My Quest For A Black iPod Classic Icon

I like eyecandy. My last post was about the ubuntu studio theme. Now ubuntu studio provides the user with a generic icon for removable media player devices which is pretty sweet, but I wanted a black ipod classic icon like the one you have in mac. So I began my search, which didn’t take all too long. Here’s the link: http://good–fella.deviantart.com/art/iPod-classic-black-67337482. You can get one for the silver ipod Classic here: http://good–fella.deviantart.com/art/iPod-classic-64380426.

Now once you’ve downloaded the file to your desktop or wherever, extract it (right-click>Extract Here). Next, plug in your iPod. Right-click it when it appears on your desktop and go to properties. Click the boring, generic icon you have, and browse to the folder you just extracted. Select the .png file and you’re done.

I’ve found that the icon is a bit small, so you can right-click and select stretch icon and drag to resize it.

Install ubuntu Studio Theme

There are a few hundred thousand themes to choose from out there for linux users. My favourite theme is called ubuntu studio. This is similar to the default human theme, albeit much darker and easier on the eyes. To download it, open terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-gdm-theme

sudo apt-get ubuntustudio-icon-theme

sudo apt-get ubuntustudio-theme

sudo apt-get ubuntustudio-wallpapers

Now, go to System>Preferences>Appearance, and select ubuntu Studio, and watch as your desktop gets transformed. New icons, new wallpapers, BLACK!

Random Firefox Tips 2

Before I used Firefox, I used Opera. Opera is more of an all-in-one package; it contains a whole lot more funcionality than Firefox out of the box. With Firefox, you have to use Add-Ons for most of Opera’s features. One example of this is Speed Dial, which is a customizable page that’s displayed when you open a new tab in Opera. You can get this in Firefox with this Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810.

Firefox 3 integrates one of Opera’s niftiest features: keyword search. This is one of those super-useful things that streamlines your work. The concept is that the search bar on any webpage on the net can be accessed right from your address bar by using a keyword before your search parameter. For example, suppose I search for torrents on isohunt very often, then I go to the isohunt homepage, right-click on the search bar and click “Add A Keyword for This Search”. I made the keyword “iso”, but you can make it whatever you want. Now whenever I’m searcing for torrents, I can enter iso [name of file here] is the address bar.

A Review of the Camera I Haven’t Got Yet

Maybe looking at the title of this, you’re thinking this is a bit premature, seeing as my camera only arrives on the 30th of July. Actually I do too. But I’m an excitable fellow, and you only get your first SLR once.

So here was the situation around a week ago when I was making my decision: I had 25,000 rupees (around $600) from having worked for my parents for quite a while, and I was looking into getting a cheap SLR. I immediately thought of the D40x, because my friend has one and I’ve used theirs a lot. I absolutely loved using it. Unlike most SLRs, it’s uncomplicated and easy to use, a point-and-shoot- SLR if you may. But, it also affords one much more control over one’s photography.

Now I wanted a Nikon: I knew this much. I had tried Canons, Sonys and Olympuses, and Nikons, and the Nikons were my favourite. And really, when you’re looking at this range, it doesn’t matter what the pros use, because that has no bearing on a company’s entry-level cameras.

A bit of research later, after I realised that the D40x was out of production, it was a case of D40 vs D60. These were just the right price. The reason I went for the D60 was merely because I got an excellent price in Hong Kong, which is where I’ve ordered it from, and because I wanted fancy features like an eye-sensor and dust-removal.

Now I wait for my camera in anticipation.

Cheap Electronics in Bangkok

I was in Bangkok last week on holiday, hence the brief hiatus. It was the craziest, most consumeristic holiday I’ve ever had; a whole week spent in shopping malls, in Bangkok, that crazy haven of cheap sex and electronics (I only sampled the electronics, though). And this was not my first time in the city either, so I have a pretty good idea of the place. Here’s my condensed shopping guide (of interest to nerds only):

There are two malls to visit if you’re into technology.

The first is called Mah Boon Krong (MBK for short). This is a massive edifice to the Gods of capitalism; you can buy anything here, from clothes to books to lampshades to mobile phones to laptops, graphics cards, pirated software, music, movies and everything else in between. This mall is a jungle, literally, and the food court is the best in Bangkok, too.

