( Ubuntu + Skype ) – PulseAudio = SUCCESS!
After many an hour trying everything to get Skype working with my USB PLANTRONICS headset, I ended up uninstalling PulseAudio and… Skype worked! Here’s how I got Skype 2.1b working dandy in Ubuntu 10.04:
First I installed Skype 2.1 beta from their site: http://skype.com. You just download the .deb file, double click it, it’ll open in Gdebi, and let it install.
That’s the easy bit!
Now, with my USB headset plugged in the only audio settings I could get in Skype was PulseAudio. What I really wanted was to have the ringtone come through my desktop speakers but use the headset mic and headphones for the actual call. I tried installing pavcontrol and playing around with it. I did manage to get the mic working there by doing a test call and quickly (and I mean quickly!) switching the input to mic while it was recording but this didn’t get me the call audio through the headset.
How To Install Google SketchUp 7 with Wine in Ubuntu
Google SketchUp is a very popular, and free, CAD style application. So far so good, but the bad news is that it is written for Windows. The good news is that it will run under Wine with very little difficulty these days.
The first thing you must do is, of course, download SketchUp from: http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/download/gsu.html. Next, you need to either install the latest version of Wine, or update your current installation of Wine to the most recent version. I recommend you use the Wine (Ubuntu) repo’s, how to add the repository is at: http://www.winehq.org/download/deb. To check your version of Wine, click Applications > Wine > Configure Wine, and click the ‘About’ tab. To get SketchUp working properly, it’s best to have at least 1.1.11 of Wine.
From G1 to Motorola Milestone with Android 2.0
Motorola Milestone (Droid, if you're in the US)
In the beginning there was HTC, and lo, they created a phone and named it G1. And it did sell.
Now Motorola have created a sibling to the G1, the Motorola Milestone (Droid if you’re stateside) and not only is it more slimline than it’s G1 brethren, it also comes with Android 2.0!
First thing I noticed about the Milestone is the phone and slider feel rock solid. The arc slider on the G1 was spring loaded and felt like it would loosen after a while (which it never did) but the Milestone slider needs a good shove all the way to click in place, this I like.
Todays Science Experiment: Disassembling an iPod battery (or: How To Burn Your House Down)
Having finally managed to get my iPod Classic open, I replaced its aging battery for a spiffy new one. Upon reading the label on the old battery, it said: Do NOT disassemble.
Well, that’s fighting talk where I come from, and if Apple said not to do it, I’m doing it!
Here we have the freshly plucked (well, torn) battery:
The pristine, non-violated, battery.
Using a Cyberlink remote with the new Boxee Beta
Having recently installed the new Boxee Beta, which is (by the way) amazing, I decided to take the plunge and try to get my cheapo Cyberlink (USB) remote control (shown below) working with it, but properly.
Boxee and the Acer Aspire Revo
Having tried XBMC on my Acer Aspire Revo, I thought I’d give Boxee a try. I’d heard such good things about it that it would have been rude of me to ignore it, and I have to say: I really do like it. Technically it’s not available for Karmic (Ubuntu 9.10) but thankfully it can easily be botched to work fine in 9.10.
The first thing to do is head over to the Boxee site and sign up with them: Boxee.tv. The reason for this is that Boxee is part XBMC, part social media. Boxee is based on XBMC but it has several useful addons that allow you to rate/favourite your media and recommend media to friends. All this is done via the Boxee website, hence the signup. Once you’ve signed up, you can go to the downloads page and see instructions on how to install Boxee by adding the Jaunty repo. And this is where you hit a snag. Boxee won’t install as it requires packages that aren’t in the Karmic, or Boxee, repo. So, to botch it, we grab some .deb files that are from Jaunty/other repos.
Installing Ubuntu 9.10 and XBMC on the Acer Aspire Revo
Acer Aspire Revo
I recently bought an Acer Aspire Revo with the idea of turning it in to a media center. I decided to install Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and use XBMC (Xbox Media Center) as a front end. Here’s how I did it:
First I installed Ubuntu 9.10 to a USB stick. I did this using the USB Startup Disc Creator app which is installed, by default, with Ubuntu. It’s under System > Administration. I just pointed it to the ISO of 9.10, it detected my USB stick and off it went. So, with Ubuntu on my USB I popped the USB in to the Revo and booted it up.
Google Wave – is it any good?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks you’ll probably have heard ‘Google Wave‘ being mentioned. So just what is ‘Google Wave‘, and is it any good?
The simplest way I can think of to describe Google Wave is this: think of a collaborative MSN, that’s basically it. Currently, Google Wave is in a preview state. You can sign up for it, but you are in a (very long) queue for invites. I signed up several weeks ago and have had nothing from Google, as yet, I managed to scrounge an invite from a Twitter user that I follow (thanks Susan!).
A word of warning: do NOT buy Google Wave invites through eBay (and other such places) as inevitably you either won’t get the invite or it will only be a partial invite where you don’t actually have a full account. Culpa mea.
Sony Reader PRS-505 in Linux – REVIEW
I know there are plenty of PRS-505 reviews out there on the interwebz, but the vast majority don’t mention if/how the 505 plays well with Linux. That’ll be the focus of my review. For the record I’m using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty).
PRS-505
First things first, the 505 is teeny! The 505 comes with a nice suede-feeling cover, the 505 in the cover is a touch smaller (in height) than a DVD/video-game case and a hairs breadth thinner.
TIP: you can click any of the photos in this review to get larger photos.
The sliver of white and green is the edge of an Xbox 360 video-game case.
In the box, you get the 505, the snazzy brown cover (which uses magnetism to stay closed), a USB cable (to also charge it with) and a couple of CD’s, both geared towards Windows users although one CD has some old public domain classics on there for you to read. The CD’s aren’t necessary anyway, one is a cataloging app (which I’ll come to the Linux equivalent in a moment) and the device mounts as a USB storage device. The 505 has have internal memory for storing books on, but it also accepts Sony, and SD, cards.
Creating an iPod playlist in Amarok
The one thing I love about mp3 players is that you can just stick it on random and it’s like having your own jukebox. But what about when you want to play only certain songs? Or play only those certain songs on random?
Well, that’s when you need a playlist. Amarok does it’s own playlists, but that’s to create a playlist of songs that are on your hard drive. This tutorial is on how to create a playlist for your iPod using the songs that are on your iPod.
First things first (I’m assuming you already have songs on your iPod and you’ve used Amarok to do this) connect your iPod to the PC (it should auto-mount, most new distros recognise iPods) and load up Amarok. Click the DEVICES tab (down the left side of the screen) then click the CONNECT button at the top left of the window:
You should now see a list of all the songs, and albums, that are on your iPod. At the top of that list are two red folders, Podcasts and Playlists.
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I use:
