telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Lojban software for Ubuntu
Increasingly, as programming becomes a national past-time, and the human interface with the machine produces, ever greater information processing yet less time to enjoy the fruits of our "labour saving devices" while our unmediated communications amongst each other erodes and begins to play a secondary role to the communication which is now mediated online and via computers. there arise various problems in expressing ourselves, which persist in our daily lives and which cannot be ignored.
Firstly, machines do not cope with all the qualities that make human language what it is -- human commmunication is the result of an organic world in which the inate logic of syntactical structures are not immediately obvious. We do not all speak like we think, or think like we speak. Furthermore, we are often wrong, deploy private logic, non-general semantics and create irrational categories based upon first hand experience, not official text-books or dictionaries.
The inevitable clash arises. Suppose one expresses the desire to frag somebody. Next thing you are being locked up for wanting to "kill a process".*
( *I have a brother who did exactly that, and still believes the world is one large teenage paint-ball game)
Enter Lojban, an attempt to create an entirely logical language
Lojban is a carefully constructed spoken language designed in the hope of removing a large portion of the ambiguity from human communication. It was made well-known by a Scientific American article and references in science fiction
Lojban has been built over five decades by dozens of workers and hundreds of supporters.
Lojban has a number of features which make it unique:
Interested? See and hear an example of spoken Lojban. You can also see this page written in Lojban.
Lojban software in Ubuntu
jbofihe — A Lojban parser
This is available in Debian simply by installing the jbofihe package through apt-get. Ubuntu users might first need to enable universe. Google knows how.
lojban-common - Lojban word-lists
This package installs the standard Lojban word lists into /usr/share/lojban-common. It's available about the same way as jbofihe above.
camxes — A better Lojban parser, written in Java
This package isn't yet available from Debian/Ubuntu.
However, it is available via apt.
Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://www.lojban.org/debian/ custom main deb-src http://www.lojban.org/debian/ custom main
Then apt-get update and install away.
Note: That apt-repository is signed by Ted Reed's GnuPG key. You may get warnings about it.
In order to tell apt that you trust Ted, do the following: gpg --recv-key D18C1C64 --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net gpg -a --export D18C1C64 | sudo apt-key add -
Firstly, machines do not cope with all the qualities that make human language what it is -- human commmunication is the result of an organic world in which the inate logic of syntactical structures are not immediately obvious. We do not all speak like we think, or think like we speak. Furthermore, we are often wrong, deploy private logic, non-general semantics and create irrational categories based upon first hand experience, not official text-books or dictionaries.
The inevitable clash arises. Suppose one expresses the desire to frag somebody. Next thing you are being locked up for wanting to "kill a process".*
( *I have a brother who did exactly that, and still believes the world is one large teenage paint-ball game)
Enter Lojban, an attempt to create an entirely logical language
Lojban is a carefully constructed spoken language designed in the hope of removing a large portion of the ambiguity from human communication. It was made well-known by a Scientific American article and references in science fiction
Lojban has been built over five decades by dozens of workers and hundreds of supporters.Lojban has a number of features which make it unique:
- Lojban is designed to be used by people in communication with each other, and possibly in the future with computers.
- Lojban is designed to be culturally neutral.
- Lojban has an unambiguous grammar, which is based on the principles of logic.
- Lojban has phonetic spelling, and unambiguous resolution of sounds into words.
- Lojban is simple compared to natural languages; it is easy to learn.
- Lojban's 1300 root words can be easily combined to form a vocabulary of millions of words.
- Lojban is regular; the rules of the language are without exception.
- Lojban attempts to remove restrictions on creative and clear thought and communication.
- Lojban has a variety of uses, ranging from the creative to the scientific, from the theoretical to the practical.
Interested? See and hear an example of spoken Lojban
. You can also see this page written in Lojban.Lojban software in Ubuntu
jbofihe — A Lojban parser
This is available in Debian simply by installing the jbofihe package through apt-get. Ubuntu users might first need to enable universe. Google knows how.
lojban-common - Lojban word-lists
This package installs the standard Lojban word lists into /usr/share/lojban-common. It's available about the same way as jbofihe above.
camxes — A better Lojban parser, written in Java
This package isn't yet available from Debian/Ubuntu.
However, it is available via apt.
Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://www.lojban.org/debian/ custom main deb-src http://www.lojban.org/debian/ custom main
Then apt-get update and install away.
Note: That apt-repository is signed by Ted Reed's GnuPG key. You may get warnings about it.
In order to tell apt that you trust Ted, do the following: gpg --recv-key D18C1C64 --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net gpg -a --export D18C1C64 | sudo apt-key add -
Could be a python ...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrfpnbGXL70&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Java is not my cup of tea, but its nice to see Linux mentioned.
Java is not my cup of tea, but its nice to see Linux mentioned.
Reinstall Gnome default notifications
Tyler Mulligan comes up with some of the more left-field tips and tricks south of Ubuntu. I really enjoy his blog. This tip was preened from a posting on Ubuntu Forum's and raises questions about exactly where Ubuntu osd-notify is heading. Surely not just a blinking irritation in which the only hack available is changing the colour, position, shape and timing of the damn thing.
