Steffen's Tech Blog

Yesterday I updated to the new Ubuntu 9.10 . The update was as usual very smoothly (I accepted the default values when ask something). After restarting, the following error message appeared: Starting Google Desktop manually via the application menu did work. Still, I had to reinstall Google Desktop  via Synaptic in order to avoid this error message during startup. The next message I got was: I clicked on "Run this action now", followed the instructions and the missing language components got installed. I used the following language settings: Afterwards I enabled the third party repositories again (in "Software Sources"): deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free deb http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu karmic main deb-src http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu karmic/ deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ karmic free non-free deb-src http://packages.medibuntu.org/ karmic free non-free deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/miro...

I just followed the network upgrade instructions for Ubuntu Desktops (Recommended) and accepted the default values for the questions I was asked by the update tool (e.g. disable the proprietary display driver and use the default open source driver instead). Everything went smoothly. Afterwards I enabled the third party repositories again: http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu jaunty main http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free The dropbox demon wasn't running, I had to install it again with dropbox start -i I realized that my backup python script using rsync didn't work any more, so that I had to install it again with: ~/Documents/Programming/Python_scripts/backup_daily$ sudo python setup.py install Afterwards, I could enjoy the improvements and new features of Ubuntu 9.04

Did you ever want to download Web videos from sites such as YouTube or others (such as http://www.vidohe.com/sites.php )? Firefox 3.0 together with the free Firefox extension DownloadHelper makes this very easy (see the DownloadHelper homepage for more details). DownloadHelper even provides a Video Conversion feature to allow background conversion of the downloaded video to the format that you like (e.g. from FLV to a format that can be used by iTunes e.g. to load on your iPod or iPhone). This feature relies on FFMPEG available on your system (for Linux or Mac), which can lead to conversion failures as the version of FFMPEG may not have been compiled with the features required by the chosen conversion parameters. You can therefore recompile FFMPEG by yourself with the required features. Note: With Ubuntu 9.10 - the Karmic Koala - there is no need to recompile FFMEG. It just works fine. As an alternative, you can use an external application such as MPEG Streamclip ...

Two weeks ago I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). The upgrade went nice and smoothly and I really like the new version (especially the improvments made in KDE). The only problem I realized afterwards was that the Skype audio settings wasn't working correctly by default. Some manual adjustments were necessary. After I have done these adjustments already several times (two PC's, GNOME and KDE), I thought it might make sense to write them down. Maybe these settings that worked for my PC's will be helpful somebody else. adjust the skype sound device options as shown in the following screenshot: adjust the Ubuntu audio settings (Volume control) according to the next 4 screenshots:

The newest version of my favorite Linux distribution ...

Following the instructions on KDE 4.1.1 Release News I updated to KDE 4.1.1 on my Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron PC. Some of the instructions were a little confusing: enable "Recommended Updates (backports)" in "Software Sources" --> as "backports" are also used to describe "Unsupported updates" (--> which is not recommended for a productive system), it must be a mistake There is no authentication key for the repository containing the updated packages deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main . This results in warnings when updating packages from this repository which leave some kind of uneasiness as using authentication keys seem an useful security measure. Besides this, the update worked well and I found now KDE 4.1.1 much more stable than KDE 4.0. In addition, most of the functionality that I used in the GNOME desktop is available. Furthermore  I like the new KDE look as well as some of its new applications (as alrea...

Recently I needed a tool to modify PDF files and afterwards merge these files into one file. I ended up using the following tools: Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open source vector graphics editor that can be used - among lots of other functions - to modify a single PDF page (e.g. add text). AccessPDF - Pdftk the PDF Toolkit. Pdftk is a free and open source easy to use command line tool for: * Merge PDF Documents * Split PDF Pages into a New Document * Decrypt Input as Necessary (Password Required) * Encrypt Output as Desired * Fill PDF Forms with FDF Data and/or Flatten Forms * Apply a Background Watermark * Report on PDF Metrics such as Metadata, Bookmarks, and Page Labels * Update PDF Metadata * Attach Files to PDF Pages or the PDF Document * Unpack PDF Attachments * Burst a PDF Document into Single Pages * Uncompress and Re-Compress Page Streams * Repair Corrupted PDF (Where Possible) e.g. the following example Merges Three PDFs...

After reading the following article about the status of the GNOME project http://wingolog.org/archives/2008/06/07/gnome-in-the-age-of-decadence I decided to check out the KDE 4 desktop by installing the "kubuntu-kde4-desktop" package (via Adept or apt-get) and I have to admit: I really like the new KDE 4 desktop. A lot of improvements have been made compared with its predecessor. I especially like the new version of the image viewer Gwenview and Okular, KDE4's document viewer. Check out http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/applications.php for more details. Unfortunately, the KDE 4 desktop seem not to be stable enough for production use. At least I experienced some crashes that required reboot via " R aising E lephants I s S o U tterly B oring" . In addition, I missed some functionality. Therefore I can't recommend switching to KDE4 right now. But I decided to give it another try as soon as KDE4.1 is available from the Ubuntu repositories in the hope that ...