Linux, OpenOffice.org and Open Source Software

Camera on SE X10i (Android 2.3)

2011-10-17T16:23:00.007+08:00

This is a howto on a Sony Ericsson (SE) X10i with Android 2.3.3.

Photos can be captured with a 4 inch capacitive touch screen, and 8.1 megapixel camera. It also comes with digital zoom of up to 16x, image stabiliser (due to small hand shakiness) and a flash. The updated Android provide a default camera apps that meet most requirements.

Step 1. Starting the camera

Method 1

At the Home screen, tap the Application icon, then tap Camera icon.

Method 2

On the X10i, press the Camera quick button.

Step 2. Select Camera (optional if already selected)

Tap the Camera icon.

Step 3. Snap the photo

There are several methods to do this, but I will note down just the Touch and Normal.

Method Touch

Select Camera mode icon, and tap Touch capture. (optional if already selected)
Point the camera to the person or object, press on the screen where is the desired focus.
Release finger, to take the photo.

Method Normal

Point the camera to the person or object.
Half press the Camera button, to focus.
Press Camera button down fully to take the photo.

Step 4. Preview photo

Press on the last taken photo at bottom of the screen, or tap the Filmstrip icon

Other setting for the camera can be accessed by the on screen icons or by the Menu key.

Call handling on SE X10i (Android 2.3)

2011-10-13T09:21:00.015+08:00

This is a Howto on a Sony Ericsson (SE) X10i updated with the latest Android (in this case to version 2.3.3). So you've got the smart phone, many do not have the time to experiment, so here is the first share on some of the solutions to common things you might need.

After the update, Sony Ericcson did not provide an easy to find help document for the Help option in Android. It is a bit disappointing considering its SE, and the help is in the phones menu, but empty. At SE website, there is a download to “restore your user guide in your phone” (instructions are not good at this moment)

Make a call (yes, the phone can make calls)

Step 1. You will need to start the dialer.

From the home screen, tap the Phone button.

Step 2. There 3 methods to dial a number;

Method 1:

Enter the number using the screen Keypad, and tap Call.

Method 2: Tap the Contacts button and choose the contact to call

Method 3: Tap the Favourites button and choose the contact to call

Step 3. During the call you have the options to

Put call on loud speaker – tap the Speaker button
Mute, so the other party cant hear you but you can listen – tap the Mute button
Use the onscreen dialpad for automated transactions like Phone banking – tap the Dialpad

Step 4. When you want to end the call, tap End call button.

Decline a call (in a meeting and suddenly a call comes in, lets cancel that call)

Step 1. Drag the Decline button to the left.

Access to other applications during a call (Retrieve or to write a note. It is a smart phone)

You have 2 ways to do this;

1. Return to a previous running application (just before you were interrupted by the call)

Press the BACK key (left arrow sign)

2. Return to Home screen to select an application.

Press the HOME key (This is the key with a square sign) then tap on the application you wish to start

Clone a VirtualBox disk

2011-06-27T10:44:00.002+08:00

Duplicating a disk for a new VirtualBox VM requires addressing the disk UUID conflict with same value. The following steps address this matter.

1. Start VirtualBox graphical interface (GUI), and edit settings for the VM using the disk we wish to clone. E.g VM name is centos and the virtual disk as centos_hdd.vdi

2. Remove (Do not delete) this disk from the VM.

3. At a command prompt
VBoxManage clonehd centos_hdd.vdi copy_centos_hdd.vdi
VBoxManage internalcommands setvdiuuid copy_centos_hdd.vdi

The first command duplicates the virtual disk. In the second command we assign a new UUID to the new disk (copy_centos_hdd.vdi)

4. Return to VirtualBox GUI and attach back the centos.vdi to the VM.

5. Create a new VM to attach the copy_centos_hdd.vdi

The new virtual machine is ready to use the cloned virtual disk. As a note, why not just make more copies of the disk with new UUIDs in case you need another image.

An Open source software antivirus called ClamAV

2011-06-23T20:53:00.005+08:00

The ClamAV is the only OSS implemented on a large scale with a consistenly updated virus database.

It can be used in 3 different ways:

Installed on a PC. It can be scheduled to run at specific times or to scan all new storage medium and incoming files.
Installed on a server. It is used in conjunction with server services such as email servers, backup and file servers.
Application built with the ClamAV library. Customised applications can manage how and when the file scannings are done.

There are lots of cool features that is comparative to proprietary antivirus. As of June, it is rank as the top 10 antivirus in terms of virus detection.

I just ran an update, output as below:

daily.cvd updated (version: 13231, sigs: 130699, f-level: 60, builder: arnaud)
WARNING: Your ClamAV installation is OUTDATED!
WARNING: Current functionality level = 58, recommended = 60
DON'T PANIC! Read http://www.clamav.net/support/faq
bytecode.cvd is up to date (version: 143, sigs: 40, f-level: 60, builder: edwin)
Database updated (976953 signatures) from db.local.clamav.net (IP: 222.124.18.201)

Configuration of the ClamAV installed can be inspected with the command clamconf, and the virus scanner GUI is simple to use.

Linux security checklist

2011-06-14T10:25:00.008+08:00

The Anonymous is announcing an attack on www.malaysia.gov.my, which is a central portal to reach all other Malaysian Government portals. This is reported by F-Secure Corporation and theStar, 14 Jun 2011. Makes you wonder why Anonymous would want to do that.

Follow up from my previous post, I realise that many Linux Admins out there do not have a Security Checklist for their web application. I am sharing the following checklist here as it provides a standard security consideration for almost all web application on Linux or LAMP stack. It is by no means the only security guide, please apply all other security concerns specific to your needs and you can then sleep better at night.

Check List for Web Application (deployment)

Category	Item	Notes
Logins
A.1	Operating system -Administrator password is secured and recorded as only accessible by ONE administrator -All login's are done as normal user -Normal users with access to Administrator priviledges are recorded. Access should be via SUDO. -All logins are recorded
A.2	Application -All users to have secured logins -Administrator logins are assigned to specific individuals and listed -Web based self registered user must have email and spam prevention facilities -Lock down on Web server's user/application access -Default access and password for all administrator applications must be secured. This includes the main application, phpmyadmin, firewall.
A.3	Database -Each application to have a specific user and password access. This user cannot access other databases. -Administrator access is with secured password. Assignment to specific individuals must be recorded.
Services
B.1	Disable unnecassary services -Firewalls must be enabled to restrict external access to only the approved application (via port numbers). -Identify every services running. Disable those not in use. -Remote access must be via encrypted protocols -Disable local email server (e.g. sendmail) from runnin/listening continuously. Or use external email server. -Email servers controlled to allow access to specific application and directories. -Anti-virus if implemented, must have patches and pattern updates kept to the most recent.
B.2	Create a base point of security -A penetration test must be carried out. The type and complexity is based on the specific application. -Establish an integrity check point
B.3	Tell them you do not allow access -Place warning messages to all points of access. E.g. motd and issue.net
B.4	Logging -Log activities to separate files for operating system and application. -Make logs available to a centralised log server.
B.5	Backup -Establish a backup plan. -Implement a backup process
B.6	Create a boot disk and rescue of the Linux
B.7	System updates -Disable the automatic system updates. Updates should be installed only after it is verfied working with the application. -Periodically check with security issues, respective application security notices and update as needed.
Physical
C.1	Physical Access -Ensure only authorised personel can access to the server. -A record of physical access is maintained.
C.2	Storage Media -All storage media is tagged. -Storage location and transportation is secure and recorded.
C.3	Security Policy -Ensure the document is readily available to authorised users.

Checklist for Web Application (Deployment) by Nicholas A. Suppiah is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.blogger.com/profile/06749525177696246387.

Linux security for organisations

2011-06-13T11:16:00.013+08:00

Linux provides a great solution for small and large organisations. Its scalability and reliability have been continuously promoted over the years as reputable organisations keep adopting them.

The recent spate of security breaches at Citibank, USA and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), Sony Playstation tells us a lot about the amount of importance organisations put on security. In 2009, There were words that Citibank was robbed and in 2011, there was a breach to over 200,000 USA Citibank card holders in the Citigroup. ZDNet in 2011, "Sony security hole exposes another 24.6 million accounts" tells about how over 100 million users can be affected by failures on security. Maybe Sony Certified Security Professional needs to consider a systems security program for Sony (I am joking).

Other security compromised news (hacked) in 2011

Vendor-sec email list was compromised and this was a discussion on linux vulnerabilities at openwall.com
Wordpress.com root access was gained to their servers. Nothing else much on extend of damage to users or blogs at wordpress.com
Mobile devices like Android could potentially have user data compromised when using public wifi, says University of Ulm, Germany
International Monetary Fund (IMF), network break-in sounded like it was blamed to the staff use of internet and emails when read in ZDNET.
Lockheed Martin, provider of defence technology breach in their remote access via use of tokens affected Pentagon.
GMail major phishing was traced back to China and Google looks geared up for more changes as spear-phishing becomes a term many would see more often.
In Malaysia, the newly launched 1Malaysia Pengguna Bijak's portal costing RM1.4 million wasn't built with safe guarding the users information at all. Here the only explaination (NO apology to the rakyat) was that the system was not built to cope with the 3 million hits it received within 2 days of its launching. Over 2,000 1Pengguna user account details were confirmed compromised. I took it as a government initiative but the name www.1pengguna.com made me wonder if its a Malaysian government effort or a private business.

Over the years of implementing Linux based solution, there are a few basic things I can share when deploying web applications and other similar systems.

Put a security policy in place. This includes security administrators reading emails from public who voluntarily lodge about security flaws.
Budget to implement these policies
Have security checklists (use it, audit with it)

If disaster happens, you just need to fix it. There are people's "life" at stake. At the same time get those culprits, if you can.

What are Perlis students going to do with Netbooks?

2011-05-04T10:19:00.003+08:00

Its in NST that 700 students will receive netbooks.

Not reported how it will be usable to the students. Or if they have internet access.

Schools should prepare wifi so that these students can access education freely in school.

New Android App on Market

2011-03-27T23:53:00.005+08:00

Just post my Application to Android Market. It is for those who are learning to use Gnome as a Linux Desktop.

Its called Learn Linux - Gnome and developed entirely on Ubuntu. If I managed to get Gnome 3, will work to get some of its updates into the application.

:)

Flex 4 MouseEvent

2011-03-23T16:39:00.002+08:00

After completing the Flex 4 on Eclipse Galileo installation, here is an example for Flex 4's MouseEvent.

Flex 4 on Eclipse Galileo for Linux

2011-03-23T15:23:00.005+08:00

Flash development on Linux is done with Flex SDK. Some nice people started at FB4LINUX have provided a GUI to develop Flash on Linux and this can be integrated into Eclipse IDE.

This article is an update to my other article. Additionally, Adobe placed a notice that they will no longer continue with the Flex Builder development. This means that you can only use command lines to work on future version of Flex. I guess this will affect FB4LINUX.

Following is a reference to install Flex SDK 4.0 on Eclipse Galileo 3.5.2.

Pre-installation checks: Have you installed Eclipse 3.5+ and Java Development Kit 1.6+

Step 1. Download the fb4linux files
Download in 4 parts from http://code.google.com/p/fb4linux/downloads/list
FB4Linuxaa
FB4Linuxab
FB4Linuxac
FB4Linuxad

Merge them together into a BZIP2 format and extract using the command prompt at the terminal. At the folder where you downloaded the 4 files, just type

cat FB4Linux* >FB4Linux.tar.bz2 bunzip2 FB4Linux.tar.bz2 tar -xvf FB4Linux.tar
I renamed the folder “Adobe Flash Builder 4” to “AFB4” since I did not want spaces between the folder name.

Copy contents of AFB4/eclipse/plugins to ~/.eclipse/[eclipse user folder]/plugins/

Step 2. Install Flex SDK

Download Flex 4.0/4.1 from http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+4

Extract a copy of the Flex SDK from Adobe into a folder, example ~/.eclipse/flex4.0

Step 3. Configure Eclipse with the Flash Builder Application

Start Eclipse, from menu choose
Help → Software update → Find and install

Search for new features to install
Choose the folder AFB4/eclipse

Click Finish.

A new window will open,
Select the features to install → Others

Accept the license agreements.
5 new applications for Flash Builder / Flex will be installed.

Restart Eclipse

Step 4. Apply the SDK to a project

In Eclipse, create a new Flex project
File → New → Other...
Choose Flash Builder ->Flex Project → Click 'Next'
Enter a project name, example “HelloFlex” and click on “Configure Flex SDKs”
Click “Add”

Browse to the Flex SDK directory, e.g. ~/.eclipse/flex4.0 (See step 2)
Check on Flex 4.0 (or Flex 4.1), choose Apply then OK.
Choose Next, Next then confirm the library path (no changes required, normally).

Accept to switch to Flex perspective.

Step 5. Test with HelloFlex

Double click HelloFlex.mxml
Enter following code before the last line

<mx:panel title="Welcome" color="blue" paddingleft="30" paddingright="30" paddingtop="20" paddingbottom="20">

<mx:label text="Hello World">
<mx:button id="b1" label="Click Me">
</mx:button>

Right click HelloFlex.mxml and choose Run as ->Run Swf

These are notes just for references.

Using LVM

2011-03-09T19:14:00.001+08:00

It was fun trying out LVM. Following are basics that needs to be remembered;

1. Partition the disk as type 8e (fdisk).

2. Create physical volume (PV). Use pvcreate

3. Create one volume group (GV) using all the PV. Use gvcreate

4. Create logical volumes (LV) on the GV. Use lvcreate

5. Format each LV with respective filesystem. E.g. Ext3fs, reiserfs using mkfs

6. Mount each LV. Use mount.

Mobile phone programming with AXDT

2011-02-16T14:04:00.009+08:00

Free and open sourced cross platform Flash development tools are available for Eclipse IDE. This is good news to have a change to explore what flash can do for the mobile devices. There are other tools out there for development but for now, this will be my starting point.