More humanised and personalised information would be a start. Different levels of information from techies to casual users, would be a bonus. But if you want the power to click through, using the notification system to excute programes, scripts, and whatever, you'll have to "reinstall" the default gnome notifications system. Which means osd-notify is really just a diversion from the real thing. Nevertheless a sign of healthy competition and development going on in Linux
HERE IS HOW TO DO IT
More humanised and personalised information would be a start. Different levels of information from techies to casual users, would be a bonus. But if you want the power to click through, using the notification system to excute programes, scripts, and whatever, you'll have to "reinstall" the default gnome notifications system. Which means osd-notify is really just a diversion from the real thing. Nevertheless a sign of healthy competition and development going on in Linux
HERE IS HOW TO DO IT
Friday, June 25, 2010
Canonical fighting patent fire with fire.
Canonical, the sponsor company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux OSÂ have become the first member to sign up to the Open Invention Network's new associate membership program. According to OSnews, The Open Invention Network exists to acquire patents and license them royalty free to entities which, in turn, "agree not to assert their own patents against Linux or Linux-related applications." Current well-known companies involved with the OIN include Sony, IBM and Novell.
Not sure what to think about this very un-GPL move, but there's bound to be a lot of conversation in the ensuing days as the community gets to grip with reality. In a patent war, its sue or be sued.
Perhaps, Canonical should rather be putting more efforts to bolster the work of the Free Software Foundation, since this really just acts to legitimise patent law as far as computer software is concerned. Then again, you probably know the ham sandwhich was patented by the Earl of Sandwhich, and you owe somebody a lot of money for school lunches, don't you?
Not sure what to think about this very un-GPL move, but there's bound to be a lot of conversation in the ensuing days as the community gets to grip with reality. In a patent war, its sue or be sued.
Perhaps, Canonical should rather be putting more efforts to bolster the work of the Free Software Foundation, since this really just acts to legitimise patent law as far as computer software is concerned. Then again, you probably know the ham sandwhich was patented by the Earl of Sandwhich, and you owe somebody a lot of money for school lunches, don't you?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The cool cd terminal hack
Method One: Navigate up the directory using “..nâ€
In the example below, ..4 is used to go up 4 directory level, ..3 to go up 3 directory level, ..2 to go up 2 directory level.
Add the following alias to your ~/.bashrc and re-login.
alias ..="cd .."
alias ..2="cd ../.."
alias ..3="cd ../../.."
alias ..4="cd ../../../.."
alias ..5="cd ../../../../.."
Method Two: Navigate up the directory using only dots
In the example below, ….. (five dots) is used to go up 4 directory level. Typing 5 dots to go up 4 directory structure is really easy to remember, as when you type the first two dots, you are thinking “going up one directoryâ€, after that every additional dot, is to go one level up. So, use …. (four dots) to go up 3 directory level and .. (two dots) to go up 1 directory level.
Add the following alias to your ~/.bashrc and re-login for the ….. (five dots) to work properly.
alias ..="cd .."
alias ...="cd ../.."
alias ....="cd ../../.."
alias .....="cd ../../../.."
alias ......="cd ../../../../.."
THANKS: Linux Tips & The Geek Stuff
(For two other methods, check out The Geek Stuff, and while you at it, read the best posting yet on RTFM)
In the example below, ..4 is used to go up 4 directory level, ..3 to go up 3 directory level, ..2 to go up 2 directory level.
Add the following alias to your ~/.bashrc and re-login.
alias ..="cd .."
alias ..2="cd ../.."
alias ..3="cd ../../.."
alias ..4="cd ../../../.."
alias ..5="cd ../../../../.."
Method Two: Navigate up the directory using only dots
In the example below, ….. (five dots) is used to go up 4 directory level. Typing 5 dots to go up 4 directory structure is really easy to remember, as when you type the first two dots, you are thinking “going up one directoryâ€, after that every additional dot, is to go one level up. So, use …. (four dots) to go up 3 directory level and .. (two dots) to go up 1 directory level.
Add the following alias to your ~/.bashrc and re-login for the ….. (five dots) to work properly.
alias ..="cd .."
alias ...="cd ../.."
alias ....="cd ../../.."
alias .....="cd ../../../.."
alias ......="cd ../../../../.."
THANKS: Linux Tips & The Geek Stuff
(For two other methods, check out The Geek Stuff, and while you at it, read the best posting yet on RTFM)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
MMORPGS, Gaming & Ubuntu
Last time I checked Eternal lands was failing under Karmic, so it was a huge surprise to find the bugs had been ironed out (I filed a few of them;) and the game is now rocking in Lucid. Yes, yes, I booted up the MMORG last night and it did everything it was supposed to do -- pretty impressive for the kind of system I am running (1.8ghz Celeron, 8 series NVIDIA, and 1Gb Ram). Eternal Lands is a splendid fantasy filled arena, not a shoot 'm up, which is seriously going to entertain boys and girls when they are not rummaging around the slightly higher definition, but slower environments of Second Life and OSgrid
Here are instructions from Ubuntu wiki
Wish Dragon Oath would get itself ported to linux somehow.
