Make Tech Easier

How to Install VMware server 2.0 in Ubuntu Intrepid

Damien — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:01:41 +0000

In the past, whenever Ubuntu came out with a new release, the VMware installation will break. Surprisingly, when I installed VMware server 2.0 in Ubuntu Intrepid, it installed and run smoothly, without having to apply any patch. So if you are looking on installing VMware server 2.0 on your Ubuntu Intrepid, this is the way to do it:

1) Download VMware Server 2.0. You will have to register for a free account in order to download and get the license key. At the download page, select the tar image for Linux system. It is 539MB and will take about half an hour with a broadband connection

2) Using the Archive Manager, extract the tar file to your home folder. You should now see a vmware-server-distrib folder.

3) Before we start the installation, we need to install the necessary dependencies. In your terminal:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential xinetd

Once that is done,

cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

You will be prompted to answer some questions. Unless you know what you are doing, pressing ‘Enter’ to select the default answer is often the best bet.

During the installation, you will encounter this error message “Unable to make a vsock module that can be loaded in the running kernel…“.

There is some conflict with the new kernel and the vsock module which make it unable to compile. Luckily, this does not affect the operation of the VMware. You can safely ignore this and proceed with the installation. Just note that you won’t be able to access the Vsock module in the VMware server.

Next, it will arrive at this prompt:

The current administrative user for VMware Server is ”. Would you like to
specify a different administrator? [no]

If you select the default answer [no], you will have to log into your vmware console as root. That is not a big issue here, but if you want to log in as your own user ID (the ID you log into your Ubuntu machine), you have to type YES and press Enter. It will then ask you to type in your user ID.

Proceed on with the installation until the end.

4) Now, if you choose to log in as root, you need to set a password for root

sudo passwd root

Enter your password twice.

5) The keyboard configuration option for VMware is not turned on by default. Here is the trick to get it to configure your keyboard.

gedit ~/.vmware/config

Paste the following line to the text file.

xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = TRUE

Save and exit.

5) Open your Firefox browser (I have tried in Opera and it doesn’t work well), on the URL bar, type in http://localhost:8222

6) Log in with your username and password. If you have chosen the default option, the login name will be root and the password is the one that you have set previously.

That’s it. You can now create your own virtual machine.

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.

How To Add Subtitles And Convert Video For iPhone In Windows

Damien — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:28:40 +0000

Imagine that you are going to convert an avi video files to mp4 format so that you can sync it with your iPhone and watch it on the go. Now, if you have the subtitles files, wouldn’t it be great if you can embed it in the converted video as well?

XviD4PSP is a video encoder/decoder that allows you to convert your video files from one format to another. Originally created to convert video for PSP, now it is able to convert video for a wide variety of devices, include iPhone, PS 3, Xbox 360, Blackberry, DVD player etc. There is also a subtitles feature where you can embed your subtitle file in the video.

Let’s get started.

Download XviD4PSP here

Windows XP users need to install the Micosoft .Net framework 3.0. Vista users need to turn the UAC off or set it to run in quiet mode. Here are some ways that you can turn UAC off without compromising your security.

Once you have installed the framework, run the Xvid4PSP installer. When it comes to the Choose Components page, make sure you select all the components.

Launch Xvid4PSP

Open your video files (Click on the Open button in the menubar)

The left pane is where all the configuration options are situated. If you are proficient enough, you can click the ‘E‘ button beside the dropdown to configure your own setting. For the rest, the preset options are good enough.

Under the Format dropdown bar, select MP4 iPhone or Touch.

Under the Video encoding dropdown bar, you can choose between Turbo, Extreme or Ultra. If you want to have a fast encoding process, pick Turbo. If the video quality matters a lot to you and you don’t mind to wait double the time for the encoding to finish, select Extreme or Ultra.

Next, you have to prepare your subtitle file. Subtitle files usually come with a .srt file extension. There are always numerous version of subtitle files for a particular movie, so you may want to check first before you start the encoding. If you are looking for a subtitle file, there are plenty of websites that offer free subtitle files for download. You just need to google for it.

On the menubar of Xvid4PSP, click on Subtitles-> Add. Navigate to the directory where your subtitle file is kept and select it.