As a start to ActionScript3 development, the IDE and APIs need to be setup. Here are instructions for Ubuntu 10.04 with Eclipse 3.5 Galileo to use AXDT. Older version of AXDT used the Eclipse's IMP, but now it uses XText.

Step 1: Install Eclipse and the plug-in environment

sudo apt-get install eclipse eclipse-pde

Step 2: Install the ActionScript3 environment with AXDT

- Start Eclipse
Choose Help -> Install New Software…
Location is http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/updates/releases
(previously used http://download.eclipse.org/technology/imp/updates)
- Click Add and give it a name, IMP
- Click OK to return to Available Software window and select IMP and IMP Prerequisites
- Click Next and Finish to install
- Restart Eclipse once installation is done
Choose Help -> Install New Software…
Location is http://svn.codespot.com/a/eclipselabs.org/axdt/trunk/site
- Click Add and give it a name, AXDT
- Click OK to return to Available Software window and select Axdt builds
- Click Next, check in to accept the terms (agreement) and click Finish to install.

Step 3: Apply correction for embedded images. See http://axdt.org/ticket/97
Here, to remove the AXDT errors on "static-link-runtime-shared-libraries option to true" the configuration file needs to be edited.

- Find the AXDT flex-config.xml file, choose Windows->Preferences, choose AXDT->Flex 4 SDK
- Open the file .eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_3.5.0_155965261/plugins/org.axdt.flex4.sdk_4.0.0.14159_mpl/flexsdk/frameworks/
/flex-config.xml
- Edit the line
<
static-link-runtime-shared-libraries>false
</static-link-runtime-shared-libraries>

and change value false to true.
Restart the Eclipse.

Step 4: Deploy the IPhone apps
Install Adobe AIR from http://get.adobe.com/air

Step 5: Deploy Android 2.1 Apps
See My Android post

Step 6: Install a debugging environment
Install De MonsterDebugger

Using shared folder on virtualbox OSE

2011-02-11T15:36:00.002+08:00

Virtual box has a feature to access the host folder from a guest machine. Following is Centos 5.5 Linux guest that is set to access the Ubuntu 10.04 Linux host machine.

Host machine (Ubuntu)
- shared folder: /home/username/Downloads
- virtualbox share name: shared

Guest machine (Centos)
- mount share as /mnt/hostfolder

Step 1: Install Virtualbox Guest Additions.
Read the manual.

Step 2: Apply the shared folder for Virtualbox
Open the virtualmachine (guest) and go to Devices ->Shared Folders
Click on "Add Shared Folders", its a plus sign. Enter the following values
Folder path: /home/username/Downloads
Folder name (no white spaces): shared

Step 3: Mount the shared folder
Reboot the guest machine and mount with following command (use root/administrator);

mount -t vboxsf shared /mnt/hostfolder

Then apply the required permissions to the folder.

Free magazine from HITB!

2011-02-11T14:38:00.002+08:00

In issue 5 of the HITB magazine 2011, there are 2 articles of interest.

1. An experiment Linux kernel auditing

2. Measuring SSH attacks (with Honeypot)

See http://magazine.hackinthebox.org/issues/HITB-Ezine-Issue-005.pdf

Howto clone Ubuntu 10.04 display on a projector

2011-02-11T12:41:00.006+08:00

The Ubuntu 10.04 on HP ProBook 4420s was able to connect to the projector by pressing the fn+f4 keys. This cycled through 4 modes but nothing that allowed me to view a clone of the display on laptop and projector.

Here are steps to resolve this (results in 800x600 for most projectors).

Step 1: Login to laptop and then plug-in projector.

Step 2: Identify the mode available for 800x600 and add to the existing display modes

xrandr -q
cvt 800 600

example of output:
nicholas@nicholas-laptop-kde:~/scripts$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 310mm x 174mm
1366x768 59.6*+
640x480 59.9

$ cvt 800 600
# 800x600 59.86 Hz (CVT 0.48M3) hsync: 37.35 kHz; pclk: 38.25 MHz
Modeline "800x600_60.00" 38.25 800 832 912 1024 600 603 607 624 -hsync +vsync

Step 3: Create following script called clone800x600.sh that add the 800x600 capability to the display and enables on both projector and laptop. Notice the bold fonts above is copied to the first xrandr command below.

#!/bin/bash
xrandr --newmode "800x600_60.00" 38.25 800 832 912 1024 600 603 607 624 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode LVDS1 800x600_60.00
xrandr --output VGA1 --off
xrandr --output LVDS1 --off
xrandr --fb 800x600
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 800x600 --rate 60
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 800x600_60.00 --same-as VGA1 --auto --scale 1x1 --panning 0x0

Step 4: Make executable and run the script

chmod u+x clone800x600.sh
./clone800x600.sh

To switch back to original settings, press fn+f4.

Next, try to get it working at higher resolution that the projector can support.

Installed Ubuntu 10.04 on HP ProBook 4420s

2011-01-13T22:59:00.004+08:00

Screen shots after installation on the laptop.

Restore Gnome desktop to default

2011-01-13T22:55:00.002+08:00

IF you are like me trying all the different gnome tools and utilities, the desktop could get messed up and system screen freezes.

Solution:
Get a terminal (or press Ctrl+Alt+F1) and delete the Gnome desktop configuration file for that user. Command is as follows;

rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity

AAC encoding not included in 10.04 ffmpeg

2011-01-11T23:10:00.003+08:00

As a reminder, the Lucid or Ubuntu 10.04 does not have AAC decoding support. This means I cant convert FLV (Youtube) movies into a format that the Android can use.

Solution, is to use the Mediabuntu packages as informed by Ubuntu Forums.

In a nut shell, remove existing ffmpeg and use the Mediabuntu repo to download a fixed version of FFMPEG. Some of the other version of Ubuntu is fine, and no need to follow this step.

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/`lsb_release -cs`.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list && sudo apt-get -q update && sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get -q update

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg libavcodec-extra-52

Shifting of OSCC

2011-01-01T11:41:00.009+08:00

Staff operation area.

24 seater training room.

Front reception area.

Server hosting room for OSS mirror site and OSCC applications available to anyone. It is demo and showcase area.

Training material boxes arrive at MAMPU Cyberjaya.

The OSCC (oscc.org.my) has officially shifted address to MAMPU in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

Xperia X10 updates to Android 2.1

2010-10-30T12:58:00.001+08:00

Finally an announcement for upgrade of the X10.

See Sony Ericsson Blog

MyGOSSCON 2010

2010-10-30T11:55:00.003+08:00

The major open source conference in Malaysia is on 2-3 Nov 2010. Registration as participant and exhibitor is on going...see you there!

Setting up Flex on Eclipse for Linux

2010-10-25T01:22:00.003+08:00

Flash development on Linux is done with Flex SDK. Some nice people started at FB4LINUX have provided a GUI to develop Flash on Linux and this can be integrated into Eclipse IDE.

By the time I wrote this rticle, Adobe placed a notice that they will no longer continue with the Flex Builder development. This means that you can only use command lines to work on Flex. I guess this will affect FB4LINUX.

I refer to a number of sites before starting the installation and found one worth mentioning here. Matthew wrote with clarity and did cover what most other instructions provided and maybe a bit more.

Pre-installation checks: Have you installed Eclipse 3.5+ and Java Development Kit 1.5+

Step 1. Download the fb4linux files in 4 parts from http://code.google.com/p/fb4linux/downloads/list

FB4Linuxaa
FB4Linuxab
FB4Linuxac
FB4Linuxad

Merge them together into a BZIP2 format and extract using the command prompt at the terminal. At the folder where you downloaded the 4 files, just type

cat FB4Linux* >FB4Linux.tar.bz2
bunzip2 FB4Linux.tar.bz2
tar -xvf FB4Linux.tar

I renamed the folder to Adobe_Flash_Builder4 since I did not want spaces between the folder name.

Step 2. Download the eclipse plugin for FB4Linux from http://www.brighthub.com/hubfolio/matthew-casperson/media/p/78806.aspx

Unzip the file ecplise and copy the plugins to /usr/lib/eclipse/plugins

The plugins are;
com.adobe.coldfusion.rds.client_1.0.266425.jar
javax.wsdl_1.6.2.v200806030405.jar
org.apache.commons.lang_2.3.0.v200803061910.jar
org.apache.xerces_2.8.0.v200803070308.jar
org.apache.xml.resolver_1.1.0.v200806030311.jar

Step 3. Start Eclipse and apply the plugins.

In Eclipse select Window->Preferences->General->Capabilities and make sure that the Classic Update option is checked.
Click Help->Software Updates->New Feature to Install.
Click the New Local Site button, and type in the location where you extracted FB4Linux in step 1 (you will need to specify the eclipse subdirectory to be specific).
With the Adobe Flash Builder 4 site selected, click the Finish button. You will be asked which features to install. Tick the Adobe Flash Builder 4 feature and click Next.
Accept the terms and click the Next button and click Finish button.

Restart Eclipse.

Step 4: Install the Flex SDK from http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+4
Download and extract a copy of the Flex SDK from Adobe into a folder flex4.1.0

Set Eclipse to use the Flex SDK by right clicking on your Flash project and selecting Properties. Select the ActionScript Compiler option.
Click the Add button to add the location of the Flex SDK you have extracted.
Click on the Run toolbar menu item and select the External Tools Configuration option.

Right click on the Program option and select the New option. Then fill out the Location and Arguments settings to point to your Flash standalone player and SWF file respectively.

Done...next to look for more flash tutorials.

Installing Libre Office 3.3

2010-10-05T23:53:00.004+08:00

Wow,

Open source licensing is now showing how main stream OSS products can be shifted if those in control is not respected. The OpenOffice.org (I hope this name wont be part of power tussle) is now looking at a branch off called Libre Office. Though its in Beta but I expect lots of the bugs I am facing with the present OpenOffice.org provided by the long term support version of Ubuntu 10.04 to be fixed.

Most notable is the page numbering of the slide handout in Impress. Impress is still showing page 1 in the footer for all pages in OpenOffice.org 3.2.1.

Currently all testing packages of the first Libre Offfice can be found at http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/

From what I have read, looks like this will override the OOo in Windows but should co-exist with OOo in Linux. I will update this page with progress I make in installing the Libre Office(beta) 3.3. The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (size of upto 92Mb) needs to be installed before installing the Libre Office. This can be done with synaptic or at the command prompt type

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre sun-java6-fonts icedtea6-plugin

Step 1: open a terminal prompt. Download the Libre Office (LO) which is about 150Mb with either of these commands;

wget http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/LO_3.3.0-beta1_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
OR
wget http://ftp.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/pub/tdf/libreoffice/testing/LO_3.3.0-beta1_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz

Step 2: Extract the tar.gz

Step 3: Switch to the folder en-US then install the DEB packages
cd en-US
sudo dpkg -i DEBS/*.deb
sudo dpkg -i DEBS/desktop-integration/*.deb

Internet crawling so slow. Will Unifi change things?

[Kubuntu] Updating OpenOffice.org 3.2.1

2010-09-29T09:53:00.004+08:00

I have installed OOo 3.2.0 but there are a number of issues that seems to persist on Kubuntu 10.04 (LTS). For example;

When I create a macro to delete selected cells, it does not work. (Solved on 3.2.1)
Impress printout of handouts, I do not get the page foot numbers. All pages display as number 1.

[Upgraded OOo has not fixed the bugs I am facing]
Backup all of the extensions you have for OpenOffice.org 3.2.0, if you intend to use it in the future. Now, the steps to upgrade to OOo 3.2.1

Method 1:

Download OOo 3.2.1 from
ftp://mirror.upm.edu.my/openoffice/stable/3.2.1/OOo_3.2.1_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
Open a terminal line and extract the tar.gz file
tar -xzvf OOo_3.2.1_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
Remove existing OOo 3.2.0
sudo apt-get remove openoffice*.*
Enter the extracted directory and install the .deb files
cd OOO320_m18_native_packed-1_en-US.9502/DEBS
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
sudo dpkg -i desktop-integration/

Method 2:

In the software sources, enable the "software Sources"
Update packages and install OpenOffice.org-3.2.1

Reset user desktop for CentOS

2010-09-28T17:38:00.006+08:00

On CentOS, after installing the Oracle OpenOffice.org (OOo), everything works fine. Since by default the PCs have auto update enabled, the users tend to update and this causes the CentOS version of OOo to corrupt the installed OOo.

One way to avoid this is to disable the auto update. Since it is a lab environment, I can easily delete and replace user1 account to remove previous configurations in OOo for user1.

Step 1. Create the 2 simple scripts to disable the auto update and reset the desktop for user1.

goreset.sh
#/bin/bash
echo "Resetting pc:"
chkconfig yum-updatesd off
tmpwatch 0 /tmp
echo "Creating user user1"
userdel -r user1
useradd -m user1
passwd oscc
echo "User created, going to reboot"
reboot

startscript.sh
#!/bin/bash
LOGFILE="./coombreset.log"
echo "Enter server name:"
read SERVER
if [ -e $SERVER ]
then
exit
fi
scp prepare-cooomb-test.sh root@"$SERVER":~
ssh root@"$SERVER" ./goreset.sh
echo $SERVER >> $LOGFILE

Step 2. execute (run) the script named startscript.sh

-end-

Install Windows on Linux

2010-09-15T12:13:00.003+08:00

To get MS Windows programs installed on Linux (Ubuntu this case), install Wine and other related files.

Step 1: Open a terminal. Or through the Kpackagekit, install packages below.

Step 2: Install packages by the command below;
sudo apt-get install libmpg123-0 libwbclient0 samba-common smbclient ttf-symbol-replacement winbind wine wine1.2 wine1.2-gecko pptview

MS PPTX and DOCX files can be viewed with OpenOffice.org 3, or the viewers from MS Office (I am yet to try these 2).

Disable Nautilus on KDE automount

2010-09-10T00:05:00.006+08:00

After installing KDE on Ubuntu 10.04, there were some challenges. One of it is that the USB disk when plugged in, opens (mount) automatically and launches the Gnomes Nautilus. This is not a real problem but when you are used to KDE's environment, the preferred File browser is either Konqueror or Dolphin. In this case, I choose Dolphin.

