[How-to] Draw arrows in GIMP? Yes!

Here is how you can easily draw an arrow using the GIMP software.

1) First install GIMP. (how? damm easy!)

Open Ubuntu Software Center, type “GIMP” and press install. or Open a terminal and type sudo apt-get install gimp

2) Download the arrow plug in (here)

Open a terminal and type

> gksudo nautilus (this opens a filesystem browser in administrator mode!)

Then copy that file (the plugin.scm) to the /usr/share/gimp/2.0/scripts folder.

3) Open GIMP

Draw a bezier curve (shortcut is “b”) and go to Tools and Click on Arrow. It will create an arrow with the bezier curve.

 

Cool. GIMP rocks.

Writing Latex with spell check? Go Tex Maker go! (Dictionary in Tex Maker on Ubuntu)

Installing Tex maker

Well, as everything else, installing Tex Maker in Ubuntu is plain easy:

1) Open Ubuntu Software Center or Synaptic Package Manager and type “Tex maker” in the search field.

2) Click on it to install it, and wait.

Now you can enjoy Latex in all its formatting-greatness and stiffness.

Adding Spell Checking to Text Maker

Google for “open office dictionaries” and download the one we want (English – UK).  Extract the zip and place it in a nice place. (Keep your computer organized!)

 

In Tex Maker: go to Options > Configure > Editor, and browse the file.

Hooray!

How to solve Sony Walkman mp3 player problem when copying files (Ubuntu and player NWZ-B142F)

If you have one of these players (for instance the NWZ-B142F model from sony) you can run into some strange looking problems in Ubuntu. Here’s how I fixed it.

Target problem: error in copying, deleting, renaming (modifying) files stored in the player

“Error splicing file: No space left on device”

What happens: when you move a file to the player (or any of the aforementioned operations) and error will appear saying that you do not have enough free space (insufficient space) left on the player. This is however false, the bug resides in the manner that your system is accessing the player, or what the player lets your system do and see.

A bit of explanation: There’s basically two modes for accessing the removable media (songs, videos) the first is the traditional one, called MSC (Media Storage Class) and the MTP  (Media Transport Protocol mode) which communicates with the device and allows loading and saving of songs. By using this tutorial you will enable yout Sony Walkman to use MSC and will be automatically mounted by your computer, thus allowing drag and drop of songs into the folder.

How to solve it:

A) Install a set of command-line programs called mtp-tools (use whatever program you like better for installing new packages, i.e.: synaptic or Ubuntu software center)

B) Open a terminal in Applications > Accessories > terminal and type the following:

> mtp-detect

It will tell you if the player is correctly detected. And show something like:

MTP-specific device properties:
Friendly name: WALKMAN NWZ-B142F
Synchronization partner: WALKMAN NWZ-B142F
Battery level 98 of 100 (98%)

C) Probably if your situation is like mine, you can copy the contents of the player to the local disk, this will be our backup.

D) Now, go to the terminal and type:

> mtp-format

It will prompt you if you want to continue, type “y” and hit enter.

E) Problem should be solved. Reconnect the device and enjoy copy-paste or drag-drop.

What I did not do (other tutorials that didn’t solve this case):

Many tutorials such as this do some tricks with the mounting procedure (this is what allows your computer to connect new storage devices such as removable USB media).

Others, such as this one, suggest a much more complex problem, that will need recompiling of a kernel module (a bit scary) and should REALLY be last resort.

Appendix) MSC and MTP, what are these things? (from Zolved)

The MSC mode of the USB stands for Media Storage Class mode and the MTP mode is Media Transport Protocol mode.

MSC mode will only work for MP3 files and WMA files without DRM (digital rights management). Essentially, MSC mode looks like a detachable hard drive to the computer. Many car audio players and home stereos that are compatible with MP3 players are expecting an MSC mode MP3 player for hooking up via USB. MSC mode may also support plain old data files.

