Doing things again... part three

So, last week my harddisk on lappysaurus crashed. It had been acting strangely the last couple of weeks and I managed to make a up-to-date backup in time. Sigh. Fortunately, I have next-day onsite HP support, so at least that bit was pretty painless.
Anyways, I'll just repeat the steps I did in February. Nothing exciting there. Just two notes: Suspend works now and also, remember to try the live-cd before actually installing stuff. A driver for the wireless thingy is missing and it is impossible to enable wireless to install it, so the computer must be hooked to a wired connection in order to install it yadda yadda.

Doing things again part two

I'm basically just doing things on-the-go and there's really no need to document it since I did the exact same thing about six months ago. Well, I changed the power preferences since lappysaurus has some problems with the different power settings - it can't suspend (classic problem) so I'm just blanking out the screen. Yadda yadda.

lappysaurus: Doing it all again

15.55: Correction: I will not attempt to copy the my home dir since I only have a 4GB card... sigh. Onwards with the customizing!

15.58: Fixed panels. Basically just following this one here.

15.59: Installing Google Chrome. Hoho, Chrome allows you do choose different seach engines for the omnibox: Google, bing or Yahoo. Noble enough, yes?

16.02: Thunderbird? I guess so... still really no alternative. Make sure the software sources are okay.

16.05: Argh. The visual effects gotta go. Set them to normal under System -> Preferences and the background? Black. Desktop theme is kept though. No moar black'n'white, no.

16.16: Whoops. Got stuck playing with Google Gravity. Very nice! Anyways, configured chrome with a couple of extentions (backspace, google experiment, page rank), see other linky.

16.21: Omigod. I'm not gonna change the colours in the terminal (sigh, all these first world-problems...). But I will configure shortcuts.

16.24: Oh noes, the trackpad toggle-bug is still here. Annoying. Have to restart. Gah.

16.25: Keyboard shortcut for terminal: Browser: Alt+Del, email: Alt+Ins, Home folder: Alt+Home, terminal: Alt+F2.

16.32: Basically just doing everything in this post. Time for a break afterwards, I think.

16.35: Oh no, why is Chrome brown like ubuntu '08? Don't like!

16.35: Well, not installing Evolution. Though I'm still not satisfied with thunderbird...

16.41: Blobblob. The update manager is running, so can't really install programs. Waaaiting.

16.42: In the meanwhile I'll try to do something about the awful colors in chrome.

16.43: Ok, now it's baby blue like windows... crap.

16.45: Hmm, it helped to download the Default theme and then choosing the GTK theme afterwards. Weird. Anyway, happy camper now.

16.56: Now installing all the programs. Then a restart and emacs/texlive. Easypeasy.

17.09: Whoops. Totally forgetting to do stuff. Ok, so emacs 23 and texlive-full.

17.45: Done (probably for some time now). Time to stop for today.

Yes! New laptop: lappysaurus (yeah yeah, rerun)

So I finally got around to buy a new laptop. The choice: HP Elitebook 2530p. Yes, I'm that creative. In my defense, I got it for a nickel... well, almost: 2900 dkk. And that's a damn fine price - I paid 4450 dkk for the other one (and yes, I did check if the new puter has the same serial number... thankfully, it has not) and this is a computer that is sold for 13-17k dkk - yes, a way-too-high price compared to specs, I suspect it is expensive since it's not that common in Denmark, except as a business computer in the larger 15" - with a full numpad. Fools.

Anyways. Enough ranting. I've already installed ubuntu 10.1o on lappysaurus (not feeling creative in the namemaking - and since lappysaurus the first only lived about six months, I've taken the liberty to name the new one the same. The other alternative was "mmmpatter" (eh, something like yyyumboobs, I guess?), as I said, not feelin' it, no).

Now I'll copy all the files onto lappysaurus. I will not track that process, since it's pretty straightforward (hear that, future-Lan?). Anyways I'll be back.

Grr. Somebody stole my laptop

Jup. Somebody stole my laptop (lappysaurus) last Tuesday (7 December). Bastards! The weirds thing is: They unplugged it from the charger and ran away with it... without the charger. Thieves are the scum of evolution and consquently, they're all suffering from shrunken brains. Well, that's my conclusion, at least. Anyways. That means I'll have to get myself a brand new lappie soon - probably in the Christmas vacation where I have time to drool over way-to-expensive-laptops and fugly-but-cheapo-plastic-machines. Great. I'm using evillan in the meanwhile. Gonna need some gaffa though. You can see some 'puter chips through the cracked case. Whoops.
Over aaand out.

From thunderbird to evolution to offline gmail... ish

10.35: Getting tired of evolution as well. The address book is very buggy and there's a lot of unneccesarry clicking going on when I use the program. I'm going to try offline gmail instead.

10.36: Just joined the Priority Inbox Beta. I don't get an obscene amount of email, fortunately, but it is still nifty. And I like new and shiny things.

10.38: Okay, so I need to install Google Gears for offline gmail to work. Unfortunately, i get this error message: ""Google Gears" could not be installed because it is not compatible with your Firefox build type (Linux_x86-gcc3). Please contact the author of this item about the problem." Will google a bit.

10.40: Hmm, I'm trying this simple guide, that is, installing xul-ext-gears. Hopefully it will work.

10.41: Crap, it didn't work, I get the same error message. More googling ahoy!

10.44: Hmm. Trying to do this: "Exit Firefox, go into the profile folder, delete extensions.cache, extensions.ini, and extensions.rdf and restart Firefox. It should re-detect all installed extensions and rebuild their paths."

10.47: Just needed to restat firefox, Google Gears is chilling in the Extension section now. Great!

10.51: Installing and syncing.

10.52: While I'm at it, I'll disable Ctrl+q as an exit-button. It's too close to the Ctrl+w (close tab).

10.55: Hmm, do you really need to install the keyconfig add-on? I was thinking about:config would to the trick.

11.01: Sigh. keyconfig it is, then.

11.02: Not compatible with my version of firefox. Argh. Okay, I'll just disable Ctrl+q for my whole system. Stupid, but neccessary. I use Alt+F4 anyways.

11.06: Crtl+q is now "Maximise window". Right.

11.09: Hmm, Offline gmail is not working. Will try to restart browser, and if that's not working, computer.

11.15: Not working after two restarts. And everytime I restart firefox, it says I have installed a new add-on (gears). Confuzzled?

11.19: Later. Too tired to do this right now.

Going back to firefox and something about rm

11.52: Okay. I've had it with Chrome. There are just too many things I miss, so I'm going back to firefox. Here is a list of pro and cons for future reference (from a Chrome point of view):
Pros: Faster than firefox, feels less bloater, better use of space, address bar and url bar are integrated, netbanking works.
Cons: Will not save user logins (getting annoying. Really, it shouldn't be a problem), not possible to delete items in the drop down of the address bar, doesn't have the right click-> google search when something is highlighted (why-oh-why?), can't set about:blank to home page, few add-ons, no about:config functionalities.
Overall, I think it's pretty obvious that Chrome is a much younger browser than firefox. Unfortunately, I think all the cons outweigh the pros, and I'll use firefox until the problems are corrected. So long, Ch(romeo).

11.53: Wee, add-ons to firefox. Following previously written thingy. The old link to Adblock is dead, here is the correct one. Also trying to install STOP! Hammertime even though it's not updated for my current version of firefox.

12.07: Nonono, the STOP! Hammertime add-on is not working. Crap.

12.09: Okay, now removing buttons and collapsing the tool bars.

12.10: Tada.

12.11: Okay, I want the terminal to ask me every time I delete an item.

12.24: Hmm, apparently more difficult to find on google than I expected. My google-fu is weak. Ok, so I added alias "rm='rm -i'" and "alias kk='ll'" to my .bashrc. However, I did find a nifty guide to placing removed files in the Trash folder.

12.29: Last thing: Evolution. Don't really like it yet. There are still things that annoy me, byt thunderbird is just as bad. Gah.

More evolution, dropbox, netbanking and emacs/LaTeX

17.50: Currently copying all files from evillan to lappysaurus. I only have a 2 GB USB stick, oh lordy. This is gonna take some time.

17.54: It seems pretty easy to import the calendar from google: File -> New -> Calendar and the rest is self-explanatory.