The most likely cause is that Gnome's GVFS is running and opens the disk automatically. Doing a "ps aux" you will find the following processes running;

/usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-trash --spawner :1.39 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/0 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gdu-volume-monitor /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-burn --spawner :1.39 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/1 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd

What is GVFS?
GVFS replaces Gnome's virtual file system (VFS). Programmes built with the library GIO or Gnome I/O will be invoke automatically and managed by the gvfsd service.

The gvfs-fuse module is used only when the application is not built with the GIO library. With GVFS, Nautilus takes over the automount/autorun responsibilities from gnome-volume-manager. A good read on GVFS is in this 2006 article.

Stopping processes
If I stop (kill) the gvfsd and gvfs-gdu-volume-monitor, Nautilus does not get open anymore. But instead of killing this process, I will approach this by assuming that gvfs reads from Gnome Desktop Manager configuration files.

Step 1:
Open a terminal (e.g. konsole) and type
gconf-editor

Step 2:
In the left window of Gconf-editor, choose /apps/nautilus/preferences and remove check mark for
1) media_automount
2) media_automount_open

Step 3:
Close the Gconf-editor and log out. After you log back in, no more Nautilus.

Installing ubuntu 10.04 and KDE

2010-08-31T00:52:00.020+08:00

KDE 4.4 looks good on the Ubuntu 10.04. Yup, finally have the time to upgrade but I only had the Ubuntu CDROM, so later after the install had to manually install KDE4.

Using reference from my previous blog on Installing Kubuntu 9.10. Launch from KMenu the Synaptics or Kpackagekit to install additional applications and libraries. Below is a checklist of items to install.

note: to install via the terminal (CLI), e.g.
sudo apt-get install wvdial

A. Adding KDE desktop manager to Ubuntu

kdebase-workspace
kde-window-manager

B. For the web experience to surf and email

openjdk-6-jre (using hotspot)
thunderbird & enigmail
icedtea6-plugin
adobe-flashplugin
See item D.

C. System tools

gdecrypt
password-gorilla
ssh sshfs ksshaskpass
khelpcenter4
wvdial
nmap
wireshark
ksnapshot

D. Multimedia, Fonts and codecs

ttf-mscorefonts-installer & cabextract
kubuntu-restricted-extras
vlc videolan-doc mozilla-plugin-vlc vlc-plugin-sdl (include libvcdinfo0)
k3b libk3b6-extracodecs
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
gimp-help-en & gimp-data-extras
kdenlive
recorditnow

E. IBM Thinkpad utils

tpb
tp-smapi-dkms

F. OpenOffice.org extra stuff

openoffice.org-ogltrans
openoffice.org-report-builder
openoffice.org-presentation-minimizer
mozilla-openoffice.org
openoffice.org-mysql-connector & mysql-server
myspell-en-gb
openoffice.org-kde
libmysql-java
mdbtools

G. Software development, Eclipse and Android (refer to previous post)

G.1. Apache, PHP & mysql (see previous post)

apache2 & php5 & php-pear (after done check that modules are enabled, run command a2enmod php5 )
mysql-server
php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5 libapache2-mod-auth-mysql

Not everything can be done via the synaptics. Others that require downloading from the internet manually;

truecrypt-6.3a & libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb
Extract PCL_ZTEDCV.tar.gz and install (ZTE usb modem) & libqt3-mt_3.3.8-b-0ubuntu3_i386.deb
Download AdobeReader (to view PDF files) from http://get.adobe.com/reader

Plasma widget error - "could not create a python scriptengine"

2010-08-30T14:29:00.003+08:00

In Kubuntu 10.04, Adding widgets may give webkit and scriptengine errors. Here are some of the solutions.

"could not create a python scriptengine"
When installing Solar System widget to desktop, that error appears. Solution is to install plasma-scriptengine-python, e.g. at the terminal (CLI) type;

sudo apt-get install plasma-scriptengine-python

"could not create a webkit scriptengine for the scripted image widget"
When installing Scripted Image widget to desktop, above error appears. Solution, install plasma-scriptengine-webkit. E.g. at CLI type;

sudo apt-get install plasma-scriptengine-webkit

-the end-

Android development on Eclipse

2010-08-15T14:09:00.008+08:00

My notes on Android development

Install Eclipse and the java base (about 256Mb)

Install Java

Ubuntu 10.04 provides Java6 in the form of OpenJDK (openjdk-6-jdk). This is great for developers, but for those who wants to install Sun (Oracle) version of Java6, I will also provide the steps here

A) Install OpenJDK (check if its already installed before doing this!)
Step 1: open a terminal and type the following;

update-alternatives --query java

If you already have OpenJDK, then you do not need to install it anymore. If you do not have any Java JDK listed, then continue to step 2.

Step 2:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk openjdk-6-jdk icedtea6-plugin

B) Install Sun (Oracle) Java JDK.
Step 1: Add the repository for Sun Java. Open a terminal and type the following;

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"
sudo apt-get update

Step 2: Install the JDK along with the plugin

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-plugin

Step 3: Make it your default
Sun Java is now installed, but you need to make it the default java to use:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Install Eclipse

Open a terminal and type;

sudo apt-get install eclipse eclipse-pde eclipse-jdt eclipse-plugin-cvs

Install Android plugin for Eclipse

Refer for details at Android.com
Download and add the Eclipse plugin for Android by (update 15 Feb 2010)
wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r09-linux_x86.tgz
wget http://dl.google.com/android/ADT_9.0.0.zip

previous post was;
$ wget http://dl.google.com/android/ADT-0.9.7.zip

The tgz is for the android SDK.

Official Google Blog: Celebrating Android

2010-08-06T12:42:00.000+08:00

Official Google Blog: Celebrating Android

[on Android 1.6]

Applications that need the .Net framework on Linux

2010-07-25T06:00:00.005+08:00

The Genting web site gave some challenges to book their shows. It was directing Firefox to install Silverlight (a MS Windows based programme). On Linux, this is done via the Moonlight package. Here are things I tried on Kubuntu 9.10 using Firefox version 3.5.9

1. Installed via the terminal
sudo apt-get install moonlight-plugin-mozilla

Still cant work...maybe its Mono 1.0?

2. Installed the Mono 2.0 via URL http://go-mono.com/moonlight/download.aspx
Still cant work!

3. Installed the prerelease Mono version 3 via the URL http://go-mono.com/moonlight/prerelease.aspx
The size was 13.2Mb
Still cant work! Firefox keep closing (crash) each time I click on that page.

I am sending rwgenting a feedback.

Those websites who choose to use the .Net framework keeps most Linux users away from their services. Unless there are plans to get these fixed. If anyone have gone to rwgenting to do booking of shows on a Linux machine and it works, do let me know how it can be done.

Android on Sony Ericsson

2010-06-30T23:37:00.011+08:00

The Sony Ericsson X10 runs on Android operating system. This is an X window on linux kernel 2.6.29-rel. Its really responsive in my
opinion when I do the following;
1. Using the standard virtual keyboard.
2. Switching between application.
3. Using Timescape to read messages and mediascape for multimedia.

Among the 10 main apps I Installed and will keep;
1. Dolphin web browser.
2. MP3 download.
3. Ringtone Editor.
4. Task manager.
5. PasswdSafe.
6. Astro File Manager +smb module.
7. Connect Bot.
8. Android vnc viewer.
9. EASYNOTE.
10. Mytask.

But i still cant open OOo documents. PDF AND MS WORD WORKED!

Next, android will be on tablet PCs like the Cisco Cius.

The Android can be built with ecipse and the java development kit. See
http://www.alittlemadness.com/2010/06/07/understanding-the-android-build-process

Convert AVHCD to AVI and burn as VCD

2010-05-24T00:31:00.006+08:00

Getting AVHCD from a video camera into a PC a making it into a VCD. This is a weekend project.
Next, AVIs are great for the PC, however, to distribute to people who do not use PCs to watch movies or just to have a larger screen, it is better to convert the AVI into a VCD.

Step 1: Copy the files from the AVHCD camera
CAMERA: /media/disk-1/PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM
PC: ~/Documents

Step 2: Convert to AVI.
Future action can consider direct preparation for MPG. Here it is in AVI because there was a need for me to prepare in various format apart from MPG or VCD.

Start KDENLive
- File -> Save As ->
- Project -> Add clip
- In the Project Tree window, drag the clips into the ti

meslots (bottow window)
- Click Render button ->AVI DV

Step 3: Get the converter programme called vcdimager
$ sudo apt-get install vcdimager

Step 4: Convert to mpg and the cue / bin
ffmpeg -i inputfile.avi -target pal-vcd outfilename.mpg
# create the cue and bin files. The label did not allow for spaces.
vcdimager -t vcd2 -l"Martha-Swimming-May-2010" -c vcd2.cue -b vcd2.bin outfilename.mpg

Step 5: Using K3B, choose project for Burn Image
Insert a blank CDROM
Image to burn ->Select the .cue file.

Image type ->Cue/bin

Click "Start"

===========
Using:
K3B version 1.68.0
KDE 4.3.2
CDRDAO 1.2.2
VCDimager 0.7.23
Kubuntu 9.10
===========

Add Screensavers in KDE4

2010-05-23T00:56:00.004+08:00

Screensavers are graphics that replaces the normal desktop screen when it is idle too long (it depends on the user setting). This should reduce the burnout of the screen and also hides the desktop contents from passing eyes.

Default install of Kubuntu did not have any of the nice screensavers. Check the screensavers by choosing the KMenu ->system Settings
Choose the General tab ->Desktop ->Screen saver

To install additional screensaver, use the Software Management such as KPackagekit or synaptic and install

kscreensaver-xsavers-extra

This can also be done at the terminal by typing
$ sudo apt-get install kscreensaver-xsavers-extra

This installs
kscreensaver
kscreensaver-xsavers
kscreensaver-xsavers-extra
libgle3
netpbm
xscreensaver
xscreensaver-data
xscreensaver-data-extra
xscreensaver-gl
xscreensaver-gl-extra

Install optional items;
$ sudo apt-get install xfishtank qcam streamer

Start programming with QT4

2010-05-22T15:01:00.004+08:00

If you ever are into open source software, eventually contribution of codes becomes part of the cycle. Trolltech from Oslo, Norway popularised the QT, which is a set of programming libraries that is used to develop graphical applications. In Linux, there is the KDE desktop manager that uses the QT libraries. Other popular applications that use QT are Opera,

Here is a guide to get started with QT programming (qt4 in this case) on Kubuntu 9.10. You will need the demo and the Graphical development tool

A. Setting up the environment
Step 1: Install the libraries and compilers. This include libraries such as "QLabel" and QLayout from the QtGui
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential kdelibs4-dev libqt4-qt3support libqt4-assistant

Step 2: Install the demos
$ sudo apt-get install qt4-demos

Step 3: Configure Linux to compile with qt4 instead of the default qt3
$ sudo update-alternatives --config qmake

Step 4: # install the Graphical development tool
$ sudo apt-get install kdevelop

Step 5: Read info on QT4 through the manuals at /usr/share/qt4/doc/html/index.html
$ assistant-qt4

B. General programming setup of project, compiling and execute

Step 1: Create the source files. E.g. .cpp, .h, etc.
Just copy from the demo files in /usr/lib/qt4/examples. I will use files from the example tabdialogs.
$ cp -r /usr/lib/qt4/examples/dialogs/tabdialog/ ~
$ cd ~/tabdialog

Step 2: Create the project file. The project file (.pro) define headers, sources, form and other files which the application consists of.
$ qmake -project

Step 3: Compile
$ qmake
$ make

Step 4: Run the programmes.
$ ./tabdialog

Alternatively, use the KDevelop to manage the project. Start KDevelop and open to .pro file.
$ kdevelop

C. References

http://zetcode.com/tutorials/qt4tutorial/
http://sector.ynet.sk/qt4-tutorial/my-first-qt-gui-application.html
http://qt-apps.org/

Wishing you all the best in QT4 programming!

Scanning the hard disk status

2010-05-04T17:39:00.003+08:00

The hard disk performance effects how people perceive their Linux box. If you say a system is slow, what is causing this? There are many reasons, among them are;
too many programmes running, lower processing speed of hardware, insufficient resources, etc.

You can use basic linux tools to give readings on the hard disk for benchmark purpose. Here are among commands that anyone can use via a terminal;

Get timing of cache and device reads on inactive systems. This means nothing else is running during the test.
hdparm -tT /dev/sda
Shows the files opened by processes.
lsof
Monitor balance between input/output load of physical disk using the sysstat package. iostat -x
Space on mounted devices.
df -h
Monitor load on a Linux system, default every 10 second updated.
atop

Details on how to use the above commands can be found in the respective man pages.

Now you can tell someone, my disk is faster than yours.

Impressive Impress and Converting Slides to AVI

2010-04-29T12:28:00.006+08:00

Just completed an Impress slide and converted into AVI and MPEG. Final presentation was in AVI, the MPEG can be used for the web as its only half the AVI size.

Tools useds;

Slides - OpenOffice.org 3.1 Impress
Recording slides - recordmydesktop
Video editing - Avidemux
Graphics - GIMP
Audio - Audacity
OGV to AVI converter - mencoder
AVI to MPEG converter - Download helper (extension for firefox) + mencoder
Operating System - Ubuntu & Kubuntu (2 PCs)

Side note:
The Impress extensions installed to improve the presentation was "Presentation Minimiser" to reduce the slide file size and "openoffice.org-ogltrans" to add slide transitions. Here are examples of how the additional slide transitions looked like.

Installing ZTE MF110 on Ubuntu Linux

2010-04-23T09:21:00.006+08:00

Maxis offered their broadband along with the ZTE's MF110 HSUPA modem. Thus far, I have not gotten a chance to get a Digi offer to try their broadband,....maybe some day.

The MF110 features
Network: HSUPA/HSDPA/UMTS 2100 MHz,EDGE/GPRS/GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
Data transmission speeds: 7.2Mbps DL 5.76Mbps UL
Weight: 21.5 gramme
Application: Join Air with SMS service, Data service, Applications management, Data concurrent. This allowed me to add other service providers (yet to be tested) with the same modem.

