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Ubuntu 11.04

I am loving the newest release of Ubuntu – it is fastest, leaner and more user friendly than ever. I also really like the docking bar on the side – all of the ease of access that previously was in the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but with an intelligent autohide feature.

benbernier.com - Ubuntu Review

Some of the complaints that I have about this version of Ubuntu Linux are:

  1. Nvidia graphics support has taken a step backwards, drivers are less stable, and you are encouraged to use the native linux driver, which is not as advanced as Nvidia’s
  2. The Start Menu – this new start menu has a great search feature and usually is able to find what you are looking for, but i’m stubborn and old fashioned and i really miss being able to open a fulll listing of my apps (i don’t always know what I’m looking for when I go to my menus)
  3.  Updates introduced issues – on two machines that are running the desktop version of this Ubuntu 11.04 hard crashes were introduced by system updates. One of them updated the grub files on a hard drive that was not the boot drive, and then removed the MBR records from the boot drive, this ultimately lead to the users data becoming corrupted due to a reboot link it introduced. The other user lost X (graphical mode) and was basically unable to dual screen (with Twinview) for a few days.

None of these issues are super-major, but they all were setbacks in the new version of Ubuntu. I guess that in the open source world when a person installs a bleeding edge software product, one must expect it to still be bloody

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everyone laughs

i know that not everyone finds chuck norris jokes funny, but i do have a soft spot for them, i was pointed at this site Chuck Norris Jokes for a few and the most hilarious one was about how a rattlesnake bit his leg or something and after a week of major discomfort the snake died

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convert youtube videos to mp3s

ever come across a song you’ve only heard on youtube and you wish it was on your mp3 player (or google music)?

well me too. so i did some research and it turns out there are a bunch of great tools out there for this. most of them seem to be written in python 2.x – i bet many of these are good, but i chose youtube-dl mostly for the simple features and commandline access

 

$ wget https://raw.github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/2011.08.04/youtube-dl

$ sudo chmod a+x youtube-dl

$ sudo mv youtube-dl /usr/local/bin/

$ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg libavcodec-extra-52 libmp3lame0 libmp3lame-dev python-qt4 libqt4-gui libqt4-core libqt4-dev libqt4-network libqt4-dbus

(make sure you already have python, or sudo apt-get install python –>pressing tab tab will show a list of available python packages<– choose a python version over 2.5)

 

$ youtube-dl <youtube link to video page>

$ ffmpeg -i <downloaded flv file>.flv <mp3 filename>.mp3

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Holy crap Crackle on Android

Want a legal and supported way to watch some movies and tv on your android phone? Go to http://www.crackle.com and register, then click the link to have an app sent to your phone. You can find great classics like Married With Children and Seinfeld and movies like Men in Black and Pineapple Express

Maybe crackle doesn’t have the same selection as Hulu Plus, but a key difference: Crackle is FREE

P.s. I did not get paid to make this post

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Don’t Forget About Live CD’s

So I’ve been troubleshooting this computer. It’s a Windows XP machine, relatively new, decent hardware, all SiS integrated components. Video works fine, USB works fine all SATA components are fine. No matter what I do I can’t get the network card to work –> fails to obtain a lease, static IP configuration doesn’t allow me to ping my local gateway. I have tried all my tricks, hard coding the MAC address into a static lease in the router, setting up both DHCP and a matching static in the machine. The network cable is good, DHCP works fine on other machines on the same cable. Also, the HD audio is not producing any noise either.

 

I’ve ran my personal tools, (ComboFix, CCleaner, Advanced System Care and Malware Bytes Anti-Malware) and they found a few things but nothing major. The customer’s machine currently has Spyware Doctor installed and it may have interfered with ComboFix, but I did disable it. I even uninstalled the NIC and rebooted (there were no previous drivers to roll back to). After exhausting these resources onsite, I asked if I could bring it back to the office for diagnosis. My initial gut told me it was a software issue, but at this point I’m leaning toward failed hardware.

 

Why I didn’t think of it while I was onsite I am not sure, but it occurred to me that I could runfull hardware tests from a Live CD – I downloaded and burned to disc the most recent CD-sized Knoppix (6.2.11) – a great tool for trying out hardware, trying out Linux and just all around access to things Winbloze just doesn’t allow.

 

Sure enough I booted Knoppix and was instantly online on the same network card that ethernet would not work in Windows. Software issue.

 

I’ve since booted the AVG Rescue CD and was scanning overnight, and have burned the newest SiS network and audio drivers to disc for a reinstall. I am not sure what the final issue will be proven to be, but the point is, don’t overlook live Linux CD’s as part of routine testing. It can save valuable hours of troubleshooting and truly isolate the problems to hardware or software.