18.00: And done. Also imported google contacts. Easy peasy, it's the same concept as the calendar. Very nice. I'm already liking evolution a lot more than thunderbird which does not have the two functionalities. Or maybe it does, I never actually checked.

18.02: However, the contacts interface: Not so pretty. Don't like to scroll sideways, you have to use the mouse. Yuck.

18.03: Netbanking. Uh-oh. And maybe the NemID (digital signature in DK).

18.08: Hmm, Chrome just returns a blank page. Will try with firefox where I know it works on evillan.

18.09: Aha. I don't have java installed. Synaptics, here I come.

18.18: Okay, so I had to change the 'Software sources' in System -> Administration. The first option (partner) in 'Other Software" needs to be checked. Remember to close all programs related to Synatics etc. Then, in order to install java, search after java6 in synaptics (or whatever version). Mark all the packages for installation and do ur thang. I'll try to restart Chrome.

18.23: Yay, it's working. Great.

18.26: Still copying files. Found my 4 GB ssd card. Well, it helps. Dropbox is next.

18.28: Delicious, dropbox has deb files waiting for me.

18.31: Dropbox is syncing away. Great. Now: emacs. Going for the emacs23. Don't really know the difference between that one and emacs22. Oh well.

18:34: There is one game left. gbrainy survived. Kiiill!

18.36: emacs is in the house. But have to configure the system. First, LaTeX.

18.38: Going for texlive-full. Yikes. 151 files. About 15 min to download.

18.39: Wonder if findbolig.nu works in chrome. Certainly didn't in firefox - the only page I had to use IE via crossover.

18.44: Nope. Only works with IE. Crap site.

18.45: lappysaurus is syncing dropbox files, downloading texlive packages and transferring files to the home dir from evillan. Slooow computer, hard at work.

18.47: Nothing to do while waiting. Will go grab dinner.

Subscribing to RSS feeds in Evolution

13.17: Back on. Why isn't Chrome saving my login data on gmail (just the username)?

13.26: Apparently, there is no solution to the problem. Weird, since I've used Chrome on friend's computers before, where the browser did remember the username. And really annoying. Hmm, hope it will change the next time I use it.

13.30: In order to subscribe to RSS feeds you have to install the Evolution RSS Reader Plugin. Stupid, that should definitely be a built in functionality. Installing evolution-rss through synaptics.

13.33: Evolution will not close down, it's indexing messages. Killing it through top.

13.42: How do I make subfolders in my rss subscription? Also, evolution has crashed twice within ten minutes. Not cool.

13.48: Okay, the rss feeds are under the 'On the computer'-folder. And it is not possible to move. That's annoying. I can't even place the gmail inbox on top, grr. Guess I'll have to live with it.

13.53: Aha. Found a way to create subfolders in my rss. Not very intuitive, but okay. Will begin to import my rss feeds manually now.

14.05: It's kinda annoying that Chrome doesn't have the little RSS icon in the address bar. Different pages have their RSS feeds all over the place.

14.31: Aaand done. I have other stuff to do now. Will fix calendar import and netbanking later.

lappysaurus: More panels, CAPS LOCK and email programs

11.57: The top panel is moving down too quickly when I mouse over it, I think. Run gconf-editor, go to /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/unhide_delay and set the value to 500 ms instead of the default 100 ms, thank you internet.

12.02: I would like to change the CAPS LOCK button to Ctrl instead, since I never use caps locks. And I always use Ctrl. IMO, caps lock, along with the windows button, is the most useless button. Ever. System -> Preferences -> Keyboard and then "Layout options" and "Ctrl key position", linky.

12.09: Would also like to switch the left Ctrl and Fn key. Does not appear to be as easy, will have to mess with the BIOS. Later. Maybe.

12.14: Installing kolourpaint. Evince is already installed. Removing gnome-games-common.

12.17: GIMP, xpdf and gv is next up. In the meantime, I'll find my rss feeds and subscribe.

12.19: In thunderbird: Edit -> Account Setting -> Account Actions (left bottom) -> Add other account. Gah.

12.24: thunderbird is driving me crazy. It is not a very intuitive program. Checking out evolution. Maybe it is time for a change.

12.27: It looks like a cross between thunderbird and outlook.

12.35: Fetching the messages as we speak. This will take some time. I had some problems with the server settings. Anyways, TLS as outgoing, SSL as ingoing.