Installation on Linux KUbuntu 9.10

Install wvdial from KPackageKit
Plug the MF110 into the USB slot. Mount the MF110 and enter the directory "Linux"
Extract "PCL_ZTEDCV.tar.gz" to your HOME directory.
Open a terminal and type "sudo ./install.sh"
Launch the application "Join Air" from the KMenu
In Join Air, at the Internet menu (A globe icon), click "Connect". Minimise this window but do not close as its needed to maintain Internet connection.
It connects directly with initial IP 121.121.X.X and tries to open the web page mylaunchpad.com.my

It defaults to the setting of
Dial number: *99#
APN: static: maxisbb
username: maxis
password: wap

Connection has been pretty much inconsistent. Its fast at times, then no connection, then have to keep reloading the page. I like its thumbdrive size and the blinking lights. The Join Air application is also easy to read and use.

Naming USB drives

2010-04-08T13:51:00.003+08:00

For the simple reason that USB drives go missing often is that they are portable and sometimes small. The best way to mark ownership is with one of the permanent marker pens. However, naming the USB drive will tell everyone who it belongs to when it is plugged in.

Just maybe, that missing USB drive containing your phone number will come back to you if found.

Here is how to name the disk on Kubuntu 9.10 or other similar Linux like CentOS.

Step 1:
Insert the USB disk and determine the device and partition. E.g. /dev/sdb1
Easily done with the mount command.

Step 2:
Unmount the disk (Do not unplug from the USB).

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Step 3:
Check existing disk name

sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 -s ::

Step 4:
Rename the disk label. E.g. below, replace the word "myphonenumber" with anything you like with a limit of 12 characters.

sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 -s ::myphonenumber

Step 5:
Remove the USB disk, and reinsert back to confirm the name has changed.

For more details see ubuntu.com

ThunderBird 2.0 Add-ons

2010-03-09T23:34:00.005+08:00

Thunderbird 2.0 reached EOL Aug 2009 but Thunderbird 3.0 still does not have all the stuff and attractions for an upgrade, so here I am still using Thunderbird 2.0. What is Thunderbird?

Its an Email client, Calendering, Task and Contact Management. Allows access to Email accounts via POP or IMAP. It also supports GMail accounts, Unix mailbox and Newsgroup account access. A really great application to work with.

Some of the must have add-ons for my Thunderbird 2:

Contacts Sidebar 0.7 - Allows me to forward VCards and access via F4 the addresses, copy and paste info of the VCard into email.
Lightning 0.9 - The calendar and task Manager
FG Printers 0.4.4 - Format printing if the calendars
VCS Support 0.6.3.1 - Allows me to import/export VCS calendars
Automatic Export 0.3.0 - Allows automatic backup of the calendars

Other optional add-on:

Provider for Google Calendar
Bidi Mail UI
PGP
Thunderbrowse

There is a great forum at MozillaZine for updates and help.

Linux driver in use

2010-03-04T15:10:00.002+08:00

From a terminal window;

To view all device drivers and the module names
$ lspci -k

To view a specific device (e.g. 03:00)
$ lspci -vv -s 03:00

To view all the loaded modules (The letter 'K' is uppercase in Kernel)
$ lsmod
$ lspci -k |grep Kernel

Installing Kubuntu 9.10

2010-03-01T23:27:00.012+08:00

Just did a fresh install for Kubuntu 9.10 based on my previous install. Here is a list of steps I took to get my most common applications working.

Post installation recommendations
Start the Kubuntu software(package) installer by Kmenu ->Application ->Systems ->KpackageKit

Choose following packages:

openjdk-6-jre-hotspot
mozilla-thunderbird-2.0.0.23
lightning-extension
flashplugin-installer

Install Firefox web browser
Choose Kmenu ->Internet ->Firefox Web Browser Installer

To allow Java applications to run in the web browser, open a terminal and install the openjdk plugin;

$ sudo apt-get install icedtea6-plugin

To get the wireless working, run at terminal this command and reboot. My wireless router for WPA, TKIP did not connect until following steps were taken. Open a terminal and type

$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Install the other stuff for common applications to be used. At the terminal run

$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

For multimedia, fonts and assorted codecs support

This will add JRE, mp3, mpeg, odbc, unrar and other useful support.

$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras

This allows the disk to be encrypted and manage passwords. Additional encryption can be downloaded from http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads or mediafire.

$ sudo apt-get install gdecrypt password-gorilla

Allow secure SSH connection to and from SSH servers.

$ sudo apt-get install ssh sshfs ksshaskpass kdessh

Install the VLC video player to watch CD and DVD movies.

$ sudo apt-get install vlc videolan-doc mozilla-plugin-vlc vlc-plugin-sdl libvcdinfo0

Install basic Thunderbird add-ons to enhance its usage. From a web browser enter the URL https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird

Download and install the following;

Automatic Export
Bidi Mail UI (not needed if installed as earlier)
FG Printers
Lightning (not needed if installed as earlier)
Provider for Google Calendar (not needed if installed as earlier)
Thunderbrowse

To improve web browsing, these are my download addons from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox

FoxTabs
Speed Dials
Zotero
Server spy
Video download helper
Firebug

How a small office can switch to open source?

2010-02-24T00:18:00.004+08:00

During small talk sessions the topic of having offices switching to Open Source Software (OSS) intrigued me to write this piece. Its in no mean very deep but gives you considerations to start the office moving towards a secure, efficient, cost saving and almost virus free environment.

Must have apps for the office hard working staff:

Office productivity suite (prepare letters, reports, spreadsheet and presentation slides) - OpenOffice.org
Email clients - Thunderbird + Calendar
Document viewer - Acrobat Reader
Desktop publishing tools such as flyers and posters - Scribus
Financial tool - GnuCash
Project management and monitoring - OpenProj
Graphics and photo editing tool - GIMP, F-SPOT, GwenView, XSane Image Scanning, Mobile Media Converter
Backup data to CDROM or DVDROM, network - K3B, Simple Backup
Web browsing - Firefox
Encryption of files/data - GDecrypt, TrueCrypt, Password Gorilla
Internet calls/VOIP - Skype
Multimedia player - VLC
Base apps/interpreter for other programmes to run - Java Runtime Environment, Flash, Wine, PHP5

If you need to have an office with Linux, consider the above as your checklist of must haves. The next question would be, which Linux would you install? There is already a good write up at Tuxradar. All of the above can be installed on Fedora and Ubuntu without much hassle but final choice of desktop is yours.

Once you have gotten all of the staff interested and comfy with the Linux desktop you can then start integrating with linux services in a networked office.

An office of 4 or more people should have a server or more with the following must have services:

Printer sharing - CUPS
Cetralised file/document sharing - PLONE or Open Atrium
Global address book - LDAP or Customer management suite (see below)
Local DNS - BIND
Customer management - vtiger or SugarCRM Community Edition (Asertiva)
Automated networked backup - Bacula
Centralised time server - NTPD
Local email server? Most small office use public email services.

There are loads of other projects that can be done once you have the above in order and your tech guy is happily getting used to OSS.

MCRYPT module for PHP (RHEL5)

2010-02-08T11:35:00.003+08:00

RHEL5.3 did not have support for the MCRYPT module that many PHP applications use to create basic security. Well, anyone could download mcrypt from sourceforge and recompile PHP to support this module. I found another way which I hope also will work for you;

Step 1: Login as admin and install MCRYPT
yum install mcrypt

Step 2: Install epel
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh epel-release*.rpm

Step 3: Install the module
yum install php-mcrypt.i386

Step 4: Restart Apache
service httpd restart

Confirmation of the installed module can be found from the phpinfo() page. The module I had included cipher for
cast-128
gost
rijndael-128
twofish
arcfour
cast-256
loki97
rijndael-192
saferplus
wake
blowfish-compat
des
rijndael-256
serpent
xtea
blowfish
enigma
rc2
tripledes

Print repeat header in Calc

2010-02-05T19:09:00.003+08:00

Calc is a great electronic spreadsheet and have lots of functions to create a diverse range of apps.

Since my upgrade to OpenOffice.org 3.1.1, I have not explored Calc much. When I tried to print a spreadsheet that ran across 40 pages. I tried to have the first 2 rows repeat as headers in every page, an error appeared "Invalid Sheet Range".

Solution:

Open the Calc spreahsheet.
In the menu choose Tools ->Option ->OpenOffice.org Calc ->Formula
In Formula Syntax, it shows "Calc A1". Click on the dropdown box and choose "Calc A1".
Click "Ok".

Some trigger must have failed to detect the values as "Calc A1". Thank you Arnel for giving the solution in Oct 2009.

Oracle takes out the Sun

2010-01-31T21:05:00.008+08:00

Oracle has finally taken over Sun Microsystems. Days of darkness are here but how long will it be?
Sun is not only about hardware. What will happen to OpenOffice.org, Java and MySQL? How about the Sun and MySQL Certifications?

How will Jonathan, being the last Sun Microsystem's CEO end his career there?

All the debates are ongoing in the internet but I look forward to Oracle making clear statements on these concerns.

Kubuntu 9.10 on PIII

2010-01-26T21:00:00.004+08:00

Ubuntu released the 9.10 Karmic last year. Due to all the hectic schedule I finally managed to install Kubuntu 9.10 today.

Kubuntu is installed on a Pentium III with 200Mb RAM having 20Gb hard disk. Mouse is with the Nano wireless and keyboard is PS2. With the L2 cache being 512k, it should mean something to Kubuntu to run smoothly (almost). Working just ok, and the desktop looks neat. Swap is taking up 144Mb of the 1,400Mb allocated during installation.

Following are among the first thing I did after install;

1. Did a system update and removed the package kubuntu-firefox-installer.
2. Set the screen to resolution to 1024x768
3. Checked with Konqueror the Internet connection...connected to the broadband via router.
3. Used KPackagerKit to install Firefox 3.5
4. Added stuff like password gorilla, Kphotoalbum

List of things to do next:
1. Install Java and Flash
2. Get a PDF reader. Currently Okular is installed by default.

Enable user directories in Apache2

2009-12-20T00:45:00.004+08:00

Its been a while since Apache2 was introduced. The configurations are found in apache2.conf and user specific settings can be added to httpd.conf in the /etc/apache2 directory. One major difference from previous version is the method to enable the user directory modules.

The Linux users can have their individual websites but this needs to be enabled and the web server restarted. At the command line type

sudo a2enmod userdir
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

This enables the Userdir module in /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/userdir.conf and users can create pages in the directory /home/username/public_html
This is managed by the directive

<directory /home/*/public_html>

Other basic configurations can be

Disable a user from serving webpages (e.g. root and user1)

Userdir disabled root user1

Access URL as http://servername/~username

Userdir public_html

Access URL as http://servername/web/username

Userdir web

MyGOSSCON 2009 on theStar

2009-10-29T14:33:00.002+08:00

The latest promotion on the Malaysian Government Open Source Software Conference 2009 or MyGOSSCON is on the theStar newspaper today, see "A Vision Becomes Reality"

Upcoming MyGOSSCON 2009 Conference

2009-10-13T20:43:00.006+08:00

The 3rd in the series of conference for the Malaysian Government on OSS will be coming this 5-6th October 2009 at PICC, Putrajaya.
To kick off the conference, following events have been scheduled:

OpenOffice.org contest (for primary students to show off their skills on OSS presentation tools)
OSS Case Study Award (Government and Institution of Higher Learnings share their OSS experiences through a write up of their implementations)
24-Hour WebDev Contest (Allow groups of programmers to compete heads on to grab a chance to show-off their skills)

-x-

[Jaunty] Firefox Foxtab

2009-09-20T23:58:00.004+08:00

Firefox provides a large number of extensions that enhances the user experience. The extension to increase its fancy tab switching is called FoxTab. Install this and on the superb KDE display, things get even better. I have version 1.2.1 on Firefox 3.0.14.

Once installed, use the F12 key to view multiple tabs.

I dont use a mouse that much but if you do, make full use of its mouse gestures. E.g. Hold the left mouse button, then hit the right mouse to launch the Interactive mode of Foxtab. The next time you need to do a presentation on web apps, try it with Foxtab. In terms of memory usage, when Firefox with 6 tabs (includes images) an average of 105,120k memory is used. Launching the Foxtab this increased to 108,492k on average. This is about 3,000k of extra memory is used.

[Kubuntu] Upgrade OOo 3.1.1

2009-09-20T23:36:00.004+08:00

Just did an OpenOffice.org upgrade to 3.1.1 and it seems to be working fine on Jaunty. Additionally, I had to install the openoffice.org-kde and openoffice.org-style-oxygen.

The install provides OOo310m19 (build 9420).

For those who have been struggling with the slide transition preview, will now find it is much smoother. Same goes for the custom animations, great improvement. On the status bar of Impress, Calc and Writer it indicates when the document have been edited and needs to be saved.

The sliderbar to zoom is available for all 3 main components and you can also double click the zoom display to bring up the zoom dialog box.

Tried the overlining of text features, cool. Now, when will I ever need this?
There are a whole bunch of other features listed at OpenOffice.org

London Stock Exchange to consider Linux?

2009-08-24T15:00:00.003+08:00

The concern for performance in time sensitive financial environments is very real when the London Stock Exchange (LSE) had a system fault in Sept 2008. The TradElect system in place was MS Windows based and may be considered to be replaced as interviewed by Computerweekly and finextra.com.

During the recent visit by Redhat to Malaysia, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was mentioned as an example of financial systems using Linux. The trading speed of 0.4 milliseconds have been mentioned in the same article. This is almost double the speed of the TradElect but will the investment of billion of Pounds justify replacing it with another new system like Linux? Anyone knows what KLSE is using?

Financial systems world wide looking at the future of their architecture might learn a lesson or two with how the LSE takes charge of their investment and business needs.

[kubuntu] Rename FAT label

2009-08-17T00:01:00.003+08:00

The Kubuntu Jaunty did not allow me to change the USB diskdrive label. This I found was because it is FAT32 formated. Why would I want to change the label and maintain it as FAT32 format?