If you really need a surregate life, then install Snow Globe, the Ubuntu Second Life client:
Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
You can then :-
For some extra entertainment, I played the Linux demo of the world's best game of 2009, Machinarium. Here is the download.
Still a little slow considering my set-up. Guess its time to upgrade my CPU.
$100 donation anyone?
Here are instructions from Ubuntu wiki
Wish Dragon Oath would get itself ported to linux somehow.
If you really need a surregate life, then install Snow Globe, the Ubuntu Second Life client:
Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openmetaverse/ppa/ubuntu lucid main
You can then :-
apt-get update
apt-get install snowglobe
(or) apt-get install snowglobe2
For some extra entertainment, I played the Linux demo of the world's best game of 2009, Machinarium. Here is the download.
Still a little slow considering my set-up. Guess its time to upgrade my CPU.
$100 donation anyone?
Saturday, June 19, 2010
You have the right to remain unregistered
Found this a week ago, and forgot to note down who did it. It is hilerious because of the juxtoposition of authority figure forcing us to use FOSS.
Google Command interface launched
It had to happen, an official google application that provides access to google services via the command line. In April we showed you how to do this, the unofficial way using surfraw. Now you can do it with the blessing of the worlds most popular search engine company, Google
GoogleCL can be used to google the following services (examples shown):
Unfortunately, the deb which was released yesterday, doesn't automatically setup the terminal browser. You will have to do this yourself:
After running one of the services for the first time, the above config was created. I opened it with gedit and added
Which is the w3m text-based browser. There are a lot more services on the way, and one can only hope this is a sign of things to come. I can think of a number of Net services which could do with a CLI interface.
( Remember to fill in forms with w3m , to log into your google account, you have to hit the enter key.)
Please check the official development page site for the last update.
Please visit the official download page to download GoogleCL (You'll find a nice deb there waiting for U8UNTU users!)
THANKS Panoet
GoogleCL can be used to google the following services (examples shown):
- Blogger
$ google blogger post --title "foo" "command line posting" - Calendar
$ google calendar add "Lunch with Jim at noon tomorrow" - Contacts
$ google contacts list name,email > contacts.csv - Docs
$ google docs edit --title "Shopping list" - Picasa
$ google picasa create --album "Cat Photos" ~/photos/cats/*.jpg - Youtube
$ google youtube post --category Education killer_robots.avi
Unfortunately, the deb which was released yesterday, doesn't automatically setup the terminal browser. You will have to do this yourself:
gedit /home/user/.googlecl/config
After running one of the services for the first time, the above config was created. I opened it with gedit and added
auth_browser = w3m
Which is the w3m text-based browser. There are a lot more services on the way, and one can only hope this is a sign of things to come. I can think of a number of Net services which could do with a CLI interface.
( Remember to fill in forms with w3m , to log into your google account, you have to hit the enter key.)
Please check the official development page site for the last update.
Please visit the official download page to download GoogleCL (You'll find a nice deb there waiting for U8UNTU users!)
THANKS Panoet
Record Net Radio with Mplayer
Step 1: Download the playlist of your choice, say for instance you choose groovesalad, then the saved file on ur local disk will be groovesalad.pls.
Open a terminal and then change the file type to .txt.
Step 2: Install the awesome MPlayer and u can play the file from the terminal!
The command is as follows:
Step 3: Downloading the entire stream silently
Again you can do it with MPlayer.
Here is the command:
You can use any file name you want, not mystream.wav necessarily!
If you observe the file mystream.wav, it will constantly get updated runtime! You can use it as long as you want, that of course is dependent on your disk size. If you wanna stop the download, use the break key CTRL+C to stop the process in the terminal.
Step 4: Install lame mp3 encoder and execute this command:
There you have it! The entire stream you can carry on your ipod and listen mobile! The aforementioned method works for any playlist based internet radio! Most streams from shoutcast can also be recorded this way! I have simply broken down the steps accordingly, but you can also write a small shell script that is nothin more than a combination of the commands to execute the same in a single step. It’s pretty easy to do that!
THANKS: Skinwalker
Open a terminal and then change the file type to .txt.
mv groovesalad.pls groovesalad.txt
Step 2: Install the awesome MPlayer and u can play the file from the terminal!
The command is as follows:
mplayer -playlist groovesald.txt
Step 3: Downloading the entire stream silently
Again you can do it with MPlayer.
Here is the command:
mplayer -playlist groovesalad.txt -ao pcm:file=mystream.wav -vc dummy -vo null
You can use any file name you want, not mystream.wav necessarily!
If you observe the file mystream.wav, it will constantly get updated runtime! You can use it as long as you want, that of course is dependent on your disk size. If you wanna stop the download, use the break key CTRL+C to stop the process in the terminal.