12.38: Installing GIMP, xpdf and gv (for postscript files).

12.42: Good, messages have been synchronized successfully. Now I need to find out how to subscribe to rss feeds and importing my google calendar. The last thing could be really nice - thunderbird does not have that functionality. But first...

12.44: Lunch!

Terminals and shortcuts on lappysaurus

13.03: I like terminals with black backgrounds and #FFFFDD font. Pretty. And I use F3 as keyboard shortcut to open a new terminal.

13.07: Is that it? Hmm, can't think of more to change. Thunderbird is still downloading and indexing messages.

13.08: Actually, I would like a keyboard shortcut to open a browser and thunderbird - used to the hot keys on evillan.

13.15: Gah. And the plot thickens. Apparently there's a hotkey for diasbling the trackpad - fine if you're writing and accidentally keep touching the trackpad. But it also disables the keyboard, and even when you toggle it on again, the keyboard is not working. Not optimal. Will try to disable it.

13.22: Launch browser: Alt+Del. Launch email client: Alt+Insert.

13.28: Can't really find a solution to the toggle trackpad-button. I guess I'll just try to not push it.

Thunderbird and more on lappysaurus

11.55: Installing PageRank on Chrome. Really missed that on firefox, I used it once, but then it fucked up.

11.56: Thunderbird. Imported gmail easily since I already set up the imap thingy, splendid. It's downloading 7552 headers now.

12.00: And now it's downloading all the messages. Good lordy. This may take some time. I'll find my rss feeds and subscribe in the meanwhile, then.

12.16: Gah, it crash. Probably thunderbird. Had to restart. Hmm, it seems a bit buggy and bloated. Will wait with rss feed for now, instead I'll change the appearance of ubuntu to good old black and white fugliness.

12.28: Aaand done. Welcome home.

12.28: Need to restart lappysaurus after installed updates. Also, need to go outside to the real life. Brb.

New laptop: HP Elitebook 2530P

Hello world! So. I bought a new laptop. Introducing: HP Elitebook 2590P, also known as lappysaurus. Yes, I'm breaking the "something"-lan tradition because, frankly, I was running out of ideas. I bought lappysaurus as used, but it's only approx. 1,5 years old and has been used 2-3 times. So it's practically like new. Core 2 Duo 1,86 GHz, 4 GB RAM (got 2 GB extra from the seller), 80 GB hd (small, but I don't really need 500 GB like Acer tend to give you), 3 cell Li battery (don't really care about the battery, since I have access to electricity most places I go), 12.1" (but of course!) and approx 1.5 kg heavy. So, just my thing. Unfortunately, I'm not too fond of the design - just ain't digging the silver thing, even though it's not cheap plastics, but an alu/magnesium alloy. I was actually considered buying a ThinkPad X61s, but ruled against it in the end. But that is one hot machine. My sister calls it "blocky", but I like the clean lines and black-black-black.

I've installed ubuntu 9.04 on this machine, it was a lot faster than I remember upgrading 8.04 to 8.10 to 9.04 on evillan. And very smooth. Kudos to ubuntu for serving the masses.

11.10: I've already installed Chrome. On evillan, I found Firefox to be too slow, which may have something to do with the hardware - it got really hot in the end when I used it, even for web browsing. But I like Chrome, it doesn't have a lot of unnecessary toolbars and so on. Also, I like that the address bar is used as a search bas as well, takes up less space. Set the English google as search engine and other small modifications.

11.15: The panels. Ugh. Auto-hide for the top panel with system overviews and clock on the lower panel. Also, I removed Firefox, Help, Clock from the top panel and Trash, Go To Desktop and one of the Desktop Spaces from the lower panel. Decluttering!

11.22: I've decided no to import any settings from evillan - a fresh start. Of course, I'll copy my files, but that's it. So I have to install a number of programs now: emacs, kolourpaint, python, dropbox, evince (?), latex and thunderbird are programs I use on a daily basis. And then probably (i)maxima, maple, gnuplot, chemsketch, wine (although I rarely use it these days - nice!), marvin beans, but I'll probably just install those programs when I need them. I also have to configure about a million things on my latex setup before I'm satisfied. Good thing I have the whole weekend.

