A Video Editor for Ubuntu: Cinelerra!

Cinelerra is a very powerful (although not the one with the best GUI though, lol) non-liner video editor for Ubuntu. Well, not just for Ubuntu ... it supports a lot of GNU/Linux distributions by default. But for this review, I'm gonna be using Ubuntu.

Cinelerra actually come from a previous project called "Broadcast 2000" but around 2002, the developers made the decision to release it using this name. And ever since, the Cinelerra community, slowly but steadily have been adding more and more features thus this is one of the best video editors that you can find that works under Ubuntu (or GNU/Linux in general). 

Are you ready!?... ;-)

As I said before, the GUI is not the most up-to-date looking one (but they've made sure to make it look like other professional video editors such as Adobe Premier, etc). It's written in Python and you can easily change its look-n-feel by installing a built in theme as shown below.

But the rest assured, when considered its features... this is one heck of an app!.

Main features...

*. Huge list of video effects (Blur, Chroma Key, "Aging and Burning TV", add denoise, Freeze frame, flip, down sample, etc).

*. A huge list of audio effects and features such as : Volume gain, equalizer filtration, freeverb, delay, reverse audio, Pitch shift, etc.

*. Add/remove audio video tracks.

*. Cut down the video into clips (of course) and easily trim, cut, paste or change clip positions, etc. 

*. Crop/Zoom in-out, Edit mask, lock the video, etc.

*. Show/hide overlays.

*. Undo/Redo.

*. Change output video Frame rate, resize, bit rate, aspect ratio, interlase, etc.

*. Outputs to other container formats such as: OGG Theora, MPEG, Quick-time (Linux version), Raw DV... or audio only formats such as AC3, OGG, WAV, etc... are just a fraction of its main features to mention.

You can install Cinelerra 2.1.5 (current version) video editor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10, 10.04 and even in 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot by using the dedicated PPA channel.

So, as usual, open your terminal and enter the below command.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:cinelerra-ppa/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install cinelerra

That should do it. Since the professional video editors don't care much about the GUI... but still, I think it would be really if they come up a GTK/Qt version in the future. Enjoy!.

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Flush: A Torrent Client for Ubuntu

Although original idea behind the BitTorrent protocol has nothing to do about "illegal" stuff but all about sharing legal (also known as legal torrents), online file sharing between computer users using this revolutionary and awesome protocol.

Anyhow, I don't actually remember the exact data, but it was said that BitTorrent protocol has its fare share of the Internet bandwidth (more than a "fare share" :D) thus some ISP even had to come up with their own tools to block the applications that uses this protocol in order to save this "excessive" usage of their bandwidth.

Then the developers got a bit angry and came up with their own method to make it really hard for the "bad" ISP to block the BitTorrent protocol. It's called the BitTorrent encryption. Now, some people took it the wrong way and thought the developers were helping other to "steal" but as anyone can see, they were just defending A idea, rather than users.

Flush BitTorrent client in Ubuntu...

Anyhow, unlike many other protocols, within the very short period of its first introduction, BitTorrent has a pretty colorful history (+ idealistic conflicts, still going strong :D). 

Although, not surprisingly, MS Windows does not come with a BitTorrent clients installed but almost all GNU/Linux distributions (their recent versions) do come with at least one installed by default. Apparently Ubuntu also comes with one called "Transmission" which is pretty darn good too.

But out of your boredom, if you're looking for something else :), then "Flush" is a pretty decent one. But the biggest drawback of Flush is that I couldn't find any option to enable the above mentioned "Protocol encryption". Maybe it enables the encryption by default... but other than that, it's a fast loading, easy to use BitTorrent client nonetheless.

Main features...

*. Change Upload/Download speeds.

*. Show share ratio.

*. Availability.

*. Show Seeds & Peers.

*. Change communication ports (or set to automatically use a random port at each startup).

*. Manual tracker updates (which is another important thing that helps to speed up things a bit).

*. Run in system tray.

*. IP filtering.

*. Max connections per torrent.

*. Create a torrent file from scratch... are just a few to mention.

You can install Flush BitTorrent client in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install flush

That should do it.

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PDFedit: A Powerful PDF Editor for Ubuntu Linux!

These days finding a decent PDF editor for GNU/Linux ain't that hard mainly due to the popularity of Ubuntu (I think :D). Although I'm not a PDF editing dude my self and have a very little knowledge about the subject as well.

When Adobe first released the PDF standard it was actually a proprietary standard and it was like that until recently (around 2008) that they realized to make it an open standard. I think it also must have helped the open-source developers to develop PDF editors with ease too (you know, developing an app for a "closed-source" standard can certainly bring some heat towards you :D) .

Anyhow, for all you guys who're searching for a PDF editor for Ubuntu, after a bit of a search, I came up with a one called "PDFEdit" which I then realized is something that's quite popular too.

And unlike with many other "text containers" in general, PDF is a single, platform Independent container that holds all the necessary information about the document such as Font, graphics (GUI), basic layout, images, encodings, etc which are called "objects" to render the file itself.

As mentioned before, this is not just a PDF "text editor" but rather a complete and powerful PDF object manipulator, thus won't suit all the users...