MTP mode is for MP3 files and WMA files with DRM (digital rights management). These WMA music files with DRM including purchased downloads and (maybe) subscription music tracks require MTP to transfer and update the DRM licenses. MTP mode is required for use with subscription music services such as Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go, Rhapsody To Go, and Napster To Go.

Gmail Voice and Video Chat in Ubuntu

If you’re a huge fan of gmail you don’t even need skype (as long as you can convince people to use gmail as well!), gmail has release the Linux Support for Video Chat, here’s a really simple how-to:

1) Access the google video chat site.

2) Download the correct installer.

Remember to select the correct Operating System and Architecture: 32 or 64 bits (how to find out your architecture in this post)

3) Double Click the .deb file and it will install under Ubuntu Software Center (or package manager)

4) It’s done, login in Gmail. And have fun.

Notice: there’s an icon with a camera next to your gmail-chat user name!

How-to: Find out what is your Ubuntu Version!

Appendix II) Find out what is your Ubuntu Version

1) Choose one of the below methods

A) System > Administration > System Monitor

B) Open a terminal window > type  “more /etc/apt/sources.list | grep Ubuntu”

C) way cooler versions here.

2) Understanding the crazy names!

Sometimes people refer to Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions) by their number-code and other times by code-name, here’s a quick reference list:

• Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog)
• Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog)
• Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger)
• Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake)
• Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)
• Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)
• Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)
• Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)
• Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)
• Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)
• Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)
• Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)
• Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) (still beta as we write)

 

How-to: Find out Ubuntu/Linux architecture, 32 or 64 bits?

Appendix I) Find out what is your Ubuntu Architecture (32 or 64 bits)

Open a terminal window (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and type  “uname -m”

This will give you a number, these codes are called CPU-architectures, and can be translated as follows:

i386 or i686 or X86 –  32 bit systems

x86_ 64 – 64 bit systems

(If you want to learn more, just google it)

 

Dropbox, is for Linux!

Dropbox is a online storage system that also synchronizes a folder in your computer. Thus, it can synchronize files that you have on multiple computers, imagine: your music folder is the same on your laptop and home computer, when you grab some new songs they “virtually fly over from one computer to another” at the speed of an internet connection.

The service is very interesting and actually good, they offer 2Gbytes free of charge, and of course you can be tricky and make multiple accounts and so forth. But actually 50Gbytes are so cheap that I’d strongly advise to thing twice and maybe spend a few dollars from your pocket.

Full Linux Support

Yep, this is how contemporary apps sound like (and should be). Go to their website and download the Linux Dropbox version, install it. It will run a small “tour” installation program that allows you to create or link to an existing account, and customize the place for the Dropbox folder (this is the folder that will be automatically updated and uploaded/downloaded).

(dropbox being used, double click the item and your folder will appear)

Also if you use a Window Manager called Gnome (this is the part of the Operating system that takes care of the visual aspects of your Windows and running programs) you can install an add on. The add-on is called nautilus-dropbox and is very useful, it allows you to right-click on an item in your dropbox and access some neat shortcuts, such as “get public link” which is extremely useful to share things with your friends.

(installing the nautilus-dropbox plugin via synaptic, use whatever installer you like the most!)

Dropbox in Linux, sounds like a sea of possibilities

Of course, like everything in the open-source community there’s a lot of scripts, add-ons and cool things to use along side the standard dropbox. A bit after started using dropbox (more than one year ago) I developed a simple script that allows to: “zip a folder” + “move the zip automatically to the dropbox public folder” + “return the public link” ! Since this is all very basic, I just noticed that it is already available on the add-on section of the dropbox site: shell script that uploads to public folder!
And if your really hardcore Linux (then you’ll probably won’t find anything useful in this blog) you can install dropbox in a entirely text based environment, see this tutorial (no graphics!). This is cool if you manage a server and want to use dropbox, or share folders with your users.