GeekLimit

If you’ve got a widescreen (WXGA) laptop or LCD, you’ll want to fix the resolution.  The Ubuntu logo should be a circle, not an oval.  Leaving the default resolution *will* give you more than a few headaches over the course of the day.  Luckily, it’s simple to fix.  Open up the Terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and type this in:

sudo apt-get install 915resolution

(if it can’t find it, you need to type this in and remove the “#” from in front of all the addresses that are listed at the end of each paragraph, save and close)

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list 

restart the machine.  When you get back to the login page, you’ll notice the logo is round…no more headaches!

This is an easy one in Ubuntu, but since I have a gmail account, and my work has Google Apps for your Domain, I found it extremely helpful. Here’s how to tie both of these accounts into Gaim via the Jabber protocol. Alright!

While you’re at it, Skype has an install for just about any distro, so head on over and pick up Skype too!

You can easily make these two applications automatically sign in when you log on.  Click System > Preferences > Sessions.  Click the ‘Startup Programs’ tab.  Click ‘add’, type the word ‘gaim’ (no quotes) and click OK.  Now click ‘add’ and type the word ’skype’ (no quotes) and click OK.  Click ‘close’ and you’re done!

Ubuntu 6.10 natively doesn’t handle connections to WPA-encrypted wireless networks too well. In fact, I wasn’t impressed with the way Edgy handles connecting to any network, for that matter.

For someone who is used to the ‘Network Connections’ folder in Windows, networking in Ubuntu isn’t fun. I worked on trying to connect to my home wireless network for about 90 minutes before I found the right combination of settings on Google that let me get online with WPA, and made it easy to manage multiple networks. For anyone who needs to admin several networks, this is a mandatory feature that Edgy doesn’t natively have.

Here’s how to get a very easy-to-use networking utility in Edgy:

• Connect to the internet via the RJ45 (ethernet) port with a wire. Make sure you can get to Google, etc.
• Click Applications > Accessories > Terminal (don’t get scared)
• type the following and hit enter
  • sudo apt-get
• enter your password and hit enter
• now copy and paste the following block into the terminal window and hit enter. (Note: if it says it can’t find the packages, type in ’sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list’, remove the “#” from the addresses at the end of each paragraph, save and close)
  • sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant
    sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager
    sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
    (press enter to make the last one go)
• a file is now open. get rid of anything that doesn’t have ‘lo’ in it. Save and close.
• Enter this into the Terminal:
  • sudo gedit /etc/default/wpasupplicant

  a file is now open. Type in:

  • ENABLED=0
• Save and close.
• Paste this block into the Terminal. The machine will restart. Don’t forget to come back!
  • sudo touch /etc/default/wpasupplicant
    sudo reboot
    (press enter)

OK, so now you’ve got two icons in the top bar, one is the old ‘two monitors’, and the new ‘bars’ icon. Right-click the ‘two monitors’ one and remove it, you won’t need it. Now left-click the bars and configure your networks!

modified from DebianAdmin

Also,  if you’re a network or server administrator, and you want to use the machine names to remote into servers, you’ll notice it doesn’t work in Ubuntu.  WINS isn’t enabled by default.  Luckily, it’s simple to fix. Open up the Terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and type this in:

sudo gedit /etc/nsswitch.conf

Where it says ‘hosts: files dns’, add “wins” on, so it says ‘hosts: files dns wins’.  Save and close.

Now give the terminal a:

sudo apt-get install winbind

You should be able to connect via machine name now!  I find this a lot easier than asking people to look up their IP address, we name our machines by asset tag, which makes remote administration a snap!

Renald Ebert has done an excellent comparison of the top 10 most used BitTorrent sites on the Internet.

• BTJunkie
  
• BitTorrent.com
• Bushtorrent & Torrentreactor
• isoHunt
• Meganova
• Mininova
• The Pirate Bay
• Torrent Portal
• TorrentSpy
• Torrentz

As the best of them all, he chooses BTJunkie (which I have discovered and started using recently) due to the large number of torrents indexed and added each day.