And our PDFedit app, in that sense lets you completely rearrange/change these core values that makes a PDF file rather than changing the text content within the PDF file. 

Main features...

*. As said before, change operators and their parameters.

*. Various tools such as : Text selection, flattern, PDF to XML conversion.

*. Enable/disable property window.

*. Command-line support.

*. Change font, color, zoom in/zoom out, rotate, draw rectangles, lines, etc.

*. Save PDF pages as images.

*. Extract text from the page... are just a few to mention.

You can install PDFedit editor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your terminal window.

sudo apt-get install pdfedit

As said before, I'm not the expert on these subjects and I'm pretty sure there are many other open-source PDF editors out there... if you know some, then you're more than welcome to tell me about 'em :).  

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How to Read Ext4/Ext3 File Systems in MS Windows?

Ext4 is the latest version of the "Ext" journaling file system of GNU/Linux. I think it was Ext2, few years ago which was the main file system. It was really a big pain in the as* because at that time you had to like, check the file system after a certain number of mounts or system boots. It also used to take a long time to check for errors where MS Windows XP was also around at that time with the impressive NTFS file system too.

Anyhow, it's quite amazing what can happen after few years and thanks to a lot of developments and dedications of a lot of Kernel and other GNU/Linux core developers, now we have some highly durable, quite efficient, not just one but a lot of file systems in GNU/Linux.

Apart from all that, still when it comes to loading and handling a folder filled with thousands of files (both small and bigger ones), in my experience, MS Windows handles these folders way faster than GNU/Linux does. So there's still a long way to go and feels like has a lot of room for features and improvements.

Also, Ext won't be having a "Ext5" as far as I know and as a result GNU/Linux distributions such as Fedora has already begun the migration to the newer (and better) GNU file system called Btrfs with their upcoming version 16.

But since we aren't gonna be seeing this switch from Ext to Btrfs in a massive scale in the recent future (or maybe not), would you like to know how to read/mount Ext2/Ext3 and Ext4 partitions in MS Windows?. If so, there's a simple yet powerful utility called Ext2Fsd (Ext file system driver for Windows) that lets you do exactly that.

Main features...

*. Ext2/Ext3 FS read and write support.

*. Read only for Ext4 (although you can force it to write, but I won't recommend it and even if you use the old Ext3 FS, try to use it in read-only mode, just like as I do with NTFS in GNU/Linux).

*. Mount drives and display them in My Computer.

*. Change mount point or drive letters (you can make Ext2Fsd to temporarily mount your drives which will be lost after a reboot or mount them permanently too).

*. Even if you have a Ext4 file system mounted, it's still be displayed as "Ext3" in Ext2Fsd which is normal.

*. Perform fsck and checksum while mounted on MS Windows... are among its main features to mention.

You can get it from this Ex2Fsd Project home page if you want to give it a try. After installing you can run it by main two methods.

1. Run it in the system tray area  OR

2. Run as a services (which makes it invincible).

As in the above screenshot, you can access those options by click on: "File" from its main menu bar and choosing the appropriate option. If however, after mounting the Ext3/4 file system, you got a message from MS Windows saying that the disk is not-formated (yikes!), then simply reboot your PC and remount, which should solve your problems. Good luck.

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How to Mount an ISO Disk Image in Ubuntu?

ISO image file is actually a form of an archive. That's why if we have an archive manager installed in whatever your OS is, we can read the content of an ISO disk image file with ease.

Although unlike other standard archive formats such as .tar.gz, .rar, .zip, etc the data inside an ISO disk image is not compressed thus we can make an ISO image out of any CD/DVD or even Blu-Ray disk by using a disc authorizing software on-the-fly, without having to wait till the data get compressed.

It has many benefits such as, say that you have a disk that's filled with thousands of image files and you want to copy that disk to your HDD to be burned to another disk at later times. If you however follow the usual copy-paste method in this instance, it should take some considerable amount of time to copy the whole disk content because the OS has to carefully copy and paste hundreds or thousands of individual files into your HDD, one by one.

However, if you went with the "create an ISO image" using your burning software, then it'll only take extremely less amount of time which is somewhat closer to copying a single file that's equal to the size of the CD/DVD's data that you're trying to copy!.

Another benefit of an ISO disk image is its ability to mount itself as a "virtual disk drive". It's just like burning an ISO disk to a CD/DVD and then after the burning process is over, when you open the disk, you no longer see a single ISO file but the true content of ISO file itself.

Anyhow, if all you need is to mount the ISO file just so you could access its content with your file manager (without the use of any archive manager whatsoever) just like with accessing a partition, etc... in Ubuntu, then there's a small yet extremely useful tool called "Gmount-iso".

This is actually GTK written GUI aimed at the Gnome desktop but you can use it in the latest Unity desktop + many others without any problems whatsoever as well.

After mounted, you can browse/open the ISO image just like a normal CD/DVD drive, using the file manager...

Main features...

*. Extremely simple GUI.

*. Mount/Unmount ISO images.

*. Manually assign the mount location.

*. Mount more than one image.

Yep... that's about it. You can install Gmount-iso in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 (perhaps in the latter version too) by entering the below command in your terminal window.

sudo apt-get install gmountiso

I don't think anyone needs a guide on how to use it :). But if you're having troubles, just throw in some comments!.

