Uncanny X-Men

Staying in South Africa it is very difficult to get hold of comic books, DC as well as Marvel, but I decided to take a leap of faith and buy a year's subscription directly from Marvel and DC of Uncanny X-Men, Superman and Batman.

Now Marvel and DC warned me that the first issue might take up to 10 weeks to reach me. Today was the exact 10th week from when I ordered my Uncanny X-Men and I received my first two issues in the mail today.

Now I am just waiting for my DC shipment.

Mono and 3D Games

I stumbled upon this interesting blog article regarding Mono and the Microsoft deal. It seems there is actually a company called Unity that is using Mono to create cross platform 3D engines.

It seems they only support Windows and Mac currently, which is strange but maybe it has something to do with the state the 3D drivers on Linux are in currently.

Vista Analyzed

I use Ubuntu as my exclusive desktop OS to get things done, but I am actually a C#.NET developer by profession. It is a weird combination but I prefer GNU/Linux over Windows because of the F/OSS philosophy.

Anyway back to Windows Vista, I am not planning on switching from Ubuntu to Windows Vista but I am planning on developing software for Windows Vista using C#.NET and this article just made me more excited. The new .NET Framework 3.0, previously known as WinFX is not just an add-on to the OS anymore but actually part of the OS.

The article is a bit long but worth the read I think.

WebmailCompose

At long last I found the Firefox plug-in I was searching for, the plug-in is called WebmailCompose but sadly it does not work in Firefox 2.x.

There is a hacked version available from Soaked & Soaped however that does work in Firefox 2.x. I installed it and it seems to work as I remembered.

Gmail Filesystem

I vaguely remember having a Firefox plug-in that allow me to send email via Gmail whenever I click on a mailto: link on any web page. In my search for this plug-in I stumbled across this site. Nothing spectacular about it until you read about the Gmail FS.

Now the Gmail FS allows any Linux system to mount the free space on your Gmail account as another filesystem. Now there is a Firefox plug-in called Gspace that also allows you to use your free Gmail storage but this to me makes more sense since I am using Ubuntu and I do love my console.

I haven't tried it yet, but maybe soon I will give it spin. I still haven't found the Gmail mailto: plug-in, maybe I dreamed it.

Tilda console

One thing of Linux in general I like and prefer is my console. For me the console is really not a nightmarish thing to fear, as a matter of fact I always had one console window open in Windows XP. I also installed Launchy on my Windows XP box because I find that typing what I want to do is faster than clicking the "Start" menu etc.

I recently subscribed to the Debian Package of the Day RSS feed and I was pointed to this amazing little application. It is called Tilda and it works a lot like the Quake console when you press the "~" key.






This is definitely a very nice application if you like consoles like I do.

FreeProxy

I decided to use only Ubuntu at office and home even if my VPN does not work in Ubuntu. The VPN problem was solved with a Windows XP vm that just connects to my office to get email etc.

My internet browsing was still a problem, I could not connect to the company via VPN to allow my Ubuntu notebook to connect to the company's proxy server. This I solved now by installing FreeProxy on a Windows XP box.

So my Ubuntu box uses the Windows XP box's proxy server and in turn the Windows XP box uses the company's proxy server via the VPN. So now I can surf the Internet using Firefox / Ubuntu.

As soon as bandwidth costs come down in good old SA, I will not need this proxy chaining anymore but until then, this approach really keeps my bandwidth costs down.

phpAlbum

I recently had the urge to upload my favorite photos to my website, but the amount of effort required to do so was too much for me, that was until I was pointed into the direction of phpAlbum.

Now this library is really good. To test drive just hit my album.

Ubuntu VPN, Microsoft Remote Access Quarantine

I finally discovered why my Ubuntu connects to my office via VPN and then disconnects shortly thereafter. My company's VPN server is Windows 2003 server machine and theyinstalled what is called Remote Access Quarantine, so if my client machine does not let the VPN server know that my machine is clean and safe, the VPN server disconnects me.

The tool required to do this is called "Remote Quarantine Connect (rqc.exe)", now I have not found any Linux tool that has the same functionality than rqc.exe to let my server know my machine is safe for use on the VPN.

I will just need to create a VM to connect to work from my Ubuntu box or just keep on using my Windows XP at home and Ubuntu at work.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, Default fonts screen shots

I reconsidered posting screen shots of the fonts used on Ubuntu and Windows XP. Both screen shots are from Firefox 2.0.

The Windows XP screen shot.