To check if the subtitle file is correct for your movie, click on the Play button to start playback the video. You will be able to see if the subtitle matches the timeline of the show.

When you are done, click on the Encode button on the menubar. A window will prompt you to select the location to save your file. Navigate to the folder you want to save the file and click Save. The conversion will now start.

The conversion process will take a few hours. You might want to sit back and relax or go for a coffee break. When you are back, you should see your newly converted video at the folder you have specified.

Gscrot: A Powerful Screen Capture Tool For Linux

Damien — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:37:15 +0000

Few days ago, I wrote about the various ways that I used to capture screenshots on my Ubuntu machine. In the comments, Imd mentioned about Gscrot being a great alternative screen capture tool. After checking it out, I must admit that it is by far the best screen capture software that I have seen in Linux platform.

GScrot is a GTK+ 2.0 screenshot application written in perl. It covers all features of common command line tools like scrot or import and adds reasonable new features combined with a comfortable GUI using the GTK+ 2.0 framework.

To install Gscrot in Ubuntu Intrepid:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gscrot/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gscrot/ubuntu intrepid main

Save and close the file. Back to your terminal,

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gscrot

Open Gscrot (Application -> Accessories -> Gscrot – Screenshot Tool).

There are several options that you can use to take screenshots: Selection, Full Screen, Window, Section and Web.

The Selection button allows you to capture a selected region of the screen. There are two modes for region selection – Simple and Advanced. The Simple mode is just like the Compiz way where you drag the crosshair cursor across the region that you want to capture. In the Advanced mode, a lightbox canvas will first load up. You can then define, move, resize the region that you want to capture. When you are done, simply press Enter to capture the region.

The Fullscreen button is to take a quick snapshot of the full screen

The Window button allows you to take a screenshot of any active or sub-window.

The Section button allow you to select a section within the window.

The Web button is an interesting one. You enter the URL of the site and get Gscrot to retrieve the full screenshot of the site. No browser required.

Full screenshot of Make Tech Easier

The best of Gscrot comes after you have taken the screenshot. There are various effects (also known as pulgins) that you can use to enhance your screenshot.

Click to enlarge

The result after applying Raise border and Jigsaw piece 1 plugins

There is also a draw function where you can add drawing or annotation to the images.

You can also upload your screenshots to specific image hosting sites such as ubuntu-pics.de, imagebanana.com and imageshack.us

Conclusion

After reading the review and seeing the screenshot, are you excited? I am not sure about you, but I am definitely impress by Gscrot. If you are looking for a standalone screen capture app, I strongly recommend Gscrot.

4 Tools To Make Vista’s UAC Less Annoying Without Compromising Your Security

Damien — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:03:10 +0000

No doubt the Vista User Account Control (UAC) is the single biggest irritation in the whole operating system, but if you are thinking of turning it off altogether, you better think twice. UAC is a security feature that can help prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. By turning it off, you will lose all protection and put yourself in great risk of virus and malware attack. Hopefully, you have not forgotten that Windows has the most number of virus attack in the World.

A better way to deal with the UAC is to tweak it such that it continues to run in the background without popping out the annoying prompt every few seconds. Here are four software that you can use to make your UAC less annoying without compromising your security.

TweakUAC

TweakUAC is a simple tool that allows you to switch your UAC to quiet mode. In other word, it allows you to easily disable the UAC without having to restart the computer. In the quiet mode, you will be elevated to the adminisrator privilege and there won’t be any annoying prompts that pop up every few seconds. This mode is ideal when you need to perform some administrator tasks such as installing/uninstalling applications, cleaning up your system, moving files around and etc.

There is no installation required for TweakUAC. You simply double click on the application to run it. Whenever you are done with your stuff, just run the application again to turn the UAC back on. A neat and simple tool that doesn’t take up much memory and space.

Smart UAC

What SmartUAC does is to replace the UAC with a more powerful and intelligent user control. After the installation, the standard UAC will be disabled and the SmartUAC will take control of the system. In the event where there are potential threats occur, the SmartUAC prompts will appear rather than the standard UAC popup. The difference between the two prompts is that you can get SmartUAC to remember your selection so that it can automatically handle the same event next time it occurs. The longer you use SmartUAC, the less popup you will see.