The second mall is, where technology is concerned, even more amazing. This one is called Pantip Plaza. While it is not as big as MBK, its focus is only on electronics and there are a hundred places to buy the same graphics card, or case, or cooling fan, or RAM module, and the variety is amazing, too. Unfortunately, this was wasted on me as all I bought was a 4 GB Kingston USB stick, for no more than 10 USD. And that wasn’t the cheapest one around, either.

If you’re going to Bangkok, don’t miss out on MBK and Pantip Plaza.

Magic Folder for Linux

The Magic Folder is a program I first encountered while browsing for widgets for my sidebar when I first got Windows Vista (now, I know better than to use Vista or the sidebar). I never really got used to using it, but I loved the idea, and when I migrated to ubuntu, I wanted to find something similar. A bit of googling got me here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=508955.

I’d like to thank grishenko2000 for writing that little bit of shell script. It works perfectly, and recently, I’ve found myself actually using it, despite its being practically paleolithic compared to what I had on Windows. I just hope someone takes the idea a bit further and makes it a proper program with preferences and such. I’ve submitted the idea to ubuntu Brainstorm, so please vote for it there: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/10883/

It would be such a useful little program.

Linux Alternatives to Guitar Pro: TuxGuitar and KGuitar Reviewed

I’m a keen guitarist, and I find one of the most important things about playing music is practising composing and recording, even if the result isn’t going to win you any Grammies. To record my music, I have the ubuquitous Audacity, which I’ve used since my Windows days.

Now I was worried about a program to use to compose music on Linux. On Windows, I had used Guitarpro, an excellent piece of software that worked with MIDI. It had multiple tracks, graphical representations of a guitar’s fretboard and a piano’s keys (only n00bs use this feature, though), something called Realistic Sound Engine, which made instruments sound much more natural than the monophonic MIDI alternative, as well as a whole lot of other features.

I tried out two popular Linux alternatives to Guitar Pro: KGuitar and TuxGuitar, as well as one that I found in the Add/Remove window, called Songwrite.

Let’s start with TuxGuitar. TuxGuitar was the first of these programs that I used. I got it during my first week in Linux, and have used it extensively in the last few months. TuxGuitar has almost all of Guitar Pro’s features, except RSE support, which none of these programs have. TuxGuitar is a complete Guitar Pro clone, down to the interface and menus (unfortunately, unlike in Guitar Pro, you cannot change the location of yout toolbars). This might be a good thing for some, but personally I’m against cloning Windows software.

This is where KGuitar wins. KGuitar has some nice additions to Guitar Pro’s features. The coolest by far is the Rhythm Constructor. This lets you input notes and tap out the rhythm with your mouse. A firstclass idea and executed well too!

Then there’s the automatic bassline generator: you give KGuitar a chord progression and it gives you back a bassline. The basslines are nothing revoluntionary, but if, like me, you’re too lazy to write your own, this can come in handy quite often.

Another small instance of KGuitar’s uniqueness that I love is the track properties dialog, which lets you choose your tuning and shows you the diameter of your strings. You can’t select the diameter, but it gives you an instant visual reference when selecting the tuning, and it’s attention to detail like this that makes this my favourite tablature editor for Linux.

KGuitar has got loads of other features; the three I’ve mentioned just struck me as really cool. Its only drawback, for me, is the fact that it’s a KDE app. It’s not as pretty as native GNOME programs, and it’s slightly slower than TuxGuitar. However, these are not exactly significant problems and they don’t bother me at all.

The last program I tried is called Songwrite, and all I have to say about it is don’t go there! I’m saying this based on first impressions, but when you see the interface, which is like a nightmare visitation of stone-age aesthetics, you’ll want to close it immediately. The program turned out to be more usable than it looked, due to the fact that it has no extra features– let alone visual fretboards, this program can’t even do hammer-ons and pull-offs. Songwrite is really not an option.

You could also use Guitar Pro with Wine, but this was (for me, at least) a bad combination, and resulted in terrible performance

My favourite of these is obviously KGuitar; I’ve found it better even than Guitar Pro, which is a pleasant surprise. TuxGuitar is an able competitor, and it’s definitely worth trying. About Songwrite, I shall write no more.