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KeePassX: Best (free) Password Manager for Ubuntu (GNU/Linux)!

Not that long ago... all I had for my online accounts was my primary e-mail account and, well, I think that was it actually!. But these days I have a lot of online accounts, stored in my PC (I arrogantly refuse to store them using apps like Dropbox, 'cause I feel threatened by the idea of the Cloud computing :D) but I do make sure to keep then encrypted nonetheless.

While using the MS Windows I use the excellent Roboform utility which basically saves a hell lot of typing + "time", sadly you cannot use it installed in your local HDD if you want to use it under GNU/Linux (you'll have to use the appropriate web browser addon + store the account details in their Cloud-database, don't know about you, but apparently I ain't gonna do that either!).

But then again Roboform is a proprietary software apart from its excellent usage. So, if you've been searching for a open-source, cross-platform utility to safely store all of your (both online and offline) accounts details such as user names, passwords, web site URL, etc in local storage locations + that can be used in Ubuntu (GNU/Linux) and other operating systems as well.

Then KeePassX is certainly one of the best of its kind without a doubt!.

Big thanks goes to Stevan Harms because it was from him that I heard about it for the first time (interestingly he and I have extremely "close" website titles, but since he's been blogging a long time before me, it should be me who copied first!, lol)...

Main features...

*. Add/Remove accounts and arrange them in groups (such as E-mails, Internet, etc).

*. The database is encrypted by default using AES and Twofish algorithms, thus highly secure. 

*. Import/Export the database (XML, PWM and KDE's Kwallet data-bases are also supported.

*. Password Generator:

By using this simple built in feature, you can easily generate a highly secure (hard to crack) password within seconds!.

Apparently, it generates highly secured passwords that also don't make any sense :P...

*. Open URLs:

For instance, say that you saved your G-mail account (with the proper URL) in KeePassX, then you can just right-click on it and choose to open that Gmail URL directly from the KeePassX.

*. Auto Fill:

After opening the URL, then select "Perform AutoType" and it'll automatically fill-in the details for ya...

Once you've open the URL you can either type the user account details or simply copy and paste from the KeePassX window OR there's a new feature called "Perform AutoType" which will automatically fill your data for you!.

*. Add a master password + a separate "Key" (which is optional):

If you go with both of them enabled, then every time you open a database, you'll have to enter the master password + will have to load the "key". Using them both means better security but can be a bit of a hassle too.

If you have a powerful master password, then I think it's pretty much safe to ignore "key". It's your choice.

*. Run in the system Tray area.

*. Clear clip-board automatically (you can manually assign the time-frame).

*. Custom browser command:

After installing, KeePassX fails to launch your web browser when you click on "Open URL", then you can manually assign the browser command by using this feature.

*. Make passwords expire automatically... these just a very few of KeePassX main features to mention.

Settings window...

You can install KeePassX in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install keepassx

So, if you're searching for one of the best and extreamely user friendly password manager for Ubuntu or GNU/Linux in general, then KeePassX is an excellent little tool, don't you think?. Enjoy.

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Recuva: Recover Deleted files for Free!

It's a bit sad that even after all these years still I haven't come up with a deleted file recover GUI tool for GNU/Linux other than the command-line utilities (so if you know one, please tell me about it :D). But luckily if you use MS Windows, there a huge list of free applications that lets you recover deleted files but after using for a long time, I'm quite fond of the one called "Recuva".

But the point is, no matter what utility that you use, recovering a file successfully may not always work since it depends on various things such as the duration from the day that you deleted the file, operating system, file size, type of the file system, the deletion method (there are dedicated tools that make it almost impossible to recover), etc. But I think most of the time luck has a lot to do with it too.

For instance, you may be able to recover a file even after months after deleting it as long as the operating system hasn't over-ride its bytes with data of another. And also the size of the file also matters as anyone can see since if you deleted a text file of 25Kb and also a video file of say 25MB. Then after a long time of the deletion, you may still be able to recover the text file with 100% success but may not be able to fully recover the video file.

The awesome Recuva :)...

The reason is simple actually. The text file is so small in its size thus the chances of the OS over-writing its data with another one is small (may not always be true though). But the more size the file occupies the more chances of its "portions" being over-written which jeopardize the whole recovering operation.

But then again if you're lucky or unlucky the OS may have "chosen" to over-ride that 25Kb text file but even after few weeks (if not months) the video file may still be there. So luck or chance or whatever you call it do play a role (or perhaps its just programming algorhythms that made the decision for the OS to what to over-ride and what not to... okay I'm confused :D).

Anyhow, as I was saying, if you're using MS Windows and looking for a utility to recover files for free, then Recuva is one of the best without a doubt!. It has been there for a long time now and has evolved a lot too. It basically has a two "scan-modes".

*. Basic Mode (launched by default): 

As the name denotes, this mode is the best option for recovering files that are just or recently deleted with less amount of scanning time. And even if you have deleted them a while ago I'd still recommended you go for this scan-mode first since it scans really fast (also remember, the bigger the partition/location + the data in it the more time it's gonna take).

But if you couldn't find the file that you were looking for by using the default scan-mode, well then you can try using the "Deep Scan" Mode.

