Entries from March 2005 ↓

When I work from home I need to use my work laptop because all my files are there as well as lotus notes and my vpn software. Rather than putting any of that stuff on my home machine (which is considerably faster and have 2 monitors) I had been sshing to my laptop and forwarding to my desktop x server. This worked but usually caused some funkiness, especially with firefox. After I managed to blow away my connection and all my programs by accidentally closing my terminal that spawned all the apps I knew I needed a better solution. Enter XDMCP. XDMCP allows users to log in through GDM to a desktop located on a different system. Over wireless this kind of thing drags but if all the machines are sharing a switch everything is kosher.

Here’s how to set it up:

• System -> Administration -> Login Screen Setup
• Click on the ‘Security’ tab.
• Check Enable XDMCP
• TADA.

To actually log in you can do a few things.

• Just log out back to gdm. Click on system and choose XDMCP
• Or to remain logged in and connect to a remote machine on breezy run Applications -> System Tools -> New Login. Click on system and choose XDMCP
• To remain logged in and connect to a remote machine on Dapper go to System -> Log off … -> Switch User. Click on system and choose XDMCP

If you have 2 logins you can switch between them using CTRL + ALT + F7 or F8

As some of you may know, buzzco and I are moving at the end of the month
along with bisti to Del Boca Vista. It’s an
house in clinton corners, ny. It’s more expensive than an apartment but a lot
nicer too. Besides, split 3 ways it’s not so bad…
Anyway, as per mr. eli’s suggestion I’m making sure all my cd’s are ripped
as I pack them and I’ll be sticking them in a closet somewhere when I move. Of
cource though. This was a giant hassle. As of my last upgrade to gnome 2.10
ubuntu decided that sound juicer won’t rip cd’s as mp3’s anymore. I really
wouldn’t mind have oggs, but my ipod won’t play them. I tried to take the easy
way out but grip was slower than sin and goobox would crash really quick. So
what to do. I googled for a while and put together this solution.
It appears in 2.10 that the default gstreamer encoding options are stored in
the gconf registry. Sound Juicer just reads these settings and makes them
available to the user. Unfortuantely there is no setting for mp3’s. On the
ubuntu forums I found how to edit the key,
system->gstreamer->audio->profiles->cdlossy. Change the pipeline and extension
and it will work. The problem was I didn’t really want to blow away the ogg
setting and every time I edited it sound juicer would fail. So I found an
alternative.

run gnome-audio-profiles-properties
Create a new profile named CD Quality, Lossy, mp3
Edit this new profile and enter a description
Here is the key set the Pipeline to
audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc
Set the File Extension to mp3>
Finally, go to the prefrences on sound juicer and select your new
profile. If it gives a grstreamer error check for typos.

Someone needs to fix this.

Download http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1482

Unpack in ~ in vim or pida type :set syntax=kid

BOOM.

Last night I purchased Crossover Office from Code Weavers , for those of you who do not know this is the commercial version of wine with extended support and a fancy configuration manager. The license is decent, I can use it on as many machines as I like as long as I’m only using one instance at a time so I can run it at home and at work without difficulty.
The reason I need to run wine is Lotus Notes. At work (ibm) it is a necessity it works fine under wine but I had been looking at some other windows apps that would be nice to have while working and at home. Here is the list of programs that I am currently using sucessfully with it between my two machines.

Lotus Notes
Internet Explorer (used for testing at work)
iTunes with support for both the music store and ipod)
Audible Download Manager (so I can download books without dual booting)
Musicbrainz mp3 tagger
Windows Media Player 9 (audible again)
Goldwave (convert audio books and iTMS songs to mp3)

For $40 dollars I closed the gap on what I felt I was missing out on running windows. Perhaps the best part is the ease of use (there was a lot of fiddling for iPod support) there is an install manager which will autoinstall supported applications if it is free like iTunes it will just get it for you. If it is not free you either specify a cd or an exe and Crossover Office takes it from there. I can confidently reccommend Crossover Office to anyone who has need of windows apps and ease of use. WOOT!

I love when typos turn out to do something useful. In firefox CTRL+TAB moves right to the next tab, CTRL+SHIFT+TAB moves to the left to the previous tab. For once my giant fingers have paid off.

this is a test post from my treo

Don’t get me wrong I like ubuntu a lot, but I frigging hate typing. Luckily they ubuntu folks thoght of me. Bash Autocompletion is shipped with the base distro but it’s not turned on. (I don’t mean regulat tab completeion). It is however, easy to turn on. edit /etc/bash.bashrc and uncomment the following block: # enable bash completion in interactive shells # if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then # . /etc/bash_completion # fi Now when you type something like apt-get up[TAB] the magic happens.