In addition, SmartUAC also runs in the background and scan the programs for any malicious threat. When such threat is found, a Red Alert prompt will appear to inform you of the potential danger. Similarly, you can pick the course of action for SmartUAC to handle for future event.

Norton User Account Control tool

Unlike SmartUAc, the Norton User Account Control tool will replace only parts of the standard UAC. It will continue to utilize the UAC security feature while providing a more informative and user-friendly interface. When a standard UAC prompt appears, it only inform you of the program that is running. It does not recommend any action or remember your choice. Norton UAC tool is different in such that it displays the security information (signature information of the application) and prompts recommendations based on an assessment on the user-action. There is also a “remember me” feature that allows users to suppress future prompts from the same action.

As can be seen, Norton UAC tool collects user input and is able to make its own assessment without any unnecessary prompts. This is definitely a better and less annoying way than the standard UAC to manage your system.

UAC Snooze

As its name implies, UAC Snooze allows you to temporary stop UAC prompts for a user-defined amount of time and then automatically turn it on once the time is up. During this time, you will be granted elevated privileges so that you can perform all your administrator tasks. The snooze can be set by simply clicking the icon on the system tray.

This is a simple tool that allows you to do your stuff without the annoying UAC prompt. In case you forgot to turn it back on after you are done, the snooze function will come in handy.

UAC Snooze comes with a 30 days trial period after which it costs $5 to register.

How do you deal with the annoying UAC?

How To Share Files In VirtualBox With Vista Guest And Ubuntu Host

Damien — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:32:20 +0000

For some of you who have setup Windows Vista as the guest VM in your Ubuntu Virtualbox, you might have some difficulties in getting the Vista guest to access the shared folder in your Ubuntu host. If you are having this problem, here is the way to mount the shared folder on your Vista guest.

First of all, make sure you have already installed both VirtualBox and Windows Vista guest. If you have not, here is the complete installation guide.

Secondly, make sure you have updated your VirtualBox to the latest version (2.0.4). There are some issues in the earlier version which will cause the mounting to fail.

In your Ubuntu machine, open up Virtualbox (Applications -> System Tools -> virtualBox).

Highlight the Vista VM entry (make sure that it is in Powered off state) and click on the Settings icon at the top.

On the left, click on the Network. On the right, make sure that the Enable Network Adaptor and Cable Connected are checked.

On the left, click on the Shared Folders. Then, click on the icon on the far right.

Select the folder that you want to use as a share point. Give it a name.

Click OK to close the Settings window.

Boot up your Vista VM.

Install the guest addition. (Skip this step if you have already done so)

Restart the Vista VM.

Open your Windows Explorer, click on the Map Network Drive

In the Folder input text, enter

\\vboxsvr\sharename

where sharename is the name of the share folder that you add just now. Make sure that the Reconnect at logon is checked. Click Finish

You should now see the shared folder mounted as a network drive.

That’s it.

Write for MakeTech 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.

Ways To Grab Screenshots In Ubuntu

Damien — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:28:57 +0000

When I am writing post for Make Tech Easier, I love to take plenty of screenshots as I feel they can make the explanation clearer and easier. Over the year, I have also discovered several ways to take screenshot on my Ubuntu machine. If you are looking for one, I have compiled a list of screen capture tools that you can use in Ubuntu.

Gnome-Screenshot

Gnome-screenshot is the default screen capture tool in Ubuntu. It is simple and easy to use. You can choose to capture the whole desktop or the current window and you are able to set a delay before activating the capture. It is useful for those who wanted a lightweight and minimal screen capture tool.

Gnome-screenshot can be accessed from Appications -> Accessories -> Take Screenshots.

Compiz

Compiz comes with a screenshot plugin that allows you to take screenshot quickly and easily. It consist of the bare minimum and few or none configuration options. You simply press the Windows button on your keyboard, left click your mouse and drag the cursor to cover the area you want to snap. That’s it. For those who want a quick snapshot of a specified region, Compiz is the best.

To activate the screenshot plugin, you will have to install CompizConfig Settings Manager and activate it from there.