*. Deep Scan Mode: 

If all fails this may come to your rescue :). This will try to recover your data by scanning your partition or locations that you assign more thoroughly. As said, no application can guarantee you a 100% success when it comes to data recovery... but "Deep Scan" is the best option if you cannot see your deleted files while using the default scan mode.

Main features...

*. Excellent Wizard type modes that makes the whole process really easy to understand and newbie friendly.

*. Filter out file types that you don't want.

*. Search within the recovered files.

*. Assign whole HDD, partitions or folder locations manually.

*. Supports all the MS Windows proprietary file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, NTFS5 , NTFS + EFS.

*. Also supports other types of storage devices such as memory cards, USB pen-drives, Digital cameras, Jaz disks, Secure digital cards, etc.

*. External Zip, USB and Firewire devices are also supported.

*. Preview window for images (this will show a small preview/thumbnail of images or other files that are recover-able).

*. Not just recovering your files, you can even use it to securely delete your files too!.

*. Shows "found" files in main three colors:

1. Green - This means we're good to go. The file is 100% recoverable!.

2. Yellow - Well, you may still be able to recover the file 100% (maybe) or just portions. For instance, more than once I've successfully recovered multimedia files that were "marked yellow" by Recuva which MS Media player wasn't able to play afterwards!.

But luckily, other useful Players such as VLC, SMPlayer, etc were able to play the file. The reason MS Media player (it ain't that much A powerful player anyway) not being able to play it was due to the fact that, since it was a "Yellow" one and I think it had lost some of data of the header (think of it as an index of the file).

3. Red - Red means the file is in really bad condition (over written by other data, corrupted). So most of the time you'll not be able to recover them.

But Recuva does let you recover all these three "colorized" files nonetheless.

Few tips while using...

*. Never recover your files to the save partition/location where the deleted files are located.

*. As mentioned before, try the default "light scan mode" first. If it fails, then use the "Deep Scan" mode.

*. If you only want to recover certain type of files (say "Pictures"), then make the proper choices before doing the "scan" which helps to speed things up.

*. If you know the location of the deleted files, then manually locate the location in Recuva, which again should help to speedup the process since it doesn't have to scan the whole disk/partitions.

*. If you use its built in secure file deletion feature, then your data will most probably be lost forever!. But secure file deleting methods do have their advantages too ... the choice is yours.

As said, Recuva is a completely free file recovering utility designed for Microsoft Windows operating system and if interested, you can download it from this official Recuva home page. Enjoy!.

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Speccy: an Excellent, System Information Utility for Windows

Apparently, apart from GNU/Linux, there's this whole other operating system called MS Windows :P and I thought that I should write a few articles for the MS Windows users from time to time as well. So, if you use Microsoft windows and searching for a free tool to get advanced system information about your PC, although I'm pretty sure there's a whole bunch of 'em out there, but this one called "Speccy" is an excellent little utility in my experience.

To be honest, even without a dedicated utility, in MS Windows we can easily see the hardware & software related information without much of a hassle when compared to GNU/Linux (although we do have dedicated utilities such as Hardinfo for the GNU/Linux geeks too) but still, after installing something like Speccy makes the whole process much more easy nonetheless.

Main features...

*. It's completely free to begin with. Although the do have two paid versions but when compared with the free version, the only differences are that, they come with online technical support + lets you install the application in more than one computer. Other than that, the free version does not lack any features!.

*. Comes with a very user friendly GUI (although I would've preferred a bit "light" theme, not a huge thing anyway) with to the left side it displays the gathered hardware in Categories and to the right-side it displays the information per individual hardware.

*. Summary:

A "quick summary" of your computer/system which includes the operating system version, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives and Audio Devices.

*. As mentioned before, whenever you click on an individual (say the "CPU" for instance) icon, then it'll display a full information about the hardware such as the Cache, Stepping, Cores, etc.

*. Ability to save the details as Snapshots or save as XML or text files.

*. Few language support.

*. Publish your system information online (what a great way to showoff :D).

Other than all of these features, applications such as these has another great practical usage. For instance, let's say that you just installed MS Windows OS on your PC and don't have the proper driver for the VGA/GPU and don't even know its name.

Then you can install a system information/reporting utility such as Speccy and by using it, you will (most of the time) be able to know which GPU that you have (or any other installed hardware in that case) so you could find the appropriate drives with ease. If you wanna give it a try, get it from this Speccy download page. Good luck.

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How to Create a USB, Bootable ISO image in Ubuntu?

Although the optical disk ain't gonna be dead anytime sooner ;-) yet because of the popularity of netbooks or Tablet PC type electronic gadgets and when it comes to installing Ubuntu operating system in on them, USB devices (such as pen drives for instance) is the least expensive and sometimes the only way to perform the installation.

Even if you have an Optical drive, still trying a GNU/Linux liveCD on a USB drive is the best option in my opinion when compared with a original method of burning it into a CD/DVD because there are few advantages.


1. They're noiseless!:

Well, if you want the experience the best performance while trying the LiveCD and if you're burning a CD/DVD, then you should go for the maximum amount of Burning speed so the LiveCD/DVD will be able to perform tasks in a much speedier way.

