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Yea, it's on the way... I'm thinking... I might grab the RC and then the other version later...

[SOLVED] Switching workspace with mouse scroll wheel? - Ubuntu Forums

After upgrading to Karmic, I too was having a heck of a time trying to figure out what it was that was causing me the issues with the mouse scroll to not work to change desktops, as I had in the past..

[SOLVED] Switching workspace with mouse scroll wheel? - Ubuntu Forums

Here are some screens. It's the viewport switcher plugin under desktop section. Buttons 4 and 5. With button 2 for the initiate action button. 

Pimping: Mobile Media Converter = Free video and audio converter.

The other day, I was in a situation where I had a lot of time on my hands. A LOT of it. I sometimes get that with my job. (Trucking, meh, it pays the bills) And All of my Linux Journals had been gone through at least a couple of times. My first smart-phone is a Crackberry, er, BlackBerry Curve. It's the device that is most likely to go wherever I go. Laptops, NetBooks, Magazines, etc, might not make it into my pocket.

I needed / wanted something to watch. I went on a quest on how to watch something on the BlackBerry. I tried different converters, etc, I guess you're supposed to be able to watch an .AVI file on the phone, but I didn't get the format right etc, for it to work on the first or second try.  Then I found Mobile Media Converter. I think that Pat from TLLTS has mentioned it also. How their site proclaims the program.

The Mobile Media Converter is a free video and audio converter for converting between popular desktop media formats like MP3, Windows Media Audio (wma), Ogg Vorbis Audio (ogg), Wave Audio (wav), MPEG video, AVI, Windows Media Video (wmv), Flash Video (flv), QuickTime Video (mov) and commonly used mobile devices/phones formats like AMR audio (amr) and 3GP video. Also, iPod/iPhone and PSP compatible MP4 video are supported.

An integrated YoutTube downloader is available for direct downloading and converting to any of these formats. Also, you can trim your clips for ringtone creation or any other purpose and crop your videos for removing up/down black bars or other unwanted parts of the image.
The program has a very easy-to-use and simple GUI (Graphical User Interface) that helps even the most amateur user. Most of the times, the only data that you must enter is the input file(s) or just drag 'n' drop the input file(s)! The 3GP and AMR formats are used by mobile phones for MMS, video and sound recordings, etc.

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At first, I didn't think that it would convert .ogv video files (aka, ogg theora) to .gp3 files, or to anything for that matter. It doesn't default to recognizing the .ogv format, and I couldn't add them via it's own file manager. And it didn't really make mention of support of .ogv files. So I didn't think that it would be a simple one-step solution to putting something on my phone to watch. But it is. What worked for me (Also maybe I should mention that I'm running Intrepid, Ubuntu 8.10) is to just add Mobile Media Converter to the files properties option in Nautilus. [Open With] tab in Nautilus. It takes a right click on the highlighted file to get there, BTW. 

The [Open With] tab in Nautilus.

Highlight and add the files you want to convert...

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And Viola! It'll crunch and spin the 1's and 0's into a format that my Freedom Hatein' phone will digest and spew out on my screen. Granted, watching a Screencasters or Meet the Gimp episode on the phone isn't ideal. But it's something to look at, and if I DO happen to have a laptop with me, I can watch something, and hopefully learn something while I'm twiddling my thumbs, and harass friends on twitter or identi.ca a little less.. Heck, I might even get around to putting something like a movie on the phone to watch...

Randy... Aka 
http://twitter.com/TheNose100

Redmond's Lucky 7 or 7 up?

Microsoft and retailers are pimpin' Windows 7.  Yea Redmond?   I've not looked at the software, nor have I been a user of  Vista.  I don't expect that I will be soon.  I take a look at their price tag, and think.  Blech. Why would I want  to pay $80.00 to $300.00 for their software?  

Shortly prior to the release of Vista. I discovered the open source world and Ubuntu.  I'm So Glad that I did.  Couple of years ago, I do I admit, I did recall feeling a bit smug looking at the boxes as I wandered around my local Big Box Store, and saw the boxes of Vista Locked up, and put in a cage. Right where they ought to be. Out of the users reach. They're pretty proud of the work that they do in Redmond.

So this little advertisement gets in my email. 

It caused me to wonder how the the page on canonical.com's site looks? They've got this right near the top of the page..