The Ubuntu screen shot.



Also take note of my Amiga theme running on Ubuntu, I like it for some reason.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, Default Fonts

Maybe it is because I have a laptop whose native resolution is 1920x1200 but whatever it is I prefer the default fonts used in Ubuntu over that of Windows XP.

I know some people want the Windows XP fonts otherwise Automatix would not have had a "msttcorefonts" option to install on Ubuntu.

For me personally the Windows XP fonts does not look as good on my laptop as the Ubuntu fonts especially when browsing the internet. I guess I could change the fonts manually on Windows XP, but out of the box I prefer Ubuntu over Windows XP when it comes to fonts.

Amarok Error

Today was the first day I used Parallels on my Ubuntu desktop and all of the sudden Amarok started acting up. When Amarok runs together with Parallels it seems my Ubuntu looses it 'DISPLAY', all my applications start up but none of them are visible.

After installing Listen music player again, it seems that my Ubuntu desktop is back to normal again with Parallels running. It is a pity because Amarok is a great music player, Listen unfortunately is just functional and that is it, no bells and whistles to this one.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, VPN Access

Since I installed my ADSL connection, I am working from home two days of the week, which means I need VPN access to my office. Now I tried connection to my office using two different approaches in Ubuntu but I failed on both occasions.

The first approach was standard linux-pptp with a few scripts. I was successful to some extend, I did connect to my VPN and was able to browse the company network, but within a few seconds my connection to the VPN will close and I would have to reconnect to the VPN again.

So it was off to the drawing board again, this time I used the network-manager-gnome but again I would only connect for a few seconds to my VPN and then the connection would close. I did stumble across this section on the linux-pptp site, but I could not determine whether this was my problem.

The Windows XP approach was much better and easier. Given the company's VPN server is a Windows server and it is a Windows VPN it would make sense, but I would at least expected the VPN functionality on Ubuntu to be as easy and useful as the brilliant rDesktop but unfortunately it is not, and because of this whenever I work from home I am forced to boot into Windows to connect to my company's VPN.

Ubuntu vs Windows XP, Introduction

I recently had a chat with a friend of mine and he suggested since I am using both Ubuntu and Windows on a daily basis I should blog about the applications I find in useful and compare it to the equivalent application in Windows.

So every now and then I will post a blog about some GNU/Linux applications versus the Windows counterpart.

Broadband Access

I finally decided to take the plunge and install ADSL at home. Unfortunately here in good old South Africa the boradband options aren't that good so I will only get a 384kbps pipe into my house, but it should be fine.

Telkom, the service provider, also does not have a very good track record. I will have to wait for at least 3 weeks, hopefully not more.

Amarok

Being a devout gnome user I don't like installing KDE software on by Ubuntu machine but all the talk on the wire about Amarok made me curious enough to install it and try it out.

I must say that all the talk is justified, Amarok is really an amazing piece of software and I am thoroughly impressed.

Nokia 9300

I just received my Nokia 9300 and I am impressed so far. I downloaded the mobile GMail application and it works good. I think it works better than on my SE w550i.

The standard Inbox

Conversation view

Edgy Eft Power Management Applet

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see my Edgy Eft power management applet support my wireless Logitech mouse.

Very nice touch.

flv2mpg

I regularly download movies from YouTube but they are always in Flash format which is no good for most people I want to email funny bits.

After some searching on the web I found that ffmpeg will be able to convert all my .flv files to .mpg files. I also found a nice script to do the job.

With some modifications to those scripts I created two scripts that will allow you to right click any .flv file in Nautilus and convert it to a .mpg file. The new .mpg file will have to same name than the .flv file and will be in the same directory.

Also it is possible to select multiple .flv files and convert all of them. The script will also check for a valid .flv file before converting it so to convert a lot of .flv files is a simple as Ctrl+A and then flv2mpg.

The attached flv2mp3.tar.gz contains both scripts and it should be as simple as just extracting the tar file into your home directory.

Ubuntu 6.10 Installed

Finally I installed Edgy Eft on my laptop. I had an unfortunate bug with my ATI FireGL drivers but the Ubuntu help sorted it out.

All I need to do now is install Automatix and all my other nice tools I am used to, will have to wait for Monday though, no broadband at home.

rDesktop 1.4 that comes with Edgy rocks, had some issues while my FireGL was still detected as Mesa compatible and not as fglrx compatible, but after the ATI fix my rDesktop is fast and very efficient.