Recently I started using Sticky Notes Gnome applet for reminding myself for certain tasks. Before that I used to use Tomboy Notes which has some nice features too but it is somewhat inclined to use as a Notes database and not as a Sticky Notes app. I also tried XPad which is very much like Sticky Notes but I prefer the feel of this Gnome Sticky Notes applet.
Sticky Notes applet has only one problem when used with Compiz engine – It gets minimized automatically whenever you click in empty space on desktop, which kind of beats the purpose of the application that is it should always be stuck to desktop. Luckily I found a workaround for the problem. It is applicable only for Compiz Desktop Effects are turned on. For Normal Metacity decorations, Sticky Notes behaves as it should.
If you wish to have Sticky Notes always stuck to the desktop :
1. Open CompizConfig Settings Manager from System > Preferences.
2. Enable the plugin Window Rules. [ Read more... ]
Sometimes videos get broken because of bad dvds or even when transferring from internet. I knew there exists a great utility named “DivFix” which works great which is available only for Windows. Other day I borrowed a weird cartoon movie named “Meet The Feebles” but couldn’t watch completely because the disk was scratched and I didn’t want to boot Windows for this tiny problem. Apparently there is another program “DivFix++” which can fix broken videos on Linux as well.
Quoted from SourceForge page :
DivFix++ is yours AVI video repair and preview software. It designed for repair and preview files which are on download from ed2k(emule), torrent, gnutella, ftp. web or any other source on the internet. It can repair AVI and DivX files (for now.)
Screenshots :
DivFix++ Fixing Broken Video File - Linux Version
[ Read more... ]
I like my desktop clean and with minimum icons possible.For that, I have configured Nautilus not to show desktop (which hides all desktop icons) using gconf-editor. The key is located at “/apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop”. This key needs to be edited each time we want to show/hide desktop
On the other hand, I also use desktop as temporary storage space for sorting out temp files. Each time I am done with this sorting I had to use gconf-editor for toggling desktop. So I wrote this tiny Nautilus script to hide or show the desktop.
Toggle-Desktop-Nautilus-Script
What exactly this script does :
This script either hides all desktop icons temporarily and shows only desktop wallpaper. Same script can be used to unhide those icons.
Installation : [ Read more... ]
Terminal can be boring at times. What if we could add little fun factor to dull terminal? That is what I was wondering since last few days. On Ubuntu/Linux a dynamic message just like motd or to be precise a welcome message can be displayed each time you start a terminal instance even when in GUI mode ( whereas /etc/motd message is shown only on tty or at remote logins.)
For example, greeting like in following image each time you start terminal :
Installation :
We are going to use two programs namely “fortune” which generates random quotes and “cowsay” which [ Read more... ]
I am using Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty and every piece of hardware works out-of-the-box with the exception of in-built Conexant dial-up modem. For couple of months I won’t have broadband access so I will have to use dial-up connection for a while. I headed to the Ubuntu community dialup page for the help but the instructions listed there are little outdated. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong. So Here is the mini tutorial on how to install Conexant dial-up modem drivers for Ubuntu.
My hardware : Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop with Conexant HDA D330 MDC v.92 modem with hardware IDs 14F1:2C06 as seen in Win XP device manager. [ Read more... ]
Terminal is undoubtedly most used application for many developers as well as experienced users. It can be customized to have semi-transparent window, custom colors and also can be used as desktop background with the help of other application – devilspie. In this article I will explain how to customize Terminal. This tutorial can be used on Ubuntu as well as any other distribution running Gnome desktop environment.
1. Make Terminal semi-transparent :
Open terminal and right click in console area > Profile preferences > Background tab and click onto Transparent background. Set the slider position like follow : If you want completely transparent terminal move slider all the way to left at 0% . I have set it at around 40% which suites my current desktop theme.
[ Read more... ]