Here you can buy CDs or DVDs of the distributions in bulk. To download a distribution or get your 
FREE CD please Click Here

It would appear that you CAN pay for Ubuntu of you want.  In fact, it might be a good idea to spend some money on the site if you WANT to. But do you HAVE to? Nope.  There is that link to download the software for free. OR even have a free disk sent to you.

So, if you've not used Ubuntu, why not?  Wouldn't it be worth it to at least try it?  If you're not trying out the offerings of open source, why not?

If you do, you might even have some money left over to spend on another 7 (or two) out there...

Cheers!

A must read and DO for anyone who forwards email

This is a must read and DO for anyone who forwards email. Please feel free to make a copy for future reference...

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL MY FRIENDS:

Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every E-mail address that has come across his / her computer.

Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel! How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:

1. When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.
   
   
2. Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC:(blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To:and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it. If that phrase does not appear, type your own email address in the "TO" field, but put everyone else's in the BCC: field.
   
   
3. Remove any "FW :" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
   
   
4. ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent. (AMEN!) If you can't forward from that page, "Copy" the info and then open a new email blank page and "Paste".
   
   
5. Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address in a petition. (actually, if you think about it, who is supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just ain't so!) One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say something like, -Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen.-Or sometimes they just tease you by saying something really cute will happen. IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed. (could be why I haven't won the lottery) Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that have been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out a Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes.com/ . It is really easy to find out if it is real or not. If it is not, please don't pass it on. So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please ). This is something that SHOULD be forwarded. Amen!

gPodder and Enqueing your Oggcasts / Podcasts

Updated 07/26/09

(First Post Date 5/14/09)

I was fooling around trying to figure out how to use a lightweight media player, such as XFMedia Player a few days ago, trying to figure out how to enqueue / en-queue / que / en queue a file to the play-list from within gPodder without overwriting the current file. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it seems that most of the Linux Media players behave that way by default, Save Amarok. "Enqueue In SMPlayer" works well also. But I had started a hunt, and off I went. I never did find the one line command line fix to use XFMedia, but I did find a couple things that I didn't know about.


Aqualung

aqualung -N0 -E

This option loads the files, but does not start playback automatically, you can try the -L command for that, but that tends to start playback on the last one loaded. For more info look here. Options for remote cue control
Since I was looking for a lightweight media player I've kinda grown fond of Aqualung. It does provide some Podcast Support and also has a cool and funky way of adding media to it's Media List. I discovered Aqualung when I was testing out Sidux XFCE a month ago.


For VLC 0.9.9 fans, Try:

For Linux

vlc --playlist-enqueue --started-from-file

For Windows

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --playlist-enqueue --started-from-file

For Audacious

audacious --enqueue

Seems to work ok, but seems to be "skippy" Audacious wouldn't be my first choice.

I welcome any hints tips, comments or other tricks that I might have missed,
Randy

---

PlayOgg

Join PlayOgg, a campaign to promote the use of free media formats including Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora.

Sansa e200 Seires not mounting: Bug #355998 in linux (Ubuntu): usb-storage

For anyone that has a Sansa e200, e250, e270 etc, series, and they've upgraded / updated to Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, you may have run into some of the issues that I did. - The thing just won't mount. Sorta kills the gPodder and OggCast joy. So I found this patch that solves the problem. Yet you'll get prompted to update the new patched code. I know there's away to stop that, but I'm not sure how, at this moment. I tried the Synaptic Force Version, and I ended back up with a new version. So... I'm not the one to ask about that. But this link, is the one that helped out.

Bug #355998 in linux (Ubuntu): “usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning”

Please note, you need to have the Source Code option turned on in your Software Sources. - something most people don't have turned on.



I spaced out this little checkbox, ran into errors, it wasn't working for me at first. I needed the source code. DOH!


cd /usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/10osvendor/
sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts

apt-get build-dep libgphoto2
apt-get source libgphoto2
sudo wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/25783305/libgphoto_sansa.diff
sudo patch -p0 -i libgphoto_sansa.diff
cd libgphoto2-2.4.2
debuild -uc -us
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i libgphoto2-2_2.4.2-0ubuntu4_i386.deb


And you'll get a screen full of stuff like this:

It'll take a little time...

From Synaptic Package Manager I've tried to "Pin" it, and lock it, and I'm not doing something right, as I keep getting an update prompt... Sigh...

R_