If someone finds my disk and would care to return it, they can mount it and find my phone num ber as the label.
The FAT32 allows me to plug the USB diskdrive to MS Windows and Linux operating system interchangeably.
I backup to this disk for both operating system.

Here are steps to change the label name.

Step 1: Install mtools if not already done.

$ sudo apt-get install mtools

Step 2: Identify the USB diskdrive (or partition) to be formatted.
Plug in the USB diskdrive. Then identify the USB device in a terminal, type:

$ tail /var/log.messages

I found mine as /dev/sdb1

Step 3: Rename the label with 11 characters maximum

$ sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 ::0161234567

Test the results by unplugging the device, then plug back in to see the difference. Thank to the reference at Ubuntu.com website.

Yahoo Messenger upgrades its servers

2009-07-28T10:18:00.012+08:00

Early this month I failed to connect the Kopete 0.70.2 to Yahoo Messenger. There were several suggestions to use alternate messenger server IP manually. Initially it worked, but soon all of the suggested servers failed.

This was due to Yahoo upgrading their servers. Matt Rogers, the maintainer for Kopete soon received info from Pidgin maintainers on the authentication changes. Yahoo have upgraded its authentication to version 15 from version 13 and this is now resolved. But the KDE 4.2 based distros may well have to wait for a package on this. In the mean time, revert to Pidgin or compile from Kopete SVN.

Howto on installing from SVN

Step 1: Install svn client from a terminal.

sudo apt-get install subversion subversion-tools

Step 2: Install the tools to compile (generate the executables) from a terminal

sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev kdelibs5-dev  [36Mb +]
sudo apt-get install libqimageblitz-dev [33Mb+]

Step 3: Follow are instructions from kopete.kde.org in a terminal

svn co -N svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/kdenetwork
cd kdenetwork
svn up kopete cmake
mkdir ../kdenetwork-build
cd ../kdenetwork-build
cmake ../kdenetwork
make
sudo make install

If you get errors below on building, then it may require the other libraries to build the KDE source.

CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-2.6/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:57 (MESSAGE):
Could NOT find KdepimLibs (missing: KdepimLibs_CONFIG)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/kde4/apps/cmake/modules/FindKdepimLibs.cmake:73 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
CMakeLists.txt:33 (find_package)

Solution: Read the KDE4 build instructions and at a terminal type following before you resume where you left off in step 3. This will take a good 270Mb+ but you can install any future source from KDE easily.

sudo apt-get install kdepimlibs5-dev

Test Kopete with the Yahoo Messenger account. The package can be removed with the command

sudo make uninstall kopete

[Jaunty] Configure program at system boot up

2009-06-14T21:49:00.006+08:00

The tpb services can be started from the command line as follows

/etc/init.d/tpb start

This allowed the interaction with some of the Thinkpad laptop special function keys. Now, how can I get this activated automatically during bootup?

Previously, KDE provided KControl where I can choose the various programs available to start or not during system boot. In Jaunty and KDE 4.2, its gone! Here I list 3 alternative ways to manage this. First 2 require users to have a basic knowledge of the runlevels.

METHOD 1: Back to old debian school!
Step 1. Install the sysv-rc-conf from a terminal

sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf

Step 2. Run the program, choose what you want activated at each Runlevel.

To select the next page press Control+n or p. Other than that just use the cursor arrows to move to different services.

METHOD 2: Use Gnome Bum. Better to also understand scripts priority that begin with "K" means to shutdown, "S" to start up.
Step 1: Install the Bum with the terminal.

sudo apt-get install bum

Step 2: Start the Bum.
From the KMenu ->Application ->System ->Bootup Manager

Since its menu driven, should be easier to figure out.

METHOD 3: Start a script during login, with KDE Autostart
Step 1: In KDE systems, all scripts located in ~/.kde/Autostart will automatically run when a user logs in (Where the ~ means your home directory). Create a new file called mytpb.sh with the following contents to start thinkpad sound mixer;

#!/bin/sh
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
tpb -m on

Step 2: Save the file.

Step 3: Change the mode to executable

$ chmod u+x ~/.kde/Autostart/mytpb.sh

Step 4: Logout, then log back in.
You can then try the Thinkpad's volume control. This should produce the on screen display (OSD) of the volume bar. Other settings can be configured in the /etc/tpbrc or ~/.tpbrc

[Jaunty] Managing sound device

2009-06-05T01:31:00.004+08:00

The recent Kubuntu 9.04 Linux uses the Pulseaudio to manage its sounds device selection. To enable all sound devices to use the Pulseaudio sound server, open a terminal and type

asoundconf set-pulseaudio

Any application that need to access the audio, including the ALSA will be sent to the Pulseaudio server. The settings can be configured at

/usr/share/alsa/pulse-alsa.conf

Open or play a movie or sound and test if it works. If this does not work, reset back to use the default ALSA system with the command;

asoundconf reset-default-card

I am still trying to figure out the significant benefit of using Pulseaudio.

[Jaunty] Firefox can use apt://

2009-06-03T01:43:00.003+08:00

Some URLs accessed by Firefox is used to install packages for Linux. For example the URL to add the canonical cloud client.

apt://ubuntuone-client?refresh=yes

I get the following message.

Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (apt) isn't associated with any program.

Solution.

I started synaptic and added the package apturl, searched for Ubufox extension for Firefox. Restarted Firefox and now I can access the URL.

Reset MySQL 5 password

2009-05-25T18:31:00.003+08:00

I am running a Joomla training this week. One of the main items is getting the password assignment for root and database user. As a reference here is to resetting root password and assigning user to have full access to a database.

Reset root password
Step 1: Restart the MySQL server without using the user restrictions and access to the network.

#/etc/init.d/mysql stop
#mysqld --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking&

Step 2: Open another terminal and reset your password

# mysql mysql -u root
mysql> UPDATE user SET password=PASSWORD('NewPassword') WHERE user="root";
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
# /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Assigning user access to database
Step 1: Login a root to mysql

Step 2: Assign the user joe to use from localhost the database somedatabase.
mysql> GRANT ALL privileges ON somedatabse.* TO joe@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'SomePassword';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Backup Thunderbird2

2009-05-22T11:59:00.004+08:00

Just after installing the Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Linux, its time to restore some of my stuff. Firstly, I need communications and this is via my Thunderbird.

Backup:
I found it necessary to disable some of the extensions to allow the new Thunderbird to run properly.
Copy the Thunderbird directory profile (usually it goes with some crazy name followed by your profile name to the backup device. Example

cp ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/izwvasdx.default /media/backupdisk

Restore:
Step 1:
Copy the directory profile back to the new system

Step 2:
In the terminal create an email profile that uses the old directory, type

thunderbird -profilemanager

Ref: Mozilla

Install Moodle on CentOS 5

2009-05-20T17:15:00.006+08:00

Following are steps to install Moodle 1.9 on CentOS 5.

Step 1
Install mysql-server-5.0.45, mysql-5.0.45 and php-5.1.6

Install other PHP library php-mbstring-5.1.6, php-xmlrpc-5.1.6

Step 2
Add the user name "user1" and database "mymoodle" to MySQL with the correct privilege.

Step 3
Download the moodle and extract to /var/www/html/moodle
Create and assign the permission of the webserver to the data directory at /var/www/moodledata

Step 4
In a start the moodle installation via web browser, use the location
http://localhost/moodle

Copy the script into a file named config.php within the root directory of Moodle.

Follow the rest of the instruction to complete.

Step 5
Install lynx to activate the cron. Edit the crontab to run every 30 minutes.

$ crontab -e
*/30 * * * * wget -q -O /dev/null http://localhost/moodle/admin/cron.php

See http://docs.moodle.org/en/Installing_Moodle
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Administration_FAQ

I am a registered Linux user #490593

2009-05-19T23:01:00.002+08:00

[Jaunty] Adding mp3 into OpenOffice.org Impress presentations

2009-05-08T00:12:00.009+08:00

One of the popular format for music is the MP3 where a form of lossy compression algorithm is used. A typical music CDROM would hold only a few songs but when saved as MP3, almost a hundred music and song can be saved on a single CDROM. MP3 allows a smaller sized file that still provided an acceptable quality in audio.

On Kubuntu 9.04 with OpenOffice.org (OOo) 3.0.1, adding of the MP3 to play audio during a presentation is simple. Default audio support is on MIDI, AIF, AU and WAV format. The Linux system needs to have gstreamer from fluendo installed for OOo to play MP3s. So this is to all my friends who is trying to get their presentation done with audio and still hanging on to OOo, here are the steps.

Step 1: This is a one time step.
Open a terminal and with an internet connection, type

$ sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3

Step 2:
Open the Impress presentation and choose the slide where you want to start the audio. Select the "Slide transition" tab.

Step 3:
In the Modify transition section, choose Sound and select "Other Sound..." then choose the file containing the desired music. In this case, it should be a working MP3. And check the option for "Loop until next sound".

Warning: Do not click the button "Apply to All Slides", as this will force the MP3 to restart after each slide. Volume is controlled by the PC speakers or you could remake the audio.

[Jaunty]Installing scanning and photo editing tools on Kubuntu 9.04

2009-05-03T02:05:00.005+08:00

In a fresh install of Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04, the next best thing to do is try out its scanning and photo editing capabilities.

$ sudo apt-get install gimp gimp2.0-quiteinsane gimp-gutenprint gimp-data-extras

This install GIMP the popular photo editor and the SANE tools for scanning.

[Jaunty]Adding the VLC video player

2009-05-03T00:51:00.003+08:00

Kubuntu Linux 9.04 supports the VLC video player very well. In a fresh install, open the terminal and type

$ sudo apt-get install vlc videolan-doc mozilla-plugin-vlc vlc-plugin-sdl libvcdinfo0

[Jaunty]Installing Thunderbird 2 on Kubuntu Linux 9.04

2009-05-03T00:22:00.005+08:00

Just after installing Kubuntu Linux 9.04 and all seems well, the email client is the next stop.

Install Thunderbird 2.0 from a terminal

$ sudo apt-get install thunderbird thunderbird-dispmua mozilla-thunderbird-bidiui lightning-extension enigmail

The installation included the following packages:
calendar-google-provider calendar-timezones

First look at Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

2009-05-02T21:36:00.021+08:00

I have just completed a number of fresh install of Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Linux on a
Lenovo R60 (9459BF8) 32 bits
CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz
L1 64KiB
L2 Cache 1984KiB
RAM 1Gb

Here are some quick comments:

The KMenu
This is the KDE Start Menu. One of its main menu options is the Favourites. This contain the Konqueror, Kontact, System Settings, Dolphin, Kopete and Amarok menu. Users should add frequently used programs here.

Desktop
There is a desktop that takes only a small place on dashboard. There are Plasmoid widgets that can be added to the dashboard to increase user experience. to view only the Dashboard, press Ctrl+F12 (or press the Show Dashboard Applet in thebottom panel) to dim all applications and view only the widgets and Desktop.

Workspace
Default Kubuntu had only 2 workspace and no keyboard shortcut to switch betweenmany workspaces. I can only return to 1st workspace with Ctrl+F1.

1. Right click Pager applet (in the bottom panel) and choose "Configure Desktop", increase to 4 workspace.

Screen
The screen is sharp and nice, which is why I have always choosen KDE when Looks matter.

Quick look at accessing applications
Web browser: Konqueror 4.2.2
Office: OpenOffice.org 3.0.1
Print screen: Ksnapshot 0.8.1 (The PrtSc button problem have been fixed)
Terminal: Konsole 2.2.2
System process: (Ctrl + Esc)
Software installer: KPackageKit
Desktop: KDE 4.2.2 (Ctrl + F12) One cool and futuristic desktop for all.
Compression tool: Ark 2.12 (Integrated well with Dolphin)

Others:

Initially I could not login to my home wireless network. Had to manually use the iwconfig, it could load automatically there onwards. So, if you have the same problem, open a terminal and type the following to detect your wireless network (e.g. mywireless)
$ sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning essid looney
I could resize the KPanel to a smaller size easily.
First site I went with Konqueror was the blogspot.com and all looks good. Only problem is that the default menus during editing of post did not allow me to change the fonts. Only option allowed was spelling, Add image and Preview. A pop-up appeared with the need to install Shockwave Flash plugin but it keeps failing to install. See below for the resolution.
Konqueror did not refresh properly when used as a web browser.
The Amarok did not have any sound when playing an mp3. The midi file was not supported at all.
The add/remove software manager did not seem to function. I cant get a list of software and it kept crashing. I needed to choose "Software Updates" ->Refresh. First thing I did is to install Kubuntu-restricted-extras package.

Post installation recommendations
At the terminal run
$ sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer msttcorefonts
Open Konqueror, when it ask to install the Flash plugin this will now be successful.

$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras
This will add JRE, mp3, mpeg, odbc, unrar and other useful support.

$ sudo apt-get install tpb
This will allow the Thinkpad special keys to be available. To install this package, the following package is removed:
hotkey-setup

$ sudo apt-get install gdecrypt password-gorilla
This allows the disk to be encrypted and manage passwords.

$ sudo apt-get install wine wine-gecko
This will allow installation of standard MS Windows based applications.

$ sudo apt-get install ssh sshfs ksshaskpass kdessh
Allow secure SSH connection to and from SSH servers.

Conclusion
Jaunty is a great Linux distro, but those who cannot accept the KDE4 changes should continue with Gnome on Ubuntu Linux.

Laptop connecting to Internet via K810i phone

2009-04-28T00:30:00.005+08:00

Almost all mobile phones have internet connection today. In cases where the laptop need to access the internet and the only network device available is the mobile phone, I can run a script and have the mobile service provider charge me pay as you use style.

Here I describe how Kubuntu Intrepid with Kde 4.3 is used to access a Sony Ericsson K810i mobile phone via USB cable. The service provider is DIGI and I have verified that the phone can be used to access the internet.