But that'll also make it a bit noisy, don't you think?. But a USB drive is noiseless!.

2. Faster than CD/DVDs (most of the time):

Unless you have a bit older USB stick/pen-drive, most never pen drives have really higher MB output thus you'll be experiencing a much more faster LiveCD "experience" in comparison with the CD/DVD method. Although not at its best, this will also help you to get a better idea of the actual (close) performance of the OS it self.

But as said, this might not always be the case since SATA or SSD drives are a hell lot faster than most of the USB drives nonetheless :).

Anyhow, in that sense, if you have already installed Ubuntu in your Netbook for instance, but wondering how to create/burn the recently downloaded never version of the Ubuntu ISO image into your USB disk... did you know that Ubuntu comes pre-installed an application called "Usb-Creator" (which is basically a GTK front-end that uses the "usb-creator" command-line tool) that lets us does exactly that!.

Main features...

*. As said, it's a default app thus if you're running a never version of Ubuntu, this you don't have to manually install it (comes pre-installed in Ubuntu 8.10 and above).

*. Lets you burn Ubuntu ISO images to any USB media. Although I'm not sure but you might also be able to use a different GNU/Linux (other than Ubuntu) with it too... but not sure though.

*. Save your documents: Unlike with a LiveCD, with a USB disk, by using this tools we can manually assign how much of MB to be reserved for saving our documents that we create while using the Live Ubuntu OS which we can retract at a later time. Again this is impossible with a LiveCD.

Requirements...

*. You must have an Ubuntu version 8.10 or above.

*. At last 1GB of free space.

*. The image has to the Ubuntu desktop edition (which is the most commonly downloaded one anyhow).

As said, to launch this, you first need a Computer that's already have Ubuntu installed.

Then log-into your desktop and put an insert an empty USB disk to your computer. Then press "Alt" + "F2" keys and put the below command and press the enter key. 

usb-creator-gtk

1. Now, this should open up a window similar to the below one. From the GUI, under "Source disk image...", open your ISO image by navigating to the location OR if you have an Optical drive with a LiveCD already loaded, this it'll display it too and let you burn the content of that LiveCD directly to the USB disk as well.

3. As with my screenshot, if you found that the options to manually enter documents space is disabled, that's because (in my case) I don't have at least 1GB of space left.

4. So in that case, backup all your data and then simply press the "Erase DISK" button to remove all your data on the USB disk (warning: this will remove all of the current data on the USB drive!).

And then you should be able manually assign the space for your documents data OR completely disable that function by clicking on the "Discarded on shutdown, unless you save them elsewhere" check mark. 

5. After making all the changes, just press "Make Startup Disk" button and the Usb-Creator should automatically "burn" the Ubuntu ISO desktop image to your USB disk!.

Well, that's about it. Before booting using the USB disk, make sure you've setup the BIOS to use USB as the default boot-device location (I know you knew that but just in case :D). Good luck.

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How to Install the Stack Exchange Network Applet (StackApplet) in Ubuntu?

If you're a part of the Stack Exchange Network and already trying to keep up with all the questions and answers like crazy ;-)... which probably ain't the most easiest job in the world at all.

But yes, you can manage your accounts within the SEN network with ease but you'll always have to keep an eye on the web browser to know whether you've been asked of something (yikes! :P) or anyone is in need of your expert advice, etc.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could find some sort of a desktop notification type applet that lets you see/manage the SEN network accounts and other related informations such as...

I don't use SEN actually, but since I thought it would be handy to show-off what it can do for you guys (no no, I didn't register ;-) ), so I took this image from its official page...

*. Display multiple accounts (of course).

*. Automatically updates you about:

Reputation changes (John, this time I'm gonna kick your butt man! :P), comments and answers.

*. Runs in the background (system tray area) and uses the Ubuntu's new Applicationindicator protocol.

*. "Preference" window by using which you can configure (add/remove) your individual Stack Exchange Network accounts.

*. Change the update interval.

*. Launch it automatically on your desktop log-in.

*. Two themes (light and dark). 

*. Automatic detection of associated accounts.

Well, it's a serious app ;-)...

You can install the StackApplet in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10 and 10.10 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install stackapplet

After the installation is over, you can launch it from: "Applications" -> "Accessories" -> "StackApplet"

OR

Press "Alt" + "F2" keys and just copy and paste the below command and press enter.

python /usr/share/stackapplet/stackapplet.py

That's it.

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How to Remove the "Ubuntu Modifications" in Firefox Web Browser?

Ubuntu uses the highly secured Firefox :) as the default web browser... but Mark Shuttleworth did say that in the future Ubuntu "might" switch to the faster, more simpler Chrome web browser.

Anyhow, as a way of branding and giving/enabling the users more optimized Ubuntu experience, Ubuntu developers make sure to add their own customizations to the Firefox web browser that comes in the default ISO image + in the repositories which you'd use to install the latest versions in the future, etc. .

If needed, we can disable these "Ubuntu changes" permanently OR temporarily (in case you wanted them back) since these settings are implemented using the Firefox Extension API (it's added as an Extension).

But before doing that lets have a look at what this Firefox extension does...

*. Set the Homepage to Ubuntu Start (which can be quite useful since it's like the online "Ubuntu-Pedia" where you can ask and find almost anything about Ubuntu :D).

