Lernid finally educated in Karmic

Jono Bacon's solution to long distance learning and user participation in Ubuntu Open conferences has finally arrived relatively bug-free in Karmic with less than three weeks to go before the  inaugral March 1 Ubuntu Opportunitic Developer Week. Which all sounds a bit like an infection? Earlier releases of the programme  had simply refused to run on my machine so I took the rash move of  copypasting the error message directly onto Bacon's blog. Sorry mate. No time to file a bug report, but I expected a fever and this could just be the antidote.  Bacon says: "While at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Dallas I mentioned in one of the roundtables about how wicked-cool it would be to have a desktop client for ... online tuition events that we run."

"One of the challenges we face every time we run these events is helping new community members figure out how IRC works. Ideally this should be as simple as running a program, selecting an event and connecting."

" On the flight home I hacked up a little quickly app to get started on this. It is called Lernid."

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/11/25/introducing-lernid/

To install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lernid-devs/lernid-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lernid

There is also a ppa for daily releases

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/lernid-devs/lernid-daily/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/lernid-devs/lernid-daily/ubuntu karmic main

More info

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lernid

Ubuntu Anthem

Been looking everywhere for the Ubuntu Anthem sung by Brenda Fassie. So in lieu of the Qween of Kwela, here is the 2007 Speak New Words Contest Finalist, Terryl Dozier with a haunting theme and spoken word combination for  Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olaMxy1X1hE

Install Mac Fonts in Ubuntu

If you have used a Macintosh before and want to know if you could install those Mac fonts like AppleGaramond, Aquabase, LITHOGRL, Lucida Grande, Lucida Mac, lucon, and MacGrand on you Ubuntu Linux desktop, then rejoice because you easily could. Just follow these simple steps on installing and then using Mac fonts on Ubuntu:

Installing the fonts:

1. From the Linux terminal, download Mac fonts with this command:

$ wget http://ubuntu-debs.googlecode.com/files/macfonts.tar.gz

2. Untar or extract the downloaded file:

$ tar zxvf macfonts.tar.gz

3. Move macfonts folder to the /fonts directory:

$ sudo mv macfonts /usr/share/fonts/

4. Reload the font cache:

$ sudo fc-cache -f -v

Using the fonts:

You can now test or use the fonts by going to System --> Preferences --> Appearance, and then clicking on the "Fonts" tab. Here is a sample setup on using the Mac fonts:

Application font: Lucida MAC 10
Document font: Lucida MAC 10
Desktop font: Lucida MAC 10
Window title font: LucidaMacBold 10
Fixed width font: Lucida Console 10


That’s about it. Enjoy your new fonts.

You may also like this article: Download 100+ Free Fonts for Ubuntu

This posting courtesy of Tech Source From Bohol

The Ubuntusphere

Just a note to say the Ubuntusphere is growing and is probably the largest collection of Ubuntu-related links in the Southern Hemisphere. If you have a link or a site which you feel needs to be listed, please ethnopunk at telkomsa.net  and I'll consider it for inclusion. Also, any ideas about a graphic? I know a sphere would look good, and we all know the Ubuntu logo is spherical. But exactly how to go about illustrating the idea?  I was thinking the Ubuntusphere is more about an ecosystem of sites, an Ubuntucology if you will. If you have any ideas, please fire away.

UPDATE: Here it is the Ubuntusphere, a photoretouched Rubik sphere using Gimp

[caption id="attachment_1051" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Welcome to the Ubuntusphere"][/caption]

Ubuntu Revelation

I think this app takes the cake in terms of catchy nomenclature. A password manager that actually sounds like it could be a password manager and which offers encryption. What more could one want? Well there are a couple of gripes. Firstly Revelation expects me to enter each new password into a card file system manually. Each new entry thus taking up valuable time. Secondly it doesn't appear to interface with any other applications  and especially the browsers which store my passwords.

Admittedly getting software to do this would mean some deep level programming. But surely a way of removing the inconveniance of entering passwords online  in Ubuntu would be a lifesaver, especially if you are like me and routinely muck around and lose configuration files (along with the damn keys). However, I am not a cryptofreak. The best locked door in cyberspace is probably a door that doesn't  need a lock or a password.

So as far as this simple password database are concerned, Revelation is the nicest crypto cardfile I've seen in a long time.

sudo apt-get install revelation

Do This Now Ubuntu

I've always believed that while sudo may translate into the sue and do of the computer world, ubuntu is really code for please. A nice way of saying let's do this or let the community join in, because it is really thanks to the community that we are able to provide the means to achieve personal goals.  If you don't have time to create a script or just want something to happen at such and such a time without opening a terminal. DoThisNow is a great little scheduler applet which also gives users a modicum of control over events.

Remove menu delay the right way

There are many sites offering bad advice for removing menu delay (as I did), e.g. http://lifehacker.com/software/linux...enu-269934.php.

These sites  tell you to create ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and then add 'gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0"| tee -a .gtkrc-2.0'. That's wrong.

It should be either:

* create file ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and add 'gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0'

or

* run in terminal 'echo "gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0"| tee -a .gtkrc-2.0'

Either delete ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and do one of the two methods above, or edit the file as needed.

You'll know if you've done it the wrong way if you get this error message:

error: scanner: unterminated string constant - e.g. `style'

Thanks to Wesley and David_1cog for pointing this out.