Step 1:
Ensure that the USB cable connects the K810i to the laptop. On the phone choose "Use mobile phone"

Step 2:
Install wvdial package then use wvdial to setup the basic connection file and detect the mobile phone.

$ sudo apt-get install wvdial
$ wvdialconf

Found an USB modem on /dev/ttyACM0.
Modem configuration written to /etc/wvdial.conf.
ttyACM0: Speed 460800; init "ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0"

Step 3:
Try to dial using the default script. This verifies that the call can be made but setting to the service provider is not working.

$ sudo wvdial

Step 4: Set the K810i to allow usage of the internet.
In K810i choose the menu ->Settings ->Connectivity ->USB ->USB Internet ->Turn on

Step 5:
Edit the script found in /etc/wvdial.conf

[Dialer Defaults]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = USB Modem
ISDN = 0
Phone = /dev/ttyACM0
Username = digi
New PPPD = yes
Password = digi
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800

OR configure the script to be able to access bluetooth and USB with different settings

[Dialer Defaults]
Phone =
Username =
Password =
New PPPD = yes

[Dialer Digiusb]
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800
Init = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","diginet"
Phone = *99#
Dial Command = ATDT
Username = digi
Password = digi
Ask Password = off
Auto DNS = on
Check Def Route = off
Carrier Check = off
Stupid Mode = on
Auto Reconnect = off
Idle Seconds = 0
Abort on Busy = off
Abort on No Dialtone = off
Dial Attempts = 1

[Dialer DigiBluetooth]
Modem = /dev/rfcomm0
Baud = 460800
Init = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","diginet"
Phone = *99#
Dial Command = ATDT
Username = digi
Password = digi
Ask Password = off
Auto DNS = on
Check Def Route = off
Carrier Check = off
Stupid Mode = on
Auto Reconnect = off
Idle Seconds = 0
Abort on Busy = off
Abort on No Dialtone = off
Dial Attempts = 1

Final step:
Log off then log back in (optional). At the prompt, start the Digiusb configuration

$ sudo wvdial Digiusb

Encrypting passwords for web applications

2009-04-17T15:32:00.008+08:00

Just heard about security concerns and username/passwords being scanned over the network. This is the weakness of the HTTP protocol. One solution is to use the HTTPS with OpenSSL.

With reference to http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html

Step 1: Install the SSL components
yum install mod_ssl openssl

Step 2: Create the certificates
openssl req -new -key ca.key -out ca.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in ca.csr -signkey ca.key -out ca.crt
mv ca.crt /etc/pki/tls/certs
mv ca.key /etc/pki/tls/private/ca.key
mv ca.csr /etc/pki/tls/private/ca.csr

Step 3: Configure Apache to use the certificates
vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

Search for the SSLCertificateFile and SSLCertificateKeyFile lines and point it to the correct TLS directory.

# Server Certificate:
# Point SSLCertificateFile at a PEM encoded certificate. If
# the certificate is encrypted, then you will be prompted for a
# pass phrase. Note that a kill -HUP will prompt again. A new
# certificate can be generated using the genkey(1) command.
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca.crt
# nicholas

# Server Private Key:
# If the key is not combined with the certificate, use this
# directive to point at the key file. Keep in mind that if
# you've both a RSA and a DSA private key you can configure
# both in parallel (to also allow the use of DSA ciphers, etc.)
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/ca.key

Restart apache server

service httpd restart

Step 4: Assign Apache to use a secure folder for the HTTPS while redirecting the port 80 of the HTTP to another folder.
vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

NameVirtualHost *:80

</virtualhost *:80>
<directory>
AllowOverride All
</directory>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
ServerName servername.com
</virtualhost>

NameVirtualHost *:443
<virtualhost *:443>
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/ca.key
<directory>
AllowOverride All
</directory>
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/servername/httdocs
ServerName tservername.com
</virtualhost>

Restart Apache server. The virtual host can be verified with the command

httpd -S

Step 5: Test the HTTPS and HTTP
Use a web browser to access with HTTP and HTTPS, both should point to different directory.

Certain web browsers do not know about cacert as a validation server. This can be done easily with following steps.

Step 1. Download from www.cacert.org the Root Certificates for class 1 and 3 PKI keys.
Step 2. Use firefox to add these root keys.
Choose edit ->Preferences ->Advanced ->Encryptions ->View Certificates
Choose Authorities ->Import
Choose both of the root keys that was downloaded
Step 3. Restart the web browser.

Changes are hard to accept

2009-04-17T00:30:00.003+08:00

Reading the drama from The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw gave light to how changes just cant be accepted. Pity the glass blower's earnings would be affected by improvement in technology that would reduce breakages of bulbs during transport. Can you imagine some businesses that strive on expected breakdowns and expect paying users to be their released software testers being in the same light?

King Magnus (like my little boy's name) in the play seems to entertain the request of power to be transfered to the ministers. Followup is the thought of a lady that she could replace the queen as she have much more to offer. The finese of Magnus manages so many different issues while maintaining a certain royalty charm.

In dealing with introducing the OpenOffice.org to agencies, some just cannot accept the positive side and to pave way for the future. Concern is just to get past living each day and each report or presentation to be submitted. Worst case is that some software company even comes over to tell the agencies off that their business will be effected. Maybe a little bit of King Magnus is needed.

If anyone have the time, the play is really something decent and naughty that can be enjoyed easily.

Akonadi Basics

2009-04-16T23:41:00.002+08:00

The KDE 4 introduced a common framework for applications to store and access mail, calendars, addressbooks, and other PIM data. The reduced the development time of applications that shared data such as the addressbook and calendars.

On Kubuntu the package is called akonadi-server and akonadi-kde. The current version is 1.1.1. Akonadi server supports a number of KDE applications like Akregator · Amarok · digiKam · Dolphin · Dragon Player · Gwenview · JuK · K3b · Kaffeine · Kate · Kdenlive · KDevelop · KGet · KMess · KOffice · Konqueror · Konsole · Kontact · Kopete · KTorrent · Okular
On Wikipedia this is described as reducing the need for space and also collaboration of information between applications.

To demonstrate the use of Akonadi, I started by opening the KDE System Settings and choose the Advanced tab. Choosing the Akonadi Server icon, it says Akonadi server not running. Waited a while, then the server started and I have 2 tabs. In the resources tab I have a std.ics (Calendar), std.vcf (Address book) and Birthdays (self explained). The next tab indicated that the server was running with MySQL database.

Next I proceeded to launch the PIM known as Kontact. I tried adding a New Contact in the Address Book and it works fine. How can I populate this? I dont use KMail to manage my emails address, instead I use Thunderbird. This wont support Akonadi and I cant moved the data across other applications.

Lets try using Kopete (The instant messenger) where I already have a well built list of contacts. I start Kopete and login to my account. From the Kopete menu, choose File ->Export Contacts. Select the Address book called resource (this is the name I set in the Kontact address book). It copies all the messenger contacts along with the photos into Kontact.

I now have a backup of the messenger names on my address book and I can use this to manage my mailing when I decide to use KMail for emails.

Scanning with Kubuntu Intrepid and KDE 4.3

2009-04-16T21:28:00.009+08:00

Scanning with Kubuntu Intrepid is easy with Xsane and EPSON Perfection 1250 scanner. XSane is GPL and is currently at version 0.995

Step 1:
sudo apt-get install xsane xsane-doc

Step 2:
Plug in the USB connection to the computer and from the KMenu choose Application ->Graphics ->XSane

You can see that the scanner is detected by typing the command

lsusb

Step 3:
In the XSane Window leave all as default except the settings for;
Viewer
File location and name (I choose a PDF name)
Type by ext
Color/Lineart/Monocrome
Resolution to minimum 150

Step 4:
In the XSane Preview Window, choose Full Size then "Acquire Preview". When this is done the first time, it takes a while.

In the XSane Window, press "Scan". Make sure it is the image that you want and continue by choosing File ->Save Image.

Note:
To scan multiple pages into one PDF, change the Viewer to multipages.

Ubuntu Manual in Bahasa Malaysia

2009-04-15T10:44:00.005+08:00

There are lots of documentation on Ubuntu Linux. For those looking for a Bahasa Malaysia version, an 8 Mb documentation that can be easily understood by most level of users that is compiled by Zulkifli b Abdullah. See Malay Ubuntu

Good job!

Setting up printer for Kubuntu

2009-04-10T10:16:00.002+08:00

The KDE system on Kubuntu uses network discovery to find the available printers. This means, users do not need to manually add printers. This is done in 2 steps.

Step 1:
At the KMenu choose Applications ->System ->Printer Configuration.

Step 2:
Choose Server settings and check the "Show printers shared by other systems". Press "Apply".

Users need to wait for about a min for the first time discovery of the printers. Press Ok and test the printings.

OpenOffice.org Best Practice

2009-04-01T01:19:00.004+08:00

1. Introduction

This document describes best practices to improve operational efficiencies in creating and exchange of office electronic documents. This list is not meant to be lengthy and too technical. Only the Writer, Calc and Impress is covered in this document.

Comments are invited to improve this list.

2. MANAGEMENT MATTERS

Policies

Provide a standard version of OpenOffice.org installed on all stations.
1. There are many distributions of OpenOffice.org such as Sun OpenOffice.org, StarOffice and Go-OO that provide the latest stable versions.
Provide a list of standard extensions and its version that should be installed in all OpenOffice.org installed.
Ensure that the version of OpenOffice.org is kept updated.

Default Documents

The standard file formats for saving must be determined.
1. Currently Open Document Format (ODF) 1.2 is recommended.
2. For archiving purpose, the Portable Document Format (PDF) is to be used.
In the OpenOffice.org User Data option, all fields must be filled correctly.
1. This allows tracking of changes in documents correctly.

3. STANDARD FORMATTING

Templates

The following is to be made available to all users
1. A template of default styles. Users can load the template or just the styles from the Styles and Formatting dialog box.
2. Relevant templates of commonly used documents should be made available to users.
The templates are to provide the default values for formatting. This includes;
1. Page size
2. Font Type and Size
3. Amount of line spacings

Creating documents

All new documents should be created from an existing template.
If no suitable template is available, the user may use the default template.
Intial stage of document creation should emphasize on its contents and flow. Once the basic structure of the document is ready, use the Styles and Formatting dialog box to apply the required styles.

Using MS Office documents

Use the Document Converter tool to identify possible errors.

Format layout

Paragraphs should be format using pre-defined styles. Where possible, avoid formatting characters and paragraphs directly.
Use Heading styles for grouping of topics into logical structures. The order should be Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on.
Change or create heading styles to suite the document.
1. Do not skip heading levels.
All hyperlinks must be descriptive.
Use bullets or numbered list. Manual characters used as bullets or numbering should not be used.
When copying bullets or list from another document, paste as plain text to avoid loss of current formatting.

Graphics

Graphic elements such as images, diagrams or charts in a document must have information about those graphics in the text of the document.
When copying graphics into documents that are to be sent out, ensure that the links are broken.
1. In Writer menu choose, Edit ->Links.
Avoid flashing, blinking and similar animated text.

Tables

Rows in a table that is the heading must be format as Table Heading style.
Normal rows in a table must be format as Table Contents style.

Printing documents with Writer

In the print option, uncheck the “Print automatically inserted blank pages”.

4. PRESENTATION WITH IMPRESS

General

Each slide should use the predefined slide layout.
1. Tables should be added with the tables layout.
2. Charts should be added with the chart layout.
3. Column arrangement should be done with the predefined layout where possible.
News slides should be built with the Outline View. This will focus on content before beautification is taken place.

Audio and Movies

All audio and movie embedded must use the standard format that is supported by OpenOffice.org
1. Audio: MPEG, OGG, 3GPP
2. Video: Quick time, AVI, MPEG, OGG, Divx, FLV
Audio and Movies should be only one for each slide.
1. This will reduce the need for extremely high memory usage.

5. SPREADSHEET WITH CALC

General

Use row and column headers extensively and avoid ambiguity within these headers. Make them clear and self-explanatory.
1. Use the Heading and Heading 1 styles
All sheets must be given descriptive names.
Use region names for individual or group of cells.
1. This allows functions to refer to specific cells.
2. Users can use the Go-To tool, to quickly moved around the spreadsheet.

6. OTHER ISSUES

Macros

Usage of macros should be minimized.
Use the extensions to add functionality to OpenOffice.org
1. Extension support the programming language in Java, Python and C++

Preserving electronic data with office suites

2009-03-30T08:57:00.003+08:00

Anyone trying to open a document created by Microsoft (MS) Office will find that they need to upgrade to support the .docx, .pptx and .xlsx. This is understandable since they are newer formats. Same goes for those opening ODF1.2 would be better off with OpenOffice.org (OOo) 3.

But for those who have been archiving documents in MS Word for Windows 1.x and 2.x will now find that MS Word 2007 cannot open such files. Yup, you wont be able to open such files as mentioned in MS website. Yup reality, one of the mainstream and widely used software provider just showed that they can indeed drop support of their own document support. Below is what you can find at their website.

Fortunately, OOo3 can be used to open such files if needed.

Data arvhiving for the Future
How to preserve such data? Best practices (none found documented) from experience, two copies need to be saved. An editable and non-editable.

Non editable files, save as PDF or PS (postscript).
Editable word processor files (why the need to edit archives?), save as RTF (ruch text format) or ODF (open document format).
Editable spreadsheet files, save as ODF (open document format). This preserves the formulas among other complexities.
Editable presentation files, save as ODF (open document format).

Improving OpenOffice.org3 performance (basic)

2009-03-29T23:58:00.004+08:00

OpenOffice.org (OOo) can be improved based on how it is used by the user. This means there is no single solution. Recently, during a demo my OOo froze! So I needed to find the fault.

Here I take it that you are a normal user with 1GB RAM PC and having Internet access. In the beginning
soffice.bin -> 17,724K memory, 55,044K shared memory.