Step 4: Install lame mp3 encoder and execute this command:
lame mytream.wav filename.mp3
There you have it! The entire stream you can carry on your ipod and listen mobile! The aforementioned method works for any playlist based internet radio! Most streams from shoutcast can also be recorded this way! I have simply broken down the steps accordingly, but you can also write a small shell script that is nothin more than a combination of the commands to execute the same in a single step. It’s pretty easy to do that!
THANKS: Skinwalker
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
World Cup FIFA fixtures on Ubuntu desktop
Feeling torn between love of Football and love of Ubuntu? Now you can have both.
You will get all the scores, fixtures and information on FIFA events.
If you want a World Cup ticker install Adobe Air and Snackr, then choose manual rss feed and add your favourite World Cup feed. I tested Sky News feed but needed something a little more tailored to the actual event logistics in South Africa as opposed to the "skinner" and gossip. You can add weather feeds or Fifa News, but if you're looking for a ticker specific feed, tailored to short attention span, like you see on television, then you out of luck, I guess.
THANKS: WebUpD8
wget http://www.e-link.it/southafrica2010/download/southafrica2010_download.php?os=LINUX&lang=EN
unzip SouthAfrica2010_LINUX_EN_1.1.zip
chmod +x "South Africa 2010 1.1 EN/South Africa 2010 1.1"
"South Africa 2010 1.1 EN/South Africa 2010 1.1"
You will get all the scores, fixtures and information on FIFA events.
If you want a World Cup ticker install Adobe Air and Snackr, then choose manual rss feed and add your favourite World Cup feed. I tested Sky News feed but needed something a little more tailored to the actual event logistics in South Africa as opposed to the "skinner" and gossip. You can add weather feeds or Fifa News, but if you're looking for a ticker specific feed, tailored to short attention span, like you see on television, then you out of luck, I guess.
THANKS: WebUpD8
"Raising Elephants" mnemonic device
A common idiom to perform a safe reboot of a Linux computer which has otherwise locked up, using the magic Alt-SysRq-R-E-I-S-U-B key combination is the QWERTY (or AZERTY) mnemonic "Raising Elephants Is So Utterly Boring", "Reboot Even If System Utterly Broken" or simply remembering the word "BUSIER" backwards, is often useful. It stands for
This can prevent a fsck being required on reboot and gives some programs a chance to save emergency backups of unsaved work.
In practice, each command may require a few seconds to complete, especially if feedback is unavailable from the screen due to a freeze or display corruption. For example, sending SIGKILL to processes which have not yet finished terminating can cause data loss.
Alt-SysRq-R-E-I-S-U-B
FROM Wikipedia
unRaw (take control of keyboard back from X),
tErminate (send SIGTERM to all processes, allowing them to terminate gracefully),
kIll (send SIGKILL to all processes, forcing them to terminate immediately),
Sync (flush data to disk),
Unmount (remount all filesystems read-only),
reBoot.
This can prevent a fsck being required on reboot and gives some programs a chance to save emergency backups of unsaved work.
In practice, each command may require a few seconds to complete, especially if feedback is unavailable from the screen due to a freeze or display corruption. For example, sending SIGKILL to processes which have not yet finished terminating can cause data loss.
Alt-SysRq-R-E-I-S-U-B
FROM Wikipedia
Monday, June 14, 2010
Cowsay Fortune $bash prompt
If you want a a cow telling your fortune in your bash prompt
ADD this line:
save & refresh your bash prompt by typing $bash
THANKS: Tyler Mulligan
sudo apt-get install cowsay fortune
sudo gedit .bashrc
ADD this line:
##COWSAY FORTUNE
COWDIR=/usr/share/cowsay/cows/; COWNUM=$(($RANDOM%$(ls $COWDIR | wc -l))); COWFILE=$(ls $COWDIR | sed -n ''$COWNUM'p'); fortune | cowsay -f $COWFILE
save & refresh your bash prompt by typing $bash
THANKS: Tyler Mulligan
Reset system wide cursor theme
If you installed KDE in ubuntu (GNOME based), you may have noticed that when you log back into GNOME, you keep the KDE cursor theme.
To fix this, use update-alternatives like so:
press “7″ for the default
FROM: Do Know Evil
To fix this, use update-alternatives like so:
0025|z@zentury ~$ sudo update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme
There are 7 choices for the alternative x-cursor-theme (providing /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme).
Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0 /etc/X11/cursors/oxy-white.theme 50 auto mode
1 /etc/X11/cursors/core.theme 30 manual mode
2 /etc/X11/cursors/handhelds.theme 20 manual mode
3 /etc/X11/cursors/oxy-white.theme 50 manual mode
4 /etc/X11/cursors/redglass.theme 20 manual mode
5 /etc/X11/cursors/whiteglass.theme 20 manual mode
6 /usr/share/icons/DMZ-Black/cursor.theme 30 manual mode
7 /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:
press “7″ for the default
FROM: Do Know Evil
Rhythmbox Shoutcast plugin
Rhythmbox now has a shoutcast plugin via Google Code
Edit > Plugins > Shoutcast
restart Rhythmbox.
wget http://rhythmbox-shoutcast.googlecode.com/files/rhythmbox-shoutcast-1.5.1.tgz
tar -xf rhythmbox-shoutcast-1.5.1.tgz
cd rhythmbox-shoutcast-1.5.1
./setup.sh
Edit > Plugins > Shoutcast
restart Rhythmbox.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
u8untu elxered - the mid-month wish list
1. Ubuntu Phantom Mode
Would allow user to easily hide file system without having to encrypt harddrive.
(Relatively easy to implement considering how open the system already is to the outside world)
2. Milkdrop Modules plugin expander for Totem
A Project M synthesis with Totem for the ultimate Trance Album interactivity.
3. Wish Ubuntu would alert us if there any commands which change over each distribution,
A commands dictionary for the system which diffs Ubuntu commands from year to year would be a plus.
4. Drag and Drop -- expanded system-wide
I know this sounds like asking for a trash can (We have one), but a uniform standard which allows projects to interact with each other would meet aspiration forUbuntu being a more welcoming graphical environment.
5. Replicants
One of the bigger inovations in the world of Haiku OS right now, is replicants.
The ability to clone applications is nothing new. But there should be at very least a system-wide setting (How many copies of VLC do you really want to run?) and the problem does begin to describe the irritation.
Replicants in Haiku are rather positive, they can join the desktop as permanent features if you want and because the overhead is so low, you rather like leaving them there (never start-up an application ever again, why?).
u8untu suggestion - Add some pipes and a Mecano set for software emerges. Now this is intelligent. Wish we had the motion for evolution in Ubuntu.
Would allow user to easily hide file system without having to encrypt harddrive.
(Relatively easy to implement considering how open the system already is to the outside world)
2. Milkdrop Modules plugin expander for Totem
A Project M synthesis with Totem for the ultimate Trance Album interactivity.
3. Wish Ubuntu would alert us if there any commands which change over each distribution,
A commands dictionary for the system which diffs Ubuntu commands from year to year would be a plus.
4. Drag and Drop -- expanded system-wide
I know this sounds like asking for a trash can (We have one), but a uniform standard which allows projects to interact with each other would meet aspiration forUbuntu being a more welcoming graphical environment.
5. Replicants
One of the bigger inovations in the world of Haiku OS right now, is replicants.
The ability to clone applications is nothing new. But there should be at very least a system-wide setting (How many copies of VLC do you really want to run?) and the problem does begin to describe the irritation.
Replicants in Haiku are rather positive, they can join the desktop as permanent features if you want and because the overhead is so low, you rather like leaving them there (never start-up an application ever again, why?).
u8untu suggestion - Add some pipes and a Mecano set for software emerges. Now this is intelligent. Wish we had the motion for evolution in Ubuntu.
Wine-Cellar - new package manager for WINE
Although the project has yet to deliver an offical release, I am still excited by a Wine-Doors alternative. Since the Doors is dormant -- it hasn't released an update in over a year -- the possibility of a next generation package manager for WINE is really something to celebrate . Wine Package Manager (WPM) was renamed to Wine Cellar last month according to the project home page on Google Code. If it is anything like Vineyard, the fantastic recent addition to the WINE universe, then we might just realise the geek dream of a package manager to manage all those silly Windows files which invariably accumulate around the WINE virtual drive.
You can check out the code:
hg clone https://wine-cellar.googlecode.com/hg/ wine-cellar
Remember, Microsoft may give users Windows, but Linux still gives us the whole House.
If you happen to be running a Windows partition, try out Win-Get, which is an Apt-like utility.
Win-Get can also be installed into the windows directory of your WINE installation! This might create some problems if you already using a package manager such as Wine-Doors, but these should be trivial.
Download and unzip win-get-0.1.2Â into ~/.wine/drive_c/windows
then run and install launchy for windows
It will install launchy for windows from the win-get site.
You can check out the code:
hg clone https://wine-cellar.googlecode.com/hg/ wine-cellar
Remember, Microsoft may give users Windows, but Linux still gives us the whole House.
If you happen to be running a Windows partition, try out Win-Get, which is an Apt-like utility.
Win-Get can also be installed into the windows directory of your WINE installation! This might create some problems if you already using a package manager such as Wine-Doors, but these should be trivial.
Download and unzip win-get-0.1.2Â into ~/.wine/drive_c/windows
then run and install launchy for windows
wine win-get.exe install launchy
It will install launchy for windows from the win-get site.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Deadbeef, a Moo-tiful rival to Audacious
[caption id="attachment_1793" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Awesome equalisor design."]
[/caption]
DeaDBeeF (as in 0xDEADBEEF) is an audio player for GNU/Linux systems with X11 (though now it also runs in plain console without X, in FreeBSD, and in OpenSolaris).