*. Restart notification after an Upgrade:

Say that you upgraded your Firefox web browser to a never version, then when having this Extension, it'll make sure to automatically "notify" you to do a restart of the Browser to apply the changes.

*. Adds ask.com as the default search engine (weird, I don't know why).

*. Search for plugins in Ubuntu software Catalogue.

*. Adds the official Ubuntu release note to the Help menu...

But most importantly, this add-on/extension enables us to easily install software (automatically adds PPA, etc) by just clicking on a URL (which is called "apt://" protocol) and then launch either Synaptic or Ubuntu Software Center to install them. For instance, just click on this link (which is a URL that uses the "apt://" protocol) and see what happens.

Result of a "apt://" URL...

So after removing you'll lose these features and the above mentioned, most important (useful) feature too. But interestingly, after temporarily disabling it in the Firefox extensions section, the "apt://" protocols still worked in my Firefox ... perhaps we have to completely remove the package to make it completely disable that feature.

1. Anyhow, as said, if you want to temporarily disable it, then launch your Firefox web browser and from the menu bar click on: "Tools" -> "Add-ons"

2. And then from the window that you get, to your left go to: "Extensions" and then from your right side select:

"Ubuntu Firefox Modifications" and click on the "disable" button.

Step: 1

Also remember to click on the "Restart now" link to apply the changes

But if you want to completely remove it, then open your Terminal window and enter the below command.

sudo apt-get purge xul-ext-ubufox

If you wanted to get it back later ;-), then use the below command to manually install it.

sudo apt-get install xul-ext-ubufox

Well, that's about it. Not the most useful post of all but but ;-)...

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Startup-Manager: A Utility to Edit GRUB Boot-loader related Options Easily in Ubuntu

Startup-Manager is a graphical tool that's written in the GTK+ toolkit which was developed for letting the users of Debian GNU/Linux OS to easily edit few "boot-related" options such as GRUB menu delay, Splash screen, other security related settings, etc.

But since Ubuntu is based on the awesome Debian ;-), SturtupManager can also be installed and used to edit few of those settings in Ubuntu as well. The reason I said, "few of those settings" is because, as you can see with the below screenshots, the first one is the original application image running in Debian with lots of settings (tabs) but the second one is from my Ubuntu 11.04 Laptop and has only two tabs thus fewer options than in Debian.

It's running in Debian

As you can see, somewhat "reduced" under Ubuntu...

But still, even though it's a bit "restricted" under Ubuntu, if you want to do things like...

*. Choose the default selected menu in GRUB boot-loader.

*. Change GRUB boot-loader's resolution and color depths such as 8/16 and 24 bits (although Ubuntu uses a bit ugly GRUB loader theme, without any background at all, I don't think changing the color-depth is gonna help :D).

*. Change time-out in seconds.

*. Enable/disable boot-splash (once enabled, this will display a splash screen after the default Ubuntu boot-logo is closed and just before loading the GDM log-in window).

*. Enable/disable boot-text (I don't think this applies to the recent versions of Ubuntu since they all come with text outputs disabled while booting by default).

*. Create a boot-able Floppy "image" (accessed via the "advanced" tab):

This is hardly ever used by computer users these days, since the Floppy-disk drive is a hardware that's almost dead. Although in the "not that long ago" past :), creating a Floppy image was quite heavily used in case of your Boot-loader was corrupted or something bad happens to it, etc.

Well that's about it folks. You can install startup-manager in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

Once installed, press "Alt" + "F2" keys on your keyboard and use the below command to launch it.

startupmanager

Although it can be a bit tempting but I humble suggest you not to enable the "splash screen", not because it'll do any bad to the booting process, but having it disabled (Ubuntu come with it disabled by default) it should help to speed-up the boot-up times, just a little bit though :).

Anyhow, it's your choice mate!. Good luck.

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How to Install GIMP 2.7 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04?

Without A doubt, GIMP is one of the best raster image editors for GNU/Linux (also available for other operating system such as MS Windows and Mac OSX, etc as well).

It also has quite a history with GNU/Linux too, especially with the Gnome desktop since, if I'm not mistaken, GTK toolkit (which is the building block of Gnome desktop interface) was actually designed for the purpose of creating the GIMP at the first place.

Although apart from its popularity, few years ago, Ubuntu developers decided to remove it from the official CD ISO image (I guess because most of the users didn't use it), so if you want GIMP in Ubuntu, then we all gotta install it manually these days nonetheless.

Anyhow, few days ago the GIMP team announced the official availability of the GIMP 2.7.3. But remember, this is actually not a stable release but only a "unstable development" release since the next stable release of GIMP is the upcoming version 2.8. According to the developers, GIMP 2.7 unstable series in general does bring some major UI features + improvements but to quote their own words...

"A lot of new features are incomplete and some things may even be completely broken...", there, I warned you :)...

The new "loading-logo" (I just had to post it :D)...

But still, if you work quite heavy with GIMP and want the all new features available, well then, you might wanna give a try at the GIMP 2.7 nonetheless! :).

Main features...

The default & the usual "dock" mode...