Start OpenOffice.org Writer. In the menu choose Tools ->Options ->OpenOffice.org ->Memory.
The Undo, Number of Steps should be reduce to your normal figure. Over the last 2 weeks, I have been compiling the number of undos and I have not used more that 15 undos at one time. Multiply this by 2 and I set it now to 30.
Graphics cache, "Use for OpenOffice.org" ->128Mb. Cause I have 1GB RAM.
Graphics cache, "Memory per Object" ->20MB. This is the charts and graphics I create in documents.
Graphics cache, "Cache for inserted object" ->20 objects. I have only used most objects in the Impress documents.

After the above alterations, my memory usage was averaged as below.
soffice.bin -> 16,956K memory, 53,224K shared memory.

Not much but its a start. You will get the idea, work on the average number of documents that you will open at one time. In Kubuntu, only one process is created for however many OOo applications that are opened. Which I have tested for upto 30 documents opened at a time. I have not tested OOo3 behaviour on MS Windows at this moment. Will be looking for feedback on this.

Development on KDE4 with Solid

2009-03-20T14:28:00.006+08:00

After using KDE 4.2 it really looks like there are lots of positive opportunities for Kubuntu. This use the QT 4.4.3 library. Below is how my desktop looks at the moment.

For developers, the first thing to do is to understand about Solid. This is a library introduced since 2006 to discover hardware independent of hardware architecture. There is an increase awareness on mobility features. Can you imagine how much effort is being taken? Just look at the seriousness of the Start menu development. A brief description of KDE Solid can be found at the URL http://solid.kde.org/

The C++ tutorial on Solid can be found at http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Solid_Tutorials/ for the eager developers.

The KDE Goals seems to indicate a radical approach. This will break lots of stuff. Many older application and library will need to be rewritten and lots of people will be kept waiting. However, this barrier needs to be taken, else revolutionary changes can't take place. Supporting Solid is the Phonon library, that is expected to provide an independant multimedia framework to be used in gstreamer, xine and DirectX/DirectSound. Even the user interface will undergo a systematic development with the introduction of the Human Interface Guideline (HIG).

Look forward to KDE4!

Using CentOS 5 testing repositories

2009-03-20T08:44:00.002+08:00

CentOS does make a good Linux distro. Still users will want stuff that is still in the pipeline or testing.

One good example is that CentOS 5.2 comes with PHP 5.1. However many web developers have moved to PHP 5.2 and this is available in the testing repo. Below is one command to upgrade the existing PHP.

Step 1: Switch to root.

Step 2: Add the testing repo
# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
# wget http://dev.centos.org/centos/5/CentOS-Testing.repo

This will containg the following:

[c5-testing]
name=CentOS-5 Testing
baseurl=http://dev.centos.org/centos/$releasever/testing/$basearch/
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://dev.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-testing

Step 3: Update PHP.
yum --en=c5-testing update php*

CentOS graphics

2009-03-20T08:42:00.001+08:00

Development of CentOS is partly using the custom graphics. Below is a link to the graphics used in CentOS.

http://dev.centos.org/centos/graphics/

Playing movies on CentOS 5

2009-03-19T16:22:00.006+08:00

One of the attractions in a presentation is having interesting movies being played. On CentOS 5.2, you can install VLC from the Dag repository.

Step 1: Add the Dag repository.
$ vi /etc/yum.repos.d/dag.repo

[dag]
name=Dag RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el$releasever/en/$basearch/dag
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://dag.wieers.com/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt
enabled=1

Step 2: Install VideoLan
$ yum install vlc

Installing for dependencies:
SDL_image i386 1.2.5-1.el5.rf dag 84 k
a52dec i386 0.7.4-8.el5.rf dag 78 k
aalib i386 1.4.0-5.el5.rf dag 167 k
arts i386 8:1.5.4-1 base 1.1 M
cppunit i386 1.12.0-3.el5.rf dag 811 k
dirac i386 1.0.2-1.el5.rf dag 2.9 M
faac i386 1.26-1.el5.rf dag 151 k
faad2 i386 2.6.1-1.el5.rf dag 329 k
ffmpeg i386 0.4.9-0.9.20070530.el5.rf dag 5.3 M
ffmpeg-libpostproc i386 0.4.9-0.9.20070530.el5.rf dag 42 k
freeglut i386 2.4.0-7.1.el5 base 142 k
fribidi i386 0.10.7-5.1 base 52 k
giflib i386 4.1.3-7.1.el5.1 base 39 k
gsm i386 1.0.12-1.el5.rf dag 63 k
imlib2 i386 1.4.0-1.el5.rf dag 947 k
lame i386 3.98.2-1.el5.rf dag 569 k
libXvMC i386 1.0.2-2.1 base 18 k
libcaca i386 0.99-0.1.beta11.el5.rf dag 236 k
libcddb i386 1.3.0-1.el5.rf dag 112 k
libcdio i386 0.77-1.el5.rf dag 514 k
libdca i386 0.0.5-1.el5.rf dag 136 k
libdvbpsi i386 0.1.5-2.el5.rf dag 66 k
libdvdcss i386 1.2.10-1.el5.rf dag 64 k
libdvdnav i386 0.1.10-3.el5.rf dag 212 k
libdvdread i386 0.9.7-1.el5.rf dag 126 k
libebml i386 0.7.8-1.el5.rf dag 297 k
libid3tag i386 0.15.1b-3.el5.rf dag 75 k
libmad i386 0.15.1b-4.el5.rf dag 82 k
libmatroska i386 0.8.1-1.el5.rf dag 701 k
libmodplug i386 0.7-1.2.el5.rf dag 299 k
libmpcdec i386 1.2.6-1.el5.rf dag 52 k
libshout i386 2.2.2-1.el5.rf dag 115 k
libsndfile i386 1.0.17-1.el5.rf dag 476 k
libupnp i386 1.6.6-1.el5.rf dag 297 k
lirc i386 0.6.6-4.el5.rf dag 241 k
mpeg2dec i386 0.4.1-2.el5.rf dag 190 k
opencv i386 1.0.0-1.el5.rf dag 4.3 M
qt4 i386 4.2.1-1 base 7.2 M
svgalib i386 1.9.25-1.el5.rf dag 809 k
taglib i386 1.5-1.el5.rf dag 978 k
twolame i386 0.3.12-1.el5.rf dag 131 k
x264 i386 0.0.0-0.4.20070529.el5.rf dag 789 k
xosd i386 2.2.14-1.el5.rf dag 60 k
xvidcore i386 1.1.3-1.el5.rf dag 531 k
zvbi i386 0.2.33-1.el5.rf dag 925 k

Step 3: Start VLC
In the Desktop Panel, choose the menu Applications ->Sound and Video ->VLC Media Player

Wow ! a total of 46 packages needed to be installed on my fresh CentOS 5.2 installation. Only problem was the package zvbi that failed to be downloaded. So, I manually installed that and restarted the vlc installation.

If this don't work, then the VLC can be manually downloaded and installed from http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc

Caveat, you need to install all dependencies manually.

The programming IDE called Eclipse

2009-03-15T01:21:00.003+08:00

Programming on Linux can be done by editing file at the text editors, then going to the prompt to compile and execute. There are Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can help reduce the pain programming. Eclipse is one such example, supporting a diverse number of programming language.

Installation guide.
Step 1: From the desktop panel choose Kmenu ->Applications ->Add/Remove Software. Enter the root password. Choose the Sources, then ensure that the universe repository is selected.

Step 2: Install Eclipse and the plugins
sudo apt-get install eclipse

recomended packages:
ant-doc libbsf-java liboro-java libxalan2-java jython libjdepend-java
libgnumail-java libxml-commons-resolver1.1-java libcommons-net-java javacc
dh-make libgcj9-dbg gcj-4.2 junit-doc libbcel-java-doc classpath-doc
libgcj8-dbg libgcj-doc tomcat5.5 libmail-box-perl

The following NEW packages will be installed:
ant ant-gcj ant-optional ant-optional-gcj antlr debhelper ecj ecj-gcj
eclipse eclipse-gcj eclipse-jdt eclipse-jdt-gcj eclipse-pde eclipse-pde-gcj
eclipse-platform eclipse-platform-gcj eclipse-rcp eclipse-rcp-gcj
eclipse-source fastjar gappletviewer-4.3 gcj-4.2-base gcj-4.3 gij-4.2
gij-4.3 gjdoc html2text intltool-debian java-gcj-compat java-gcj-compat-dev
java-gcj-compat-headless junit junit4 libantlr-java libantlr-java-gcj
libbcel-java libcommons-collections-java libcommons-dbcp-java
libcommons-el-java libcommons-launcher-java libcommons-modeler-java
libcommons-pool-java libecj-java libecj-java-gcj libgcj8-1 libgcj8-1-awt
libgcj8-jar libgcj9-0-awt libgcj9-dev libgcj9-src libjsch-java
liblucene-java liblucene-java-doc libmail-sendmail-perl libmozjs0d
libmx4j-java libswt3.2-gtk-gcj libswt3.2-gtk-java libswt3.2-gtk-jni
libsys-hostname-long-perl libtomcat5.5-java libxul-common libxul0d
po-debconf

Step 3: Getting started
Choose the Menu Help to choose

Eclipse Help
Tips and tricks
Cheat Sheets

Step 4: Updating software capabilities of Eclpise.
In the Menubar choose Help ->Software Updates ->Find and Install.
Choose "Search for new features to install".

To start using Eclipse for Java, there is a guide at

https://eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net/eclipse-tutorial/part1.html

Happy programming!

Gwenview plugins and KDE 4.2

2009-03-15T01:07:00.003+08:00

Since KDE 4.2 adopts many new features, Gwenview (the graphics viewer) may not have all the correct versions of library and applications to use.

Gwenview uses KDE4 but the kipi-plugins on 8.10 needs a newer libexiv and kipi-plugins. This results in the default Gwenview not having any plugins. Only KDE 4.2 systems (default 8.10 doesnt have this) will be effected.

To install the plugins, add to the repository the followng PPA site. Choose from the panel, Kmenu ->Applications ->Add/Remove Software. Edit the sources ->Third party with the following:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/digikam-experimental/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

This should update itself. If it does not do any updates, then at the command line, run command apt-get update, and install the new kipi-plugins.

sudo apt-get install digikam kipi-plugins kdeprint

The following are installed:
digikam kipi-plugins libkdcraw7 libkexiv2-7 liblensfun-data liblensfun0 libmarble4 libqt4-sql-sqlite marble-data

Suggested packages:
digikam-doc gallery vorbis-tools

Recommended packages:
kdeprint

See
http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/421

UK declares Government Action Plan for OSS

2009-03-12T00:48:00.005+08:00

UK Cabinet office website have declared the intent to adopt OSS. This is more towards leveling the playing field for OSS.

In its "Background" it mentions that 50% of its webserver use Apache. Looking up the cabinet office site, it uses Minstrel-httpd as its web server. The website uses MS ASP.NET. Well, the cabinet will need to lead the way by example by adopting more visible OSS solutions.

OSCC MAMPU have already under taken a rather unique approach for the Malaysian government since the year 2004. Among the OSS initiatives include making the government agencies aware, programmes to increase the human capital development and changing the management mind set. There were agency management who continue to seem unaware of the Malaysian Public Sector OSS Master Plan. However, the winds are changing and local government body have started their own campaigns on OSS.

But is UK they ready to accept OSS is not just the software, but whole change in the way the human capital will use systems? Are they ready to have users participating and contributing to the OSS community? The OSS business model will be different and will involve the international community along side the small businesses (including individuals). Unless the UK government adapt speedily, all the grand plans will be a long long struggle for many years to come.

I look forward to more OSS successes from UK.

No resume image, doing normal boot

2009-03-06T00:23:00.003+08:00

During boot up of the Kubuntu 8.10, the progress bar froze at about 1/4 way. Changing to the CLI, it was hanging at the line:

No resume image, doing normal boot

One possibility is that the update of the kernel may have damaged the initramfs on the swap. At boot time, the kernel unpacks that archive into RAM disk, mounts and uses it as initial root file system.

Solution, delete then recreate the swap before updating the initramfs. I identified the SWAP file as /dev/sda5 on the system.

Step 1: Enter into rescue mode
Reboot into rescue mode. In the main menu, choose the option to boot into root user.

Step 2: Delete then recreate the swap file
# swapoff /dev/sda5
# mkswap /dev/sda5

Step 3: Update the initramfs
# update-initramfs -u

Step 4: Restart machine
# reboot

It is booting without the frozen progress bar. But another problem causing the slow boot up. Its during the network configuration. Well, its faster now.

France Adoption of OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird and OSS

2009-03-05T09:59:00.005+08:00

In Europe, movements towards open source software (OSS) have long been a silent battle. France is one of those that started to look into the benefits of OSS in the early 2000.

The French Gendarmerie Nationale (national police) is composed of the police forces and the military police with over 100,000 employees distributed across the country. In 2001, the decision to explore OSS implementation started and by 2005 OpenOffice.org (OOo) was implemented. Other OSS implementation like Firefox (web browser) and Thunderbird (email & calendaring client) soon followed. Since they have managed to developed their employees with OSS skills, their next plan is for the migration to Linux desktops.

See:
French Gendarmerie goes for Ubuntu

The French Ministry of Agriculture have migrated over 500 servers to Mandriva Linux since 2005. This is mainly to replace its MS Windows NT servers. A total of 15,000 employees is under this Ministry. Plans are underway to have an additional 400 servers on Linux.

See:
French Ministry of Agriculture

The French Parliment moves towards OpenOffice.org in 2007. Following that Ubuntu Linux will be used as the desktop operating system. This will be over 1,000 PCs running Ubuntu Linux. Which translate to even more opportunities to use the hundreds of OSS available to through the Ubuntu software repository.