Random Firefox Tips 1

The first in what will be a random collection of Firefox Tips, Hacks, Tutorials, and Add-ons, all of which you’ll probably find in a hundred other places on the net.

Let’s start with three of my favourite plug-ins, the ones I just can’t live without.

First, we have Bugmenot. This is an extension that integrates BugMeNot into Firefox. If you don’t know about BugMeNot, well you should. Bascially, what BugMeNot does is it lets you bypass logging into sites that require you to login. This is useful if you’re browsing The New York Times, or trying to get downloads off megaupload, for instance. Head over to http://www.bugmenot.com/ for the lowdown (also scroll down and check out the disposable email addresses).

Adblock Plus is an extension that I never thought I’d need. I mean, ads never really bugged me. They were just a mild annoyance as far as I was concerned; I never looked at them. Now, everytime I use someone else’s computer I’m amazed by the number of advertisements– of all shapes and sizes, and how intrusive and annoying they are.

Ever found yourself in need of online storage. For me, at least, G Space has changed file hosting for ever. G Space provides an interface for you to upload any file onto the free space in you gmail account.

Plus: A minor hack for people who are obsessive about the mintuae of their browser experience: http://digitizor.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/how-to-set-single-click-to-select-url-in-address-bar-in-linux-versions-of-firefox/

Running Football Manager 2008 in Linux

Football Manager 2008 was one of the main reasons I still used Windows ’til last week. It sure is one helluva game. The best football management game ever IMHO. Now how to get it running in Linux? There are a couple of ways to do this, but I only found one of them on the net. Here’s the other, easier way (unfortunately it only works if you have the game installed on a Windows PC, either on another computer or on the Windows partition of a dual-boot setup).

Before doing this, make sure you’ve installed the latest patch from SI on the PC where you already have the game installed, because you can’t do that later.

1. Ubuntu includes a nifty program called Wine with the default installation. Wine lets you run Windows apps in Linux. If you’re running another distro, just download it by typing “sudo apt-get install wine” in the terminal.

2. Now, go to Applications>Wine>Browse C:\ Drive. If you’re dual-booting with Windows, navigate to C:\Program Files on your Windows partition (usually accessible through Places>”x” GB Media ), and copy the “Sports Interactive” folder to the virtual C:\ drive you opened in the last step.

3. Download the no-cd crack: http://www.gameburnworld.com/gp/gamefixes/footballmanager2008.shtml

4. Replace fm.exe in your new Football Manager folder with the one you downloaded.

5. Double-click fm.exe to play it for the first time. This creates some new folders in your home directory.

6. You can create a launcher on the desktop or on any panel by rightclicking where you want it and selecting “Create launcher…” Click browse, and select “recently used” on the right side. Double-click “fm.exe”. Also don’t forget to give the launcher a name.

7. If you have saved games or any other User data to import, you’ll find a Sports Interactive folder in your home folder.

Happy managing.

Getting Compiz Fusion to Work with nvidia Graphics

With Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced Aero with much fanfare. Aero was a slicker version of the old interface. It added transparency and special effects like Flip3d, which is like a cooler alt-tab that lets you switch windows in 3d. The whole world was left open-mouthed at Aero’s amazing features… not. It sure looked pretty, but the hardware requirements were sky-high at the time, and it had all been done before.

Yeah, meet Compiz Fusion. Compiz is a compositing window manager available for Linux. It really doesn’t matter what that means, what matters is this:

Now Compiz Fusion comes with ubuntu Hardy, so as long as you meet the minimum requirements, which are very, very low, you can enable it. Of course, as with a lot of things in Linux, it’s not as simple as it seems, especially if you have a nvidia 7300LE graphics card (not sure about ATI and Intel, though). So here’s a little walkthrough:

1. Just to see if it works out of the box, you can click System>Preference>Apperarance, and go to the Visual Effects tab. Try chnaging the level of effects. If this works, great.

2. If not, go to System>Administration>Software Sources and in the first tab, make sure everything is ticked. By doing this, you’re allowing ubuntu to download proprietary (non-open-source) software.

3. Go to Application>Add/Remove click the drop-down menu and change it to All available applications. Search for “nvidia” in the bar. Check “NVidia binary X.Org driver (‘new’ driver)”, and click apply changes. Do step 1, and you should be all set.