11.29: Installing thunderbird through synaptic. Though I've had some problems with the program lately, I can't subscribe to rss feeds and the gmail part looks like a mess.

11.30: Done.

11.32: Backspace as a back button in Chrome, remember to tick the "Activate Backspace for navigation in history object". Also, I've joined Google Experiments Keyboard Shortcuts.

11.37: The visual effects. I don't like them. Set them to normal under Preferences -> Appearance.

11.38: Food. And then I'll configure thunderbird.

minilan: Installing programs

20.34: Installing thunderbird. I've decided to install the majority of the programs I've installed on evillan on this computer too. I'm only using 7.3 GB of 108.1 GB on evillan! So I should have enough SSD space on minilan as well. I've currently used 2.1 GB.

20.38: Installing emacs22. Installing auctex. Since I've uploaded my entire evillan home dir on Dropbox, I can easily pull down all the necessary config files: in particular my .emacs. And my .mozilla-thunderbird. But not my .mozilla, I like the idea of starting anew.

20.42: My happy little eee, humming away. It definitely takes longer time compared to evillan.

20.47: I'll not install Crossover, Maxima, Marvin Beans (and java to support it) or the Gimp. But I'll probably install Maple and kolourpaint. python? We'll see.

20.52: Installing kolourpaint.

20.55: That's about it for now. One last thing: Ubuntu wants my passwords to be over 6 charaters while I prefer an easily crackable 4 character password. I changed it with "sudo passwd ltp", ltp being my username. Excellent.

minilan: Maximizing space in Firefox 3.0

20.18: And I'm at it again. This time around I'm configuring and customizing Firefox 3.0.3. It is basically the same I did with evillan: Installing Tiny Menu and putting the navigation bar, google bar, Menu and Forward/Back button on the same bar. That's really all I need anyway. I primarily use the keyboard for navigation, but when I want to, say, go back 10 pages in Firefox, Alt+Left or BackSpace pressed 10 times become rather cumbersome. I also use Small icons. Other than that, I've just added Flashblock. I removed the Bookmark, Navigation and Status bar. They're taking up my precious space.
I set browser.back in about:config to 0, so pressing BackSpace will make the browser go back in history.

20.30: Just did some minor thing in Edit -> Preferences. Start page is about:blank, typing makes firefox search the page instantly, disabling auto spell-checking, yada yada yada. Personal preferences.

minilan: Maximizing space in ubuntu-eee 8.04

The laptop came pre-installed with ubuntu-eee 8.04 (originally Xandros Linux). After ten minutes, I got annoyed by the "Netbook Remix"-thing and chose to disable it via System -> Preferences -> Sessions and unticking "Maximus" and "Ume Desktop Launcher." Then I removed the "Window Picker" (the large thingy where the current open window is displayed. Right-click it and there you go). I added the System Monitor, standard Gnome Menu and Window List since I don't want any bottom panel. I also removed Sound and configured the clock. Then I chose "Autohide" in the Properties tab and also changed the colors: from black to transparent. In System -> Preferences -> Appearance, I changed the back ground and the window layout to my favorite black/white. I also changed the color setup in bash to "gray on black."
Then I added a shortcut (Alt+F3 opens a terminal). The eee has four smartkeys ("Instant Keys" in the manual) which are placed over the keyboard. The first two from the left are already predefined (backlight and resolution), while the two other can be set. I tried pressing them all and nothing happened. So they're probably not compatible with ubuntu. Since I only need two smartkeys (firefox and thunderbird), I'm using the two to the right. (taptaptap) Hmm, they're not working at all. That sucks. Anyways.

My Asus Eee pc 901 har arrived!

Yes! My Asus Eee pc 901 arrived today. I've already played around with it quite a lot and configured it. And I forgot to document the changes. So the following is based on my memory.