See:
French Parliment

Ubuntu list of games

2009-03-02T08:43:00.002+08:00

Linux is mainly used for servers and office work. For those who seek entertainment in the form of games, here are some linux programs available for the KDE desktop:

knetwalk - wire puzzle game for KDE 4
kpat - solitaire card games for KDE 4
kolf - miniature golf game for KDE 4
kmahjongg - Mahjongg solitaire game for KDE 4
kjumpingcube - simple tactical game for KDE 4
kgoldrunner - Lode Runner arcade game for KDE 4
katomic - atomix puzzle game for KDE 4
kblackbox - Black Box puzzle game for KDE 4
kiriki - Yahtzee dice game for KDE 4
ksame - SameGame puzzle game for KDE 4
kdiamond - three-in-a-row game for KDE 4
kdiamond - three-in-a-row game for KDE 4
ksquares - Dots and Boxes game for KDE 4
kbreakout - Breakout arcade game for KDE 4
kbounce - Jezzball arcade game for KDE 4
kfourinline - Connect Four game for KDE
kreversi - reversi board game for KDE 4
klines - color lines game for KDE 4
ksudoku - Sudoku puzzle game and solver for KDE 4
kapman - pac-man clone for KDE 4
kblocks - a falling blocks game for KDE
konquest - simple turn-based strategy game for KDE 4
kmines - minesweeper game for KDE 4
kbattleship - battleship board game for KDE 4

Happy trying out the games.

MYSQL GUI Tools for Linux

2009-03-01T00:23:00.003+08:00

I was looking for tools to administer MySQL 5 server and noticed today the http://www.sun.com is not available. Cant figure out why so I didnt get a chance to test the MySQL Workbench.

I am trying this on a Kubuntu 7.10 with kernel 2.6.27-11 and the database as MySQL 5.0.67.

KMySQLAdmin
This is a pretty simple tool to use. It connects well.

Installation:
Install from synaptics or at the command line type
sudo apt-get install kmysqladmin

At the command line type kmysqladmin

mysql-admin
This comes with the MySQL database and is simple to use.

Installation:
Install from synaptics or at the command line type
sudo apt-get install mysql-admin

This will provide two applications.

MySQL Administrator
MySQL Query

To run, choose the KMenu ->Application ->Development ->MySQL Administrator

This really is really useful to manage MySQL servers.

Drawing Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)

2009-02-28T23:35:00.004+08:00

Linux provides a number of resources to draw ERD for database designing. One such application is known as GNU Ferret that also generates the SQL syntax in the form of SQL92, MySQL, Postgresql and GerwinML. GNU Ferret is written in Tcl/Tk language and is formerly known as GerWin.

Installation:
Use synaptic to install ferret or at the Ubuntu Linux command line type

sudo apt-get install ferret

Ferret
Start the program from KMenu ->Application ->Development ->Ferret.

The first tab provides the project name and location to save the project.

The ER Diagram tab allows the design of the ERD itself in very simple form.

The Table Diagram tab shows the tables that will represent the ERD.

The Output tab generates the SQL statements for databases such as MySQL, Prostgresql and any SQL92 form.

Conclusion:
A simple application that works! You can join at http://www.gnuferret.org/

Backup first step - mounting remote disk

2009-02-26T10:27:00.004+08:00

This will be a series on back up of files to remote data.

Firstly, the disk needs to be mounted and here we will use the sshfs utilities. This allows us to use backup tools to use remote directory as a normal directory.

Install the tools
$ sudo apt-get install sshfs

Create the disk and mount
$ mkdir /mnt/nicholas
$ sshfs nicholas@servername.com:/home/nicholas /mnt/nicholas

$ mount
nicholas@servername.com:/home/nicholas on /mnt/nicholas type fuse.sshfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,max_read=65536,user=oscc)

Remove the mount
$ fusermount -u /mnt/nicholas

Thunderbird mail storage.

2009-02-24T08:37:00.002+08:00

Thunderbird under the hood I can find some interesting files. I could identify a few of them;

On a Kubuntu 8.10 system the Thunderbird profile and email box is stored in $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/someprofile.default

For example:
$HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/izvwsxcs.default/

The default profile can be set in the file $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/profiles.ini

Here is an example:
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=6wpi8gaz.default

[Profile1]
Name=Nicholas
IsRelative=1
Path=izvwsxcs.default
Default=1

In example above, my profile is izvwsxcs.default. In that folder, you can find that the emails are stored in the email box oscc.org.my
$HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/izvwsxcs.default/ImapMail/mail.oscc.org.my

Emails are stored into two files (in above folder).
The email contents: A file with no extension
The email header: A mail summary file (.msf) extension

Recording desktop session

2009-02-20T16:23:00.005+08:00

In preparation for a presentation for an OSS Seminar at CIAST this 25 Feb, a demo of the desktop is required. KUbuntu comes with several desktop recording packages.

istanbul
ffmpeg
KRecordmyDesktop

KRecordmyDesktop
KRecordmyDesktop is a KDE application to record desktop session. Command to install is

sudo apt-get install krecordmydesktop recordmydesktop

Then run the program from a terminal (CLI).

$ krecordmydesktop

At the panel, right click the KrecordmyDesktop and start recording. This will save the session as an .ogg file. Most Linux movie players can use the .ogg file.

I found that the KRecordmyDesktop did not have any delay to start/end recording. This resulted in having to use the recordmydesktop program directly.

The recordmydesktop
This is a program that can record a desktop and save it on the fly OR when the recording ends. Frontends to this is the KRecordmyDesktop and grecorgmydesktop.

Recording can be done at the command line which saves to the file out.ogv by default;

recordmydesktop --no-sound -delay 3 -o filename

The default control keys during a record session:

1. Pause / Resume recording - Ctrl+Alt+p
2. Stop recording - Ctrl+alt+s

More details can be found at recordmydesktop.

Viewing in AVI
To convert the .ogg to .avi install ffmpeg or mencoder. The tools are run at a terminal to convert the .ogg file.

The ffmpeg

Step 1: Install the program. Include the dependency files of libavdevice52 libimlib2.

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Step 2: Start the converter. The -target, -r and -s is optional.

ffmpeg -i kdesession.ogg -target vcd -s vga -r 52 kdesession3.avi

The mencoder
Alternative encoder is mencoder (used with mplayer).

Step 1: Install mencoder.

sudo apt-get install mencoder

Step 2: Convert the .ogg file to .avi with no sound effects.

mencoder kdesession.ogg -ovc lavc -nosound -o kdesession3.avi

There are lots of configuration options in ffmpeg and mencoder from the help files.

Photos not working in OOOP-Accessories 2.3

2009-02-20T10:24:00.003+08:00

The OpenOffice.org (OOo) 2.4 and 3 comes with a limited number of graphics for the gallery. Users can collect their own graphics (photos, cliparts and etc.) or install the add-ons such as OOOP-Accessories for OOo. Since OOo 2.4 I have kept the OOOP-Accessories 2.3.1.2.oxt file and it works with OOo 3.0.1 very well.

However, on the Kubuntu Linux all the options to use the Photos have been wrongly linked. After installation, the user need to open a prompt (command line terminal) and create a link to the correct location of the graphics. I have recorded this online sometime ago, but have not gone to find it back.

The instruction here is for installation for the local user.

Step 1: Enter into the OOo gallery directory.

cd ~/.openoffice.org/3/user/gallery

Step 2: Find the installed OOOP-Accessories directory.

find . -name "Photos" -type d
Output
../uno_packages/cache/uno_packages/TzY7IS_/OOOP-accessories-2.3.1.2.oxt/gallery/Photos

Step 3: Use the directory in previous step, to create a link to the Photos directory.

ln -s ../uno_packages/cache/uno_packages/TzY7IS_/OOOP-accessories-2.3.1.2.oxt/gallery/Photos

The gallery photos can be accessed via any of the OpenOffice.org Writer, Calc or Impress.

Killing programmes in KDE

2009-02-09T00:19:00.007+08:00

I just came across my first program freezing in KDE 4.2 and realised that that there are many KDE users who will encounter such cases familiar to MS Window users.

The common command line method to KILL the programme or process is the same as any other Linux/Unix system. How about for those who are more keen to use the GUI to control such programmes or processes? In Linux they can be Killed (terminated), reduced its priority or paused to allow other processes to gain back CPU and memory resources.

There are two main programmes involved here;

xkill
ksysguard

To terminate a programme (Window Client)
Step 1: Start Xkill.
Any where on the Desktop press Ctrl+Alt+Esc

Step 2: Select the programme to terminate.
An 'X' appears as the mouse cursor. Use this to select the programme to terminate.

List processes and terminate a programme/process
Step 1: Start the process view in ksysguard
Any where on the Desktop press Ctrl+Esc

Step 2: Select the programme to terminate.
Scroll down the list of processes and right click its name. Choose Kill Process.

So, those MS Window's user will have to get used to something other than Ctrl+Alt+Del to terminate a programme.

KDE 4.2 with Dual Monitor

2009-01-29T17:52:00.006+08:00

I just upgraded to KDE4.2 today on Kubuntu Interpid. One of the first items I am testing is the ability to use the display on my laptop and the monitor/projector at the same time. This is known as multihead and previously the Xinerama was used to have two different screens with one X server (the engine behind the graphics display on Linux).

The KDE 4.2 Plasma control (top right corner of the screen) Zoom Out function allowed the laptop screen to have a different background and widget from the monitor/projector. This really made an impressive environment for customisation.

This is great for presentation as the OpenOffice.org 3 have full capability to show the slides on one screen while previewing on another screen. The KDE4.2 provided the variable KDE_MULTIHEAD=false that allowed the same display for both the displays. Initially I changed this environment variable to true, but nothing happened.

The Intel site http://intellinuxgraphics.org/dualhead.html gave some good tips to get what I was looking for. The steps below allowed the multihead function to work when the VGA cable is plugged at the Login screen. To revert back to the dual head (where both laptop and monitor/projector displayed the same output), return to the Login screen and unplug the VGA cable. The X server should be restarted.

Step 1: Backup the /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Step 2: Replace the xorg.conf with the following

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
Option "FramebufferCompression" "off"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "internal"
Option "monitor-VGA" "external"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "internal"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "external"
Option "RightOf" "internal"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "internal"
Device "Configured Video Device"
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 2560 1024
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "false"
EndSection

Step 3: Reset the X server
Logout and restart the X by pressing Alt+e
Login again and you should have the new setting applied.

Install Java6 on Kubuntu Linux

2009-01-21T08:47:00.007+08:00

After having a stable KDE 4.1.9, I decided to test the Java compiler installation from Sun.

How to select the default Java
More than one Java can be installed at a time on Linux. The default Java can be set by user. If you have Java installed, then choose the correct version:

Check the current Java or JRE
java -version
Check the installed Java JDK
update-java-alternatives --list
Select default Sun's Java or JRE
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun
Example output of installed Java
java-6-openjdk 1061 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk
java-6-sun 63 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun

Installing java
Step 1. Be connected to the Internet. Check the Java version and details prior to installation then install Sun Java Development Kit.

apt-cache show sun-java6-jdk
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-doc sun-java6-demo

Step 2. The JDK documentation installation requires the file from Sun Website. Download the Java Doc files from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/
Select Java SE 6 Documentation and download to /tmp.

Step 3. Select default Sun's Java or JRE
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

Step 4. Apply the Java compiler path in ~/.bash_profile
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

Step 5. Install Eclipse 3.2 IDE
sudo apt-get install eclipse eclipse-jdt

Compiling Java
Create the first Java program, compile then execute.

Step 1: Below is the traditional Hello World example for the Java program called Hello.java

class Hello {
public static void main( String args[]){
System.out.println( "Hello World");
}
}

Step 2. Compile.

javac Hello.java

Step 3. Execute.

Java Hello

KDE 4.2 beta is great, wireless not

2009-01-14T20:43:00.005+08:00

After the KDE 4.2 upgrade things seem very promising. Here is my Desktop with the Desktop applet, clock, sticky note, crystal monitor 8, Dolphin file browser and the panel (bottom of screen).

The KMenu with widget style "cleanlooks" and windows decoration as "Oxygen" looked strange with the black borders. Commonly accessed applications works very well, including the OOo3.0.1.

After upgrade the networking broke (most annoying was the wireless). Following are replacements apps;

1. KWlan
The KWlan which comes from standard ubuntu repositories provided a nice applet to replace the the default network manager. But the installation removed the initial KNetwork Manager which stopped the Network Manager. Wireless was still not working properly as I did not see the WPA option, only WEP connection was available. Checked the iwl3945 but it gave a blank output;

sudo modinfo iwl3945

You need to restart networking with the following command;

sudo /etc/init.d/networking start

2. wcid
Wicd is an alternative tool which is not dependant on KDE. With installation instructions from wicd, it brought back networking to normal state. Future Kubuntu may include wicd.

Step 1: Add the wicd repository.
Open Adept (add/remove software) and add the third party repository

deb http://apt.wicd.net intrepid extras

Step 2: Add the wicd key.

wget -q http://apt.wicd.net/wicd.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Step 3: Install wicd.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wicd

Step 4: Configure the wired/wireless. Type

wicd

Select wired/wireless name and choose the small triangle to expand the menu. Enter the requied fields and choose "Connect". This shows a blinking colour for data tx/rx. Simple and nice!

Improved KDE 4.2

2009-01-10T14:17:00.004+08:00

Following the KDE progress to KDE 4.2 indicates that lots of the problems/bugs I am facing in Intrepid's KDE 4.1 can be resolved. Primary reason to use the KDE 4.2 beta 2 is to resolve an issue of OOo3 from PPA that works on GNOME but crashes in KDE 4.1.

Common error line running OOo3.0.1 was

QPainter::begin: A paint device can only be painted by one painter at a time.
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active

Installation is is based on Kubuntu News (http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2-beta-2)
I do not have koffice-data-kde4, installed so skipped that step.

Step 1: Start Adept Installer.
In the Sources, enable the Recomended Updates
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-experimental/ubuntu intrepid main

Step 2: Install the KDE

Step 3: Apply the KDE 4.2
Now log out and press Alt + E to restart X. When you log in you will have KDE 4.2 Beta 2
Reference:

Remove OpenOffice.org from Kubuntu

2009-01-04T20:30:00.004+08:00

The initial OpenOffice.org 3.0 gives a continuous error as shown below.

QPainter::begin: A paint device can only be painted by one painter at a time.
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active

Here, I explain how to remove the OpenOffice.org installed via the Kubuntu mainstream.

Step 1: Completely remove any instance of OOo.
sudo apt-get remove openoffice.org* ooobasis*