Main features (the list is most likely far from complete):
* mp3, ogg vorbis, flac, ape, wv, wav, m4a, mpc, cd audio (and many more)
* sid, nsf and lots of other popular chiptune formats
* ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, APEv2, xing/info tags support
* character set detection for non-unicode id3 tags - supports cp1251 and iso8859-1
* unicode tags are fully supported as well (both utf8 and ucs2)
* cuesheet (.cue files) support, with charset detection (utf8/cp1251/iso8859-1)
* tracker modules like mod, s3m, it, xm, etc
* HVSC song length database support for sid
* gtk2 interface with efficient custom widgets
* no GNOME or KDE dependencies
* minimize to tray, with scrollwheel volume control
* drag and drop, both inside of playlist, and from filemanagers and such
* control playback from command line
* global hotkeys
* multiple playlists
* album artwork display
* 18-band graphical equalizer
* metadata editor
* user-customizable groups in playlists
* user-customizable columns with flexible title formatting
* radio and podcast support for ogg vorbis, mp3 and aac streams
* gapless playback
* plugin support; bundled with lots of plugins, such as global hotkeys and last.fm scrobbler; sdk is included
* duration calculation is as precise as possible for vbr mp3 files (with and without xing/info tags)
* was tested and works on x86, x86_64 and ppc64 architectures. should work on most modern platforms
THANKS TO UBUNTU FORUMS CHINA
[/caption]DeaDBeeF (as in 0xDEADBEEF) is an audio player for GNU/Linux systems with X11 (though now it also runs in plain console without X, in FreeBSD, and in OpenSolaris).
Main features (the list is most likely far from complete):
* mp3, ogg vorbis, flac, ape, wv, wav, m4a, mpc, cd audio (and many more)
* sid, nsf and lots of other popular chiptune formats
* ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, APEv2, xing/info tags support
* character set detection for non-unicode id3 tags - supports cp1251 and iso8859-1
* unicode tags are fully supported as well (both utf8 and ucs2)
* cuesheet (.cue files) support, with charset detection (utf8/cp1251/iso8859-1)
* tracker modules like mod, s3m, it, xm, etc
* HVSC song length database support for sid
* gtk2 interface with efficient custom widgets
* no GNOME or KDE dependencies
* minimize to tray, with scrollwheel volume control
* drag and drop, both inside of playlist, and from filemanagers and such
* control playback from command line
* global hotkeys
* multiple playlists
* album artwork display
* 18-band graphical equalizer
* metadata editor
* user-customizable groups in playlists
* user-customizable columns with flexible title formatting
* radio and podcast support for ogg vorbis, mp3 and aac streams
* gapless playback
* plugin support; bundled with lots of plugins, such as global hotkeys and last.fm scrobbler; sdk is included
* duration calculation is as precise as possible for vbr mp3 files (with and without xing/info tags)
* was tested and works on x86, x86_64 and ppc64 architectures. should work on most modern platforms
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexey-smirnov/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef
THANKS TO UBUNTU FORUMS CHINA
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Totem Sopcast & PPstream plugin
U8UNTU's call for TOTEM plugins is bearing fruit:
1. Add one of following ppa
PPA for lucid
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/portis25/ppa/ubuntu lucid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/portis25/ppa/ubuntu lucid main
PPA for karmic
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/portis25/cnav/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/portis25/cnav/ubuntu karmic main
2. Install totem-pps & totem-sopcast
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 27F5B2C1B3EAC8D9
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install totem-pps totem-sopcast
3. Launch Totem/Movie Player
Edit > Plugins > click on Sopcast Plugin.
4. Change View
F9 or Sidebar under View menu.
You will see various options. Choose Sopcast or PPstream
The configuration options for the plugins don't appear to give any options on choosing the menu for the Sopcast or PPStreams.
Would be nice if there was a way of choosing. An Icecast-like directory would be a lot better than a bunch of Chinese characters, but I did manage to get a nice "fliek" about some ancient Chinaman, last night, with Manderin subtitles.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Coleridge - An Open Source Xanadu
This is a visionary text written in 2001 before Web 2.0, Youtube, Facebook and blogging. It predates much of the current debate around the Semantic Web (Web 3.0) and is in line with the 'fuzzy' as opposed to 'neat' view of the emerging Web's structure. I circulated it amongst friends and even sent a copy to the Shuttleworth Foundation. My comments looking back from 2010 are in red. DRL
[Published under a Creative Commons By NCÂ license, please see About page.]
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="252" caption="Map showing location of Xanadu"]
[/caption]
If it weren't for John Dewey who invented the Dewey system of classification, one would never find the same book twice.
The mechanical nature of the web has meant that information is seemingly ordered and open to enquiry, however, precisely because there is no standard means of ordering information, no one particular catalogue of the web, this appearance is misleading. Intelligent agents and context sensitive searches / search engines are one way of traversing. Labelling. Meta-tags are another, but what we all really need is a better visual interface, some form of graphical organisation that overcomes the difficulty faced by a system in which subject, title, author and content do not necessarily correspond in convenient and accessible categories.