*. Hide or merge the "Docks" into a since window (which I really like):

To be honest, I actually don't use GIMP that much but I do use it from time to time for simple tasks (this blog's ugly logo was created using it, although GIMP had nothing to with it being so ugly :D) and I used the version 2.5 the last time I used it.

Therefore I can't point out all the recent changes and whether they were actually introduced in a bit earlier version. But the rest assured, I like the new merged window which helps both navigation + reminds a bit of the Adobe ... ;-).

The "merged" window, I just love it!...

*. Tools that are rendered on the canvas window are now done via Cairo which "draws" smoother (+anti-aliased) graphics UI.  

*. Did you also noticed that the docks + canvas now has a background of the GIMP "fox" which is another feature. 

*. Easily add/remove color tools, tool-bars, palettes or other whatnots as "docks" via: "Window" -> "Dockable Dialogs" from the main menu-bar.

*. New transparent "Add-Text" dialog is also pretty cool.

I'm pretty sure the transparency of the text-toolbar is also due to the Cairo (an advanced 2D graphics library) rendering ...

Unlike in the past we can make the text Bold/Italic, change font type and size, etc via using the tool-bar rather than using the "left-dock" filled with graphics tools, which was the case in the past. This is a good thing since this should help to increase the productivity.

*. Tag your tools/docks:

For instance, if you have manually added a lot of docks filled with different tools, now we can "tag" them which helps to easily hide/filter out the ones that we don't want thanks to this feature.

*. New GEGL (another graphic library) operation widget for scaling, blur, add drop-shadow, change colors + huge list of other ability for the images.

Just a fraction of the features...

*. A Cairo based PDF importer.

*. A web-page plug-in that lets you render any web page into an image using the Webkit browser engine.

*. If you use a Tablet-PC with GIMP, then you'll love to hear that the developers have added a totally new input dialog that lets you customized the sensitivity, etc according to your personal preference.

These are just a very very small list of all the new features that comes with the 2.7 (2.7.3 is the latest) version. Anyhow, you can install GIMP 2.7.3 in Ubuntu 11.04, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 (might support the latter versions too) by using a PPA provided by Matt Walker. So a big thank goes to him.

As usual, open your Terminal window and use the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:matthaeus123/mrw-gimp-svn

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install gimp

That's about it. Enjoy!.

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Fedora 16 Alpha is Released!

Well, the stubborn boys and gals :) working in the Fedora community has made the official announcement of the availability of the Fedora 16 Alpha 1 which the first step towards the upcoming Fedora 16. Fedora was actually one of the first distributions to include the Gnome 3.0 (yikes!) by default with the introduction of the current version 15.

Just like with Ubuntu where you have certain different desktop versions aimed at different users such as Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc, the Fedora team has ones of their own which they called "Fedora Spins". As usual, simultaneous to this release ISO images of Fedora spins are also updated and available for downloading too.


What's new?

This is an old screenshot from Fedora 15 actually :)...

*. Gnome 3.1.4: Yep the latest builds of the Gnome Shell and hopefully they'll ship the upcoming Gnome 3.2 (which brings some major features but in a way, "nothing will change", if you know what I mean) when it's officially released.

*. KDE 4.7 (comes with the separate KDE spin) :

Well, "thanks" to Gnome, the Qt written KDE desktop is getting more and more popular by each day it seems. Although KDE used have a shi* load of features in the past but with their version 4.0, the desktop is a bit heavily cleaned-up (which is a good thing, I think :/) and has one of the best eye-candy related stuff as well.

Fedora 16 alpha 1 also has the KDE plasma desktop edition for the Netbook users too.

*. LibreOffice 3.4.2 is the default office productivity suite which was also started to appear in Fedora with the current 15.0 version.

*. Firefox 6.0 is the default web browser (obviously). According to the developers + in my humble experience, the loading times specially of Firefox 6 in GNU/Linux feels a bit faster than with other versions and comes with few minor features + the usual bug fixes as well.

*. Impressive SELinux "version": According to their release page, this version of Fedora comes with an optimized SELinux (if you're a bit new, then SELinux is a software that manages "policies" inside your computer, sort of a firewall) that takes about 4 times lesser amount of time to install (including less memory consumption 38MB to 6MB!).

These are just the few of the main features of the Fedora 16 Alpha 1 and other things like GRUB2, enhanced virtuliazation support, GCC updates and a hell lot of individual application updates are also available as usual.

And if you want to try it out, then please visit this page for more. Good luck.

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Nautilus-Actions: Adding New Functions to Nautilus Right-Click Menu has Never been this Easy!

Gnome desktop didn't used to like this simple you know. Apparently it used to come with a huge list of features and configuration options which were cleaned up about 80-90% when the made the switch to the Gnome 2+ back in the day (around 2000-2001 I think).

These days it's pretty much simple and it has been heavily criticized by many + by myself too (apparently someone called Linus Torvalds was one of them :)). Although I wrote that post few months ago but apparently, the disappointment came from the experiences that I had in the past few years (since I decided to stick-with GNU/Linux).

But the point is that, at lest in the recent years it seems that the developers has come up with their own versions of little "solutions" in order to fix some of those "missing" features in Gnome desktop (ahh, the power of Open-Source software :D).