GIMP

GIMP has a screen capture function that can be found several levels down the menubar. One of the advantage of using GIMP is that you can immediately edit the screenshots and save it in the file format that you want it to be. In addition, this is the screen capture tool that I used everytime I wanted to take a snap of a window inside a virtual machine.

GIMP is useful if you want to take a comprehensive screenshot that you can edit immediately. If you just want a quick snapshot, I don’t think it is worth the trouble to load up GIMP, navigate several levels down the menubar before you can take a shot.

If you are using Gimp 2.6, the screen capture function can be found in File -> Create -> Screenshot

KSnapshot

One of my favorite screenshot tool is Ksnapshot (Click the link to install). It is a KDE application and is not available in the GNOME desktop. You will have to install it to use it. For me, I find that Ksnapshot is more like a combination of Gnome-screenshot and GIMP. You get to choose which region to capture - full screen or active window, and after you have captured it, you can either save it as a image file in various format or you can send to another application, such as GIMP, for editing.

If you don’t mind having a large bunch of KDE file in your Gnome desktop, then Ksnapshot is the one to go for.

Webkut

Webkut is an Adobe Air application meant for taking screenshot of Web page. It is like a browser where you can load up the webpage by entering the URL in the address bar and select the region to capture. One thing that I like about Webkut is that I can adjust the size of the canvas before I take the screenshot. This is useful when I need to take a screenshot of specific width and height.

ScreenGrab

ScreenGrab is a Firefox extension that can capture the screenshot of any web page. Once installed, you can access the ScreenGrab options via the context menu (right mouse click). There are a few options that are available to you. One of them is the ability to capture the whole web page even though it is out of your screen. This can save you the trouble of taking several screenshots and stitching them together. You can also choose to capture only the visible portion or a partial region of the whole desktop.

Webshots

Webshots is another Firefox extension for screen capture. The option is rather limiting as it only allows you to capture the full page. One thing good is that it can be quickly activated with the shortcut key Alt + W.

For Seasoned Windows User: Easy Capture

For those seasoned Windows users who just got on to the Ubuntu platform and are not comfortable with any of the above native Linux apps, I have found Easy Capture (a Windows screen capture application) to work well under Wine. It is like a mini GIMP where you can take screenshots and do some simple editing before saving it in the file format you want.

Which one is your favorite screen capture app in Ubuntu?

7 Simple WordPress Tricks That You Thought You Know

Damien — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:25:28 +0000

While WordPress is a powerful and easy to use blogging software, there are several useful features that are hidden or not visible to many and one have to dig deeper to uncover the gems. Many times, I have people asking me how to do this and how to do that in WordPress. I realize that what seems like a simple and easy task to me appears to be a complete alien to some others.

Here is a list of the most commonly asked ‘how-to’ that I have received.

1) Split a post and replace with a ‘Continue Reading…’ link

In the home page of Make Tech Easier, you will find that only the first paragraph of each post is shown and you have to click on the ‘Continue Reading …‘ link to read the full post. This can be easily achieved with the ‘more‘ tag.

If you are using the rich-text editor, along the row of iconbar, you should be able to find an icon that shows two white rectangles with a dotted line in-between. That is the more tag icon.

Whenever you want to break the post with the ‘Continue Reading…’ link, just place the cursor at the end of the first paragraph and click on the icon to insert the more tag. You should see something like this:

If you are using the HTML mode, simple insert

at the appropriate paragraph to achieve the same effect.

If the splitting link shows ‘Read more…’ instead of ‘Continue Reading…‘ or you want to change to other phrase, you will have to change your theme template.

In your WordPress Admin area, go to Design -> Theme Editor. On the right hand side where you see a list of template files, select Main Index Template (index.php). On the left text area, search for the line

and replace the ‘Read more …’ with anything you want it to display.

If you find the above too troublesome for you, you can simply use the plugin Wp Limit Posts Automatically to automate the whole process.

2) Split a long post into several pages

Sometime your post might get too long and you wanted to split it to several pages. In WordPress, this can be done using the nextpage tag.

Unlike the more tag, there is no icon for the nextpage tag. You will have to manually insert the nextpage tag in the HTML mode.