When Ted Nelson envisaged the Xanadu Project in 1960, he foresaw the possibility that the links between things (objects and information) would become more important than the things themselves. In fact, we would all end up publishing our links, some of which would actually be sold. published or licensed, enabling a form of income to accrue from the royalties gained by the sale of hypermedia.
While this was a bad idea in terms of its commercial appeal, and the Xanadu Project was (and still is) the biggest vapourware project in history, its success in marketing the concept of hypertext places it near Internet ground zero, at very least, it is the basis for the thinking surrounding hypermedia and the world wide web.
The question then, is Xanadu relevent today? Can we make the links and connections to things seem important again? [This question refers to the as yet unnamed, Semantic Web]. Is there a missing Third Dimension to the Web of Information?
[caption id="attachment_1762" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Three types of spatial organisation"]
[/caption]
The answer to this question came as a result of a short journey of discovery (one Saturday afternoon in 2001), in which I traversed the same problems encountered by both, Dewey and Nelson. The result was astonishing, because it became clear that we were doing something patently wrong by web browsing, and that there was an essential ingredient missing between web-site, and web-browser, in other words, a system of mapping and visualising links which does not treat the web as some form of encyclopaedia or a giant book, but rather as a relatively open space, perhaps a stellerium in an open library, prone to dusty nooks and crannies in which one may witness both the decay of the old and the marvel of the new.
Coleridge, an Open Source Xanadu
[Published under a Creative Commons By NCÂ license, please see About page.]
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="252" caption="Map showing location of Xanadu"]
[/caption]Clearly, new forms of visual representation and spatial organisation of the web (the ordering of it's growing content) will be the next, big wave, and as the net inflates, the visual mapping of information and the creation of new forms of data landscape or hypermedia will become increasingly important. Imagine a giant library filled with books of all description.
If it weren't for John Dewey who invented the Dewey system of classification, one would never find the same book twice.
The mechanical nature of the web has meant that information is seemingly ordered and open to enquiry, however, precisely because there is no standard means of ordering information, no one particular catalogue of the web, this appearance is misleading. Intelligent agents and context sensitive searches / search engines are one way of traversing. Labelling. Meta-tags are another, but what we all really need is a better visual interface, some form of graphical organisation that overcomes the difficulty faced by a system in which subject, title, author and content do not necessarily correspond in convenient and accessible categories.
When Ted Nelson envisaged the Xanadu Project in 1960, he foresaw the possibility that the links between things (objects and information) would become more important than the things themselves. In fact, we would all end up publishing our links, some of which would actually be sold. published or licensed, enabling a form of income to accrue from the royalties gained by the sale of hypermedia.
While this was a bad idea in terms of its commercial appeal, and the Xanadu Project was (and still is) the biggest vapourware project in history, its success in marketing the concept of hypertext places it near Internet ground zero, at very least, it is the basis for the thinking surrounding hypermedia and the world wide web.
The question then, is Xanadu relevent today? Can we make the links and connections to things seem important again? [This question refers to the as yet unnamed, Semantic Web]. Is there a missing Third Dimension to the Web of Information?
[caption id="attachment_1762" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Three types of spatial organisation"]
[/caption]The answer to this question came as a result of a short journey of discovery (one Saturday afternoon in 2001), in which I traversed the same problems encountered by both, Dewey and Nelson. The result was astonishing, because it became clear that we were doing something patently wrong by web browsing, and that there was an essential ingredient missing between web-site, and web-browser, in other words, a system of mapping and visualising links which does not treat the web as some form of encyclopaedia or a giant book, but rather as a relatively open space, perhaps a stellerium in an open library, prone to dusty nooks and crannies in which one may witness both the decay of the old and the marvel of the new.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Best Ubuntu promo video yet
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_75rGr5vENs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Adesk, turns video into wallpaper
Adesk is the real deal if you want a video wallpaper interface.
Download from here.
Instructions
1:INSTALL ZENITY & MPLAYER & UNRAR & RAR
apt-get install zenity mplayer unrar rar
2:DECOMPRESS a-desk
unrar adesk-0.17.tar.gz
3:INSTALL XWINWRAP
Enter the a-desk folder and execute xwinwrapcvs.deb or xwinwrap64.deb (2 clicks or execute by terminal by -> dpkg -i xwinwrapcvs.deb or xwinwrap64.deb
4:EXECUTE A-DESK.INSTALLER
Click on "a-desk-installer" and run
If you have some time, check out a great tutorial from the Khattam blog.
Plus another interesting package with script.
Download from here.
Instructions
1:INSTALL ZENITY & MPLAYER & UNRAR & RAR
apt-get install zenity mplayer unrar rar
2:DECOMPRESS a-desk
unrar adesk-0.17.tar.gz
3:INSTALL XWINWRAP
Enter the a-desk folder and execute xwinwrapcvs.deb or xwinwrap64.deb (2 clicks or execute by terminal by -> dpkg -i xwinwrapcvs.deb or xwinwrap64.deb
4:EXECUTE A-DESK.INSTALLER
Click on "a-desk-installer" and run
If you have some time, check out a great tutorial from the Khattam blog.