You can read his report, complete with pretty graphs, over at his blog page, CompareBT

I have been using Skype for some time now, and the only grudge I have is that the Linux version of Skype is not keeping up with the latest release for Windows platform, lacking newer functions and quality enhancements. Plus as we all know, Skype is based on proprietory VoIP protocol. (if I am wrong, let me know)

So I decided to look elsewhere, and an application that complies with SIP. The answer for me lies with Gizmo Project, which has an excellent VoIP client, supporting Linux as well as Windows and Mac. The only major thing that lacks for the time being is the mobile platform support, which I would love to see in future being developed and released, as I am currently running Skype on my HP hw6510 communicator. The exception being the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet support.

Gizmo is based on common principles for VoIP clients, using your internet connection to make calls to other computers. And now with Gizmo the new All Calls Free plan makes calls FREE between registered, active Gizmo Project users in 60 countries around the world. I was really happy to see that Russia is supported for landlines as well as mobiles, but sad to not notice India in the list. I guess the reason lies with the rules in Indian telecommunication industry, regulated by DoT. Another feature missing is the Video support, which latest Skype has, but for me it’s not the main criterion.

When I tried installing Gizmo around six months ago on SUSE 10, I wasn’t able to run it for some strange reason. After noticing an info on Gizmo from Moosy’s blog, with little tip, I was able to install Gizmo flawlessly on SUSE 10.1 using the OSS library provided by Gizmo Project. Unfortunately, with ALSA I had problems. Here are simple steps that you need to follow for Gizmo to be up and running on SUSE 10.1

I am running SUSE 10.1 x86_64 platform, with Gizmo 1.0.0.18 being the latest available version.

1. Go to download section and download two files provided specifically for openSUSE distribution

• libsipphoneapi – the OSS version
• gizmo-project – the client itself

2. Install the following required dependencies from SUSE repositories or CD/DVD

• expat
• expat-32bit
• openssl-devel
• openssl-devel-32bit
• curl-devel

3. Now we need to create a soft link to libexpat.so.0 in /usr/lib/ folder

# cd /usr/lib/

# ln -s /usr/lib/libexpat.so.1 libexpat.so.0

4. Once the above mentioned dependencies are installed, install the downloaded files from Gizmo project

# rpm -ivh libsipphoneapi-oss-0.78.20060112-1.suse.i586.rpm

# rpm -ivh gizmo-project-1.0.0.18-1.suse.i586.rpm

That’s it. Now you will find a shortcut to your Gizmo application in your KDE -> Internet menu. Once launched, register a new user, or if you are already registered, log-in using your username and password. One small problem I noticed while registering was that I wasn’t able to register with username specified as EazyVG, which I usually use, and intead had to use longer EazyVGSip as username.

I know there are more SIP compliant clients available, such as openwengo, but for the time being I will settle with Gizmo and hope to see better support for Linux users from them.

Hope you will find this small review and Howto helpful. Be sure to check out our new All Calls Free calling plan, and if you want you can call me on my mobile @ +seven ninetwosix threefivenine doubleseven doublesix.

Enjoy and tnx to Moosy blog for the tip

Time for Windows users to rejoice!

X1 Technologies has released its X1 Enterprise Client (formerly X1 Desktop Edition), previously $US75, for free download.

X1 Enterprise Client is a full-featured desktop search application aimed at organisations and enterprise use, with a focus on information security.

It indexes an extraordinary 370 file types including many not generally supported in desktop search apps, such as Adobe Indesign, Microsoft Access databases, vcard files, and more. It also has support for all the regular formats and programs you’d expect: emails, files, documents, attachments, pictures, music files, tasks, and calendar items.

One of the slickest features of this desktop search tool is its ability to preview almost any file type immediately on search.

X1 has close ties with Yahoo. In fact Yahoo Desktop Search is a stripped-down, Yahoo-branded version of X1, with some bundled indexing of Yahoo web services. The company has made the Enterprise Client free of charge thanks to an ad-revenue sharing deal with Yahoo.

This new release is freely available from X1 Technologies’ website.