as your boss) walks in, you can quickly hide it without them seeing it.

Installing CompizConfig Setting Manager

Make sure that you have installed the CompizConfig Setting Manager.

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-setting-manager

Go to System->Preferences->CompizConfig Setting Manager (some may see it as ‘Advanced Desktop effect Settings‘). On the left search box, type in ‘widget‘. You will see the Widget Layer option on the right.

Place a check on the box to activate it.

Next, click on the Widget Layer to go into its configuration page.

Go to the Behavior tab, you will see a Widget Windows input field. Beside that is a ‘+‘ button.

Before you click on the ‘+‘ button, open the window/application that you want to set as widget.

Now click on the ‘+’ button on the Widget config page. You will see a window as shown below.

Under the ‘Type‘ dropdown option, select Window Class. In the next row, press the ‘Grab‘ button. The mouse cursor will now change to a ‘+’. Click the cursor on the window/application that you want to change to widget. It will return a value to the ‘Value‘ input field. Click Add to insert the entry. An entry such as “class=YourApplicationName” will be added to the Widget Windows Input field. You will also notice that the application that you have just clicked on has disappeared from your desktop. Press F9 and you will see it appear as a widget.

Isolating a single application

If you have several applications that are using the same Window Class (such as the prism-gmail, prism-google-analytics, prism-twitter are all under the Prism class), you might want to add an additional matching rule to isolate the application from the rest of its class. For example, if you want to add prism-gmail as a widget, but not the rest of the prism applications, all you need to do is to add another entry “title=Gmail” to the Widget Window field. In this way, only Prism application with the window title containing ‘Gmail‘ will become a widget.

Adding two or more applications

For more than two applications, you have to change the ‘Relation‘ field to ‘OR‘ (or simply add a ‘|’ in between the entry). For example, if I want the Rhythmbox and GIMP to load as widget, I will add the entry as shown below:

While the above tutorial is for Ubuntu, it should work for any Linux systems with Compiz installed.

How To Turn Any Applications To A Widget In Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Running Internet Explorer on Mac

Damien — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:46:30 +0000

Internet Explorer is the proprietary product of Microsoft and getting it to work in Linux and Mac can be a hassle. It is not that I care or love IE, but the fact that every time I designed a Web site or WordPress theme that looks great in Firefox, Safari and Opera, I can be pretty sure that it will look awful in IE, with all the alignment gone. As far as I know, IE is well-known to break stuffs. For that reason, it is necessary for me (and any non-Windows developers) to install IE on my Linux and Mac machine.

For Linux, I used ies4Linux, and luckily enough, there is also an ies4OSX for Mac OSX.

ies4OSX uses X11 and darwine (a port-over from Linux’s WINE). X11 is included in Mac Leopard. For Tiger user, you have to install it from the Mac installer CD.

In case you are remote to X11 and darwine and start to think that there is a lot of command line interface involved, then you are wrong. There is no need for any command line at all. As the same as other Mac app, you simply double click to install and it will even create a desktop shortcut for you. If only installing IEs on Linux can be as easy.

The rendering engine in ies4OSX is the exact copy as what you see in Windows, but don’t expect it to be as polish as Safari or Firefox.

Lastly,

Don’t expect IE on Mac to run as fast as your Safari or Firefox. It is not supposed to be used for Web surfing in the first place. But if you’re a developer that wants to test your works in an IE environment, then ies4OSX is the right tool for you.

Download ies4OSX

Download Darwine

Running Internet Explorer on Mac originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Install KDE 4.1 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Damien — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:46:52 +0000

The KDE community has officially announced the release of KDE 4.1. This second feature release of the KDE4 contains many bug fixes, added more applications and also polished up the Plasma desktop to make it even more stunning. On the same day, the Ubuntu team has also released a package for its users to upgrade to the new KDE 4.1. Ubuntu GNOME users can also install KDE4.1 and run alongside their GNOME desktop.

Screenshot from KDE

Installing KDE 4.1 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

In your terminal,

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main

Save and close the file

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-kde4-desktop

This will download a whole bunch of KDE files.

Once it is done, reboot your computer. You will now see a change in the boot screen. The usual Ubuntu usplash screen is now changed to Kubuntu usplash.

You will also see a new login window.

Click on the Session Type and select KDE 4

You should now see the KDE desktop with the Oxygen theme.

Move your mouse to the top right corner to add widgets to the desktop.

And the bottom right corner to add icon to the bottom panel

Overall, I like KDE 4.1 very much. The Plasma desktop is much more polished now and the new applications such as KDE-PIM integrates well with it. While GNOME gives you the flexibility to customize your desktop, KDE 4.1 gives you the stunning interface right from the start. Good work! KDE.

[ Reference: Tombuntu ]

Install KDE 4.1 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Add a Personal Favor To Your Firefox

Damien — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:30:29 +0000

Creating a Firefox theme has always been a designer and coder job. If you are one of those who wanted to create your own theme, without learning the coding skill, then Personas For Firefox is going to make it very simple for you.

Personas For Firefox is a Firefox extension that allows you to easily create and change theme for your browser, and to personalize it so that you can truly call it your own. You don’t need to be a designer or coder. As long as you have some simple photo editing skill, you can start to create your own personas.

Creating your own Personas

There are two files that you need to create: the “header” and the “footer” image. The “header” image is displayed as the background of the top of the browser window (i.e. behind the toolbars and the tab strip) while the “footer” image is shown on the bottom status and find bars.

You can design your own header and footer image. The header image should be 3000 pixels wide and 200 pixels tall. The footer image should be 3000 pixels wide and 100 pixels tall.

When designing, it is best to position your design elements toward the right so that they do not distract from the menubar and other major UI elements of Firefox.

Dynamic Personas

You can also create dynamic personas to present live information such as the weather report or time of the day.

Download Personas For Firefox

Design Your Own Personas

Add a Personal Favor To Your Firefox originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Desktop Drapes: Another GNOME Wallpaper Changer

Damien — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:21:26 +0000

We have covered several wallpaper changers for GNOME. Here is another one to add to the list.

Desktop Drapes is a simple wallpaper manager application for the GNOME desktop. It can automatically pick up any new wallpapers you have added to a directory and randomly change your wallpaper at regular interval, or whenever you fell like it.

Installation

Installing Desktop Drapes in Ubuntu is easy. Go to System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager. Search for ‘drapes‘. Check the box beside it and click Apply.

Once installed, you can start Desktop Drapes via System->Preferences->Desktop Drapes. There won’t be any popup window or configuration menu. Instead you will find a new icon on the right of the top panel. Simply click on it to change your current wallpaper.

Configuration

To configure Desktop Drapes, right-click on the icon and select Preferences. You won’t see a window with many options. On the main screen, you will see your current wallpaper. To add extra wallpapers from other folders, click “Add”.

On the General tab, you can choose whether you want Desktop Drapes to start and switch wallpaper when login. You can also set the timing to auto switch the wallpaper at regular interval.

Generally, this is a simple wallpaper changer that performs what it suppose to do: change wallpaper at regular interval. If you just want a simple set-and-leave-it wallpaper changer, then this would be the right choice. However if you want more functionality such as auto-download photos from Flickr, I would recommend Webilder.

Desktop Drapes: Another GNOME Wallpaper Changer originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)