3) Cancel out content in the post

In some incidents where you have posted some out of date (or wrong) content, you might want to do an update by inserting a strikethrough line through the old content and update with the new one. This is done by pressing the strikethrough icon (the third icon from the left) on the icon bar.

Highlight the word, phrase, lines or paragraph that you wanted to cancel out
Click on the strikethrough icon to insert the strikethrough line.

4) Disable the image caption

The image caption feature is made available since WordPress 2.5. Some of you like it and some of you don’t. I am one of those that don’t like it and find it annoying. If you are like me, here is a simple hack to disable the image caption altogether.

Go to Design -> Theme Editor. On the right side, click on the Theme Function (function.php). On the left, insert this line to appear at the end

add_filter(’disable_captions’, create_function(’$a’,'return true;’));

Save it. (Code adopted from Katz Web Design)

5) Change the maximum Image width

While WordPress allows you to define your thumbnail and medium image size, you are not able to set the max size. When you insert an image as Full Size and expect it to show Full size, it doesn’t. Instead, WordPress automatically resize it to a width of 500 pixels (if the image is more than 500 pixels wide). While you can go into HTML mode and change it manually, it can become a very tedious and troublesome task if you have a lot of screenshots.

The solution to this is to hack into the internal WordPress code and change the default maximum width of the image.

Go to Design -> Theme Editor. On the right side, click on the Theme Function (function.php). On the left, insert this line to appear at the end

$GLOBALS['content_width'] = 800;

Change the 800 to the maximum width that you want to use.

Save it.

6) Insert a double dash in the post

If you are using two consecutive dashes (--) in your post, WordPress will automatically convert it to one single line (–). It might not matter for most of you, but for blogs that use a lot of command line code (especially for Linux command line), a single dash and a double dash can make a lot of differences.

In order for WordPress to show double dash instead of a single line, you have to:

go to the HTML mode
highlight the --
on the icon bar, click on the code button

This will force WordPress to read the double dash as a code and display it as it is.

7) Insert YouTube videos without plugin

Occasionally, you might want to insert a video from Youtube into your post. There is no need to install a plugin just to do that. WordPress has a built in function that allows you to embed videos (and other flash content) into your post.

On the icon bar, click to show the second row of icons
Click on the icon
Go to Youtube and search for the video that you want to insert. On the right where you see the Embed input field, scroll along the line until you see the . Highlight and copy the source of the flash video.

Paste the code to the embedded media page and set the video dimension. Click Insert to embed the video into the post.

That’s all for now. Hopefully the above mentioned tricks are sufficient to help you to overcome some of the issues you face when using WordPress. If I have left out anything or there is some part that you want me to cover in more detail, feel free to contact me.

(The above mentioned tricks are meant for WordPress 2.5 and 2.6. It has not been tested to work in WP2.7 yet.)

Related posts

4 Hidden WordPress Features That Are unknown to Many (1)

[Ubuntu Intrepid] How to Share Files With Mac OS X via Netatalk

Damien — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:02:24 +0000

Netatalk is a kernel level implementation of the AppleTalk Protocol Suite that allows any Unix/BSD system to run as a file, print and time server for any Mac machine.

While the Netatalk package is included in the Ubuntu Intrepid’s repository, the package is broken and does not work in the way it is intended to. The following instructions can help you to build, install and configure Netatalk to work in your Ubuntu Intrepid (It works in Ubuntu Hardy too).

In your terminal,

mkdir -p ~/src/netatalk
cd ~/src/netatalk
sudo apt-get install devscripts cracklib2-dev dpkg-dev libssl-dev build-essential
sudo apt-get build-dep netatalk
apt-get source netatalk
cd netatalk-2.0.3
DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=ssl dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
sudo debi

That’s it. Netatalk should now be installed and started.

You will have to start everytime you log in.

To start Netatalk,

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk start

To restart Netatalk

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk restart

To Connect to Ubuntu From Mac OS X

In your Mac OS X, open the Finder. On the menu, click Go -> Connect to server.

Enter the IP address of your Ubuntu machine and click Connect.

It should ask you for verification. Enter your login name and password.

You should now see your Ubuntu Home folder on the left pane of Finder.

Enjoy!

[Reference: Ubuntu Forum]

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