Anyhow, if you're just like me having a continuous "hate and love" relationship with the Nautilus file manager and trying to find a way out of that too simple right-click menu and thinking if there's a way that you can add functions of your own to that with ease?... well my friend, you sure can do that!.

There is apparently an application called "Nautilus-Actions" which is I think A Nautilus script (they are like "addo-ons" which expands the features of Nautilus via their API).

And I gotta say folks, after playing it with like 5-10 minutes, seriously if you know your way around GNU/Linux commands (trust me, I know very very little about 'em commands, still learning just like you) then this is one heck of an application that can totally change how Nautilus behave!.

Main features...

Hi!, my name is "awesome" ;-)...

*. Add/remove new menus to the Nautilus file manager right click menu.

*. Add/remove the appropriate commands.

*. Use Mimetypes:

For instance, say that you wanted the command "Mplayer" to be displayed once you right click on a multimedia file extension ".mkv", then you can use this feature to associate the command for that file-type only.

*. Include/Exclude folders:

Say that you wanted the menu to only display once you right-click in a certain location in Nautilus, then this is the feature that you can use for that.

*. Display the menu on selected objects or on empty spaces (or them both).

*. Import/Export pre-configured scripts.

These are very little of its features. But I'll give you an example which would help to understand it much easier (I was addressing the newbies only, for the underdogs: respect!, respect! :) ).

Lets install it...

You can install the "Nautilus-Actions" app in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command.

sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions

Now once installed you should be able to launch it via the main desktop menu or by using the below command after pressing "Alt" + "F2" keys on your keyboard.

nautilus-actions-config-tool

You can obtain a huge list of pre-configured scripts from this page if you like too. 

But how to add a program "shortcut" of your own?

Well, although I totally don't want to, but let's say that I wanted to launch the "Totem" media player using nautilus right-click menu. Okay then, after launching the app you should see a window similar to the first screenshot.

1. Under the "Action" tab: in the sub heading "Nautilus item" you'll see two check-mark boxes. The first one is enabled by default which makes sure that the new menu item will only appear when you select something in Natilus and right-click on it.

But if you want the menu-item to be displayed only when you right-click on an empty space, then remove the check-mark on the first one and add a check-mark on the second one that says "Display item in location context Menu".

If you put a check mark on that which says: "Display item in the toolbar", then it'll also appear in your Nautilus tool-bar too!...

2. Now, you'll see another  sub heading called "Context-label". Now as shown below, just replace the text in that box with "Open Totem" (you can add any name here since this is just the display name that'll be shown in the new menu).

3. Under "Tooltip" (above screenshot): type whatever the text you want (which is optional) and obviously it'll show a nice tooltip description about that menu-item.

4. Under "Icon": you can choose an icon to be displayed with the menu. But for performance issues, I humbly advice you to try not to use icons.

Associating the menu with the actual command...

5. Now, click on the next tab called "Command". Under the sub-heading "path" just enter the below command (since we're trying to Totem player) and leave other options alone.

totem

As mentioned above, you can use other tabs to set things such as making the menu-item visible in a certain location, etc ... but if you're totally new to this, then both the "Action" and "Command" tabs are the ones that we need.

6. Now just click on its menu and go to: "File" -> "Save" and close the application (this is important, otherwise in my case, Nautilus failed to update the settings).

7. To make these changes apply to Nautilus we have to restart it.

For that use the below command (beware: before running make sure you have closed or completed any processes related to Nautilus such as file-copy, etc otherwise they'll be terminated!).

nautilus -q

That's it! and below is a screenshot of my Nautilus after adding both Totem and Gedit (Gnome's text editor) to the right-click menu.

Not just Totem, as long as you know the appropriate command name of the application that you want to add, you can add any application to the Nautilus file manager's right-click menu + you can even add other advanced features such as "refresh" command for instance as well.

But how the heck can I find actual command for a given program?

Well, for knowing the actual command-name of the installed applications, as long as they show-up in your main desktop Menu, there's a simple trick that we can use.

In the recent years, Gnome came with a separate application called "alacarte" which lets us easily add/remove applications in the main application menu. Not only that, by using this app we can easily figure-out the name and the actual command associated with it which helps to launch the program itself too.

So, just put the below command in after pressing "Alt" + "F2".

alacarte

Now, from its main window, navigate to any sub-menu and locate your program, and then simply double click on the icon (I just double clicked the "Ubuntu Software Center" icon) which should reveal the "properties" of the application.

See that selected text, yup, that's the secret formula :P...

Now under the sub heading "Command", the text in that field is the location + the command of that application that you just double clicked. For instance, if we want to manually launch the Ubuntu software center, then we should use the command...

/usr/bin/software-center %u 

OR

software-center %u

Since "/user/bin" actually the location which will be recognized automatically by Ubuntu (or in GNU/Linux in general), most of the time, you can ignore the "/usr/bin" part.

Wraping-up...

So if you want to easily customize the Nautilus file management utility's menu (for fun and adding some efficiency, hopefully :D), then first figure-out its "actual command" and then open the awesome Nautilus-Actions utility and after filling the other fields, under the command section, simply copy and paste, make your changes and you're good to go.

Well, that's about it. If you have questions just ask. Enjoy it :).

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