Plus another interesting package with script.
Coverthumbnailer has a ppa
The totally awsome coverthumbnailer now has a ppa.
next, update your packages list:
and then install the
For more information about the PPA, visit the Launchpad page .
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flozz/flozznext, update your packages list:
sudo apt-get updateand then install the
cover-thumbnailer package :sudo apt-get install cover-thumbnailerFor more information about the PPA, visit the Launchpad page .
Ghandi and Ubuntu wisdom
Aside from Ubuntu, this blog is also about Wisdom. I found this wonderful posting at http://matthewhelmke.net/ while searching with the terms "Ghandi" and "Ubuntu."
1. Change yourself. "You must be the change you want to see in the world." and "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves."
2. You are in control. "Nobody can hurt me without my permission."
3. Forgive and let it go. "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." and "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
4. Without action you aren't going anywhere. "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."
5. Take care of this moment. "I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following."
6. Everyone is human. "I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps." and "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."
7. Persist. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
8. See the good in people and help them. "I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others." and "Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men." and "I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people."
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self. "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." and "Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."
10. Continue to grow and evolve. "Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position."
Mathew Helmke says: "I got this here. I am sharing an abridged version. The original has some nice commentary. My version only includes the actual Gandhi quotes for each number."
1. Change yourself. "You must be the change you want to see in the world." and "As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves."
2. You are in control. "Nobody can hurt me without my permission."
3. Forgive and let it go. "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." and "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
4. Without action you aren't going anywhere. "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."
5. Take care of this moment. "I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following."
6. Everyone is human. "I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps." and "It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."
7. Persist. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
8. See the good in people and help them. "I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others." and "Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men." and "I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people."
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self. "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." and "Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."
10. Continue to grow and evolve. "Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position."
Mathew Helmke says: "I got this here. I am sharing an abridged version. The original has some nice commentary. My version only includes the actual Gandhi quotes for each number."
Ping! and Lucid is a Pseudo-Macintosh
Turning your Ubuntu system into a pseudo-Macintosh is a pre-occupation for most noobs. I still don't see the point of creating cosmetic changes which do absolutely nothing for the performance or identity of the Ubuntu system as a whole. Then again, you may want to remove any doubt that Ubuntu is up there with the Worlds' number 1 and leading contender for best OS. When you've done transforming and tire of the novelty, bring your system back and try out any one of the 100 billion other variations which are available on Ubuntu.
Turn Lucid into a Macintosh latest.
Turn Lucid into a Macintosh latest.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Top 5 Ubuntu Blogs
Here is my list of Top 5 Ubuntu blogs (In no particular order)
1. Tech Source
2. WebUpd8
3. OMG! Ubuntu
4. Tech Drive In
5. Ubuntu Geek
1. Tech Source
2. WebUpd8
3. OMG! Ubuntu
4. Tech Drive In
5. Ubuntu Geek
Friday, June 4, 2010
Lucid in the Sky with Diamonds
This is ProjectM, the awesome audio visualiser. It allows you to play with the popular Milkdrop visuals of which there are hundreds available in the forum but don't appear to be in the officials repos yet, although some bits are already part of Totem. Ubuntugeek has provided a tutorial on how to go about compiling the latest release. Be warned, it might not be plane sailing, but there is plenty of help in the Ubuntu Forums topic. And we probably have to campaign if we want to get the somewhat psychedelic audio visual project a proper ppa. Then again, why not hack Totem? The player could do with a better Milkdrop plugin system.
UPDATE: If the latest version doesn't work, and there are reports of there being trouble with the code repository. Try an earlier version. This works just fine in Lucid and Karmic
projectm_1.1-rev-980-2_i386.deb
projectm_presets.tar.gz
Thursday, June 3, 2010
This says it all ...
[caption id="attachment_1721" align="alignleft" width="172" caption="South African myScoop Top 20"]
[/caption]
[/caption]
Patents for Font hinting under review
This is something very interesting and cool ( Scoble has even written about how Linux fonts dont look as good as Mac or Windows.) Sandeep has written about this issue before. And this blog has carried information about how to turn font-hinting on, installing mac fonts here and here.
Sandeep writes on his Datum blog: "The basic issue is that certain basic patents in font hinting are owned by Apple. Though it has been good to never pursue them against Freetype – the font rendering engine for Linux – it was still a contentious issue.
However, now these patents could be expired – which does not mean Linux has to use these… but it removes roadblocks to leapfrog to advanced techniques based on these fundamental algorithms. This idea is [being] submitted to Ubuntu for legal counsel to enable this to happen."
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Lock version via aptitude
Locking the version of an application in Synaptic only applies to the Synaptic package manager. If you upgrade your system via aptitude which is the front-end to apt-get you'll want to lock it there as well.
sudo aptitude hold <application>
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