I bought my eee on eBay from some Irish dude. So the keyboard layout is British/Irish, only more weird because the eee is so small and cramped. Example: Next to the Esc button? A button for ` and ¬. Ran-dom. I'm used to a Danish keyboard, so the whole layout seems jumbled up. That's especially the symbols on the right side of the keyboard. I'm probably typing with half the speed compared to my other laptop.
Since my other laptop is 12.1", I'm used to small lappies. The eee... I don't know. At the moment, I'm using BackSpace a lot. Anyways. In future post, I'll prefix the title with the name of the computer. My main computer - the 12.1" one - is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V3205 with a Intel Core Duo 1.86 GHz cpu, 1 GB RAM and 120 GB HD. Nothing fancy. It's about 15 months old. I call it evillan.
The eee is bought used, but there is really not any visible signs. I have named it minilan. Lame, I know.
Efficiency on my computer is very important to me. I generally don't like to fiddle with the touchpad, it's to unprecise and clumsy. Well, my favorite editor is emacs, 'nuff said. I also have very specific things and configurations on my computer so I often get frustrated when I'm using another computer and some feature is missing or some keyboard shortcut hasn't been defined.
That was a bit about me and my computers.

ChemSketch 11.0 again

15.41: I can't find ChemSketch 10.0 on acdlabs.com.

15.42: Removing ChemSketch 11.0 again.

15.48: It works now, just like before. Let's see if it still works after I've shut it down.

15.50: Nope. All the start menus pop up (four different!), but I can't get the main program going.

15.53: Installing the DCOM98 thingy again, might be the problem. Huh.

15.54: Now DCOM98 appears on the list of installed software, was not there before. Uninstalling ChemSketch as well.

16.03: In good ol' Windows style, I have to restart. I'll do that... later.

16.06: Saving the .exe file (installer file) in my home dir this time, instead of opening it with CrossOver right away.

16.08: Ah, the ChemSketch folder is still there. I'm "rm -rf"-ing it now. Much better.

16.12: And working. It's stuck at the last bit.

16.14: In the meanwhile: I just finished uploading my home dir to my Dropbox account. It's only 915 MB (!) after I emptied the Trash. Well, before i reinstalled ubuntu I chose not to backup all my Douglas Coupland stuff (jPod - the tv series (it sucked, btw), an audio recording of Microserfs, Everything's gone green and other minor stuff), so I don't really have that much garbage. The Dropbox account offers 2 GB. I was worried that the 20 GB SSD on my Asus Eee PC 901 was to small, does not look like it now.

16.22: Installation of ChemSketch is done. But it is not opening at all, not even the start menus. That sucks.

Installing ChemSketch 11.0 under CrossOver Linux Pro

10.15: Installing DCOM98 (according to the CodeWeavers' database, I have to install this first) via Applications -> Crossover -> Install Windows Software, and the select DCOM98 from the list. ChemSketch is not supported by Crossover, but "this application has been minimally tested and found to install and run, or has been reported by others to install and run." That is the 10.0-version, however.

10.18: "Simulating a Windows reboot." Cute.

10.20: "The installation of DCOM98 failed: DCOM98 does not seem to be installed (note that this may be normal if you installed a different version than expected)." Trying to install ChemSketch 11.0 anyways.

10.24: It's working. Sweet.

10:32: It hangs a bit, when I try to open the program again. The two start menus appear, but the nothing happens. I'm trying to open it with wine.

10.40: Nope. Had to kill it manually. This is very frustrating. Perhaps I should install the 10.0-version. I think I'll remove wine.

10.42: Removing wine via aptitude.

10.43: This may seem banal, but I really like the new tabs feature in Nautilus. Now wine is gone. I'll remove the gnome-games too.

1045: I'll return to the ChemSketch issue later.

Installing CrossOver Linux pro and Dropbox

10.28: One of the goals in CodeWeaver's Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge was reached, and there was free (as in beer) software for the people. I just installed the CrossOver Linux Pro. I hope ChemSketch works on this platform. Ater all, CodeWeaver is sponsoring wine so I don't hope it'll work as bad as wine does with ChemSketch. Anyways, " gksudo sh install-crossover-pro-7.1.0.sh" and a graphical interface pops up.

10.34: Dropbox is really cool. When I get my Eee, I definitely want to be able to access documents and files on the other computers. Also very useful in general, and it is not such a hassle as setting up my own server. Because that would be overkill anyway. I " sudo dpkg -i nautilus-dropbox_0.5.0-1_i386_ubuntu_8.10.deb" and added
"deb http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu intrepid main" to /etc/apt/sources.list.

10.47: The rest is just a very nice graphical interface. And done.