Recently, I ran some updates and my theme automagically changed. This is annoying, but I need to go to work, so I’ll have to look into it later. However, I can’t possibly leave the house without at least disabling the annoying little clicks that make noise every time I click something. Here’s what I did:

• Go to: System -> Preferences -> Sound
• Find the drop-down box entitled ‘Sound theme’.
• Choose ‘No sounds’.
• Enjoy the sound of silence….

(Also, I made sure the mute button for ‘Alert volume’ was ticked, just in case.)

I’m running Ubuntu 10.04 and GNOME 2.30.2 on this machine.  (Yeah, yeah, I know I need to upgrade, but I’m avoiding GNOME 3.  I watched the SO struggle with Mint for awhile, and am considering The Next Step.  But that’s another rant/post.)

This seems to differ slightly between different versions of Windows. The following works for Windows 7 Professional (Version 6.1, Build 7601: Service Pack 1).

Click the Windows icon start menu button (usually at the lower left) which may look like this:

Click on ‘Control Panel’.

Click on ‘Ease of Access’

Click on ‘Ease of Access Center’

Click on ‘Change how your mouse works’

Under the ‘Make it easier to manage windows’ heading, tick the box next to the option that says ‘Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen’

Click ‘OK’

Click the Start button or Windows icon. Usually this is in the bottom right corner. It may not say ‘Start’; instead, it might look something like this:

In the search box where you can freely enter text (which may or may not say ‘Search programs and files’ in light grey letters), type:

winver

and a pop-up window should appear telling you the version of windows.

At the command line, type:

python

Once you’re running python, type:


import django
django.get_version()


You’ll get an output like:


'1.1.1'


which tells you you’re running Django version 1.1.l…although hopefully you’ll be running a newer version! : )

(In Ubuntu 10.10 and others, you can get to a command line prompt by selecting Application -> Accessories -> Terminal from the desktop toolbar.)

I recently spent way too much time faffing with trying to listen to one of my favourite NPR shows of all time: Car Talk. I’m running Ubuntu 10.04 so the iTunes option is a bit of a faff** and I had trouble with the play-online option.

Thus, I went on a search for a Ubuntu Car Talk podcast strategy that I’d be happy recommending to my parents. The winner is gPodder. (There may be others equally good or better, but I came across this one quite early in my search and it does the job.)

Here’s how to install it and get Car Talk up and running:

Open Synaptic Package Manager. On Ubuntu 10.4 and others, this can be found under System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager. (You may have to enter your password to open Synaptic.)

Once Synaptic is open, you should see a box entitled ‘Quick search’ at the top. Click the mouse in this box, type in ‘gpodder’ then click enter. A package called ‘gpodder’ should come up in the search results.

If this program is already installed, there will be a version number listed in the ‘Installed Version’ column. If it isn’t installed, click the tickbox to the left of ‘gpodder’ and choose ‘Mark for installation’. You may be asked to install other files which support gpodder – this kind of message usually comes up in a box titled ‘Mark additional required changes?’. Agree to install these other files by clicking on the button labelled ‘Mark’.

Once you are done with all of that, click the button with the green tick and the words ‘Apply’ at the top of the main Synaptic window. Wait for awhile whilst the package is downloaded and installed. (You will need an internet connection for this.) Eventually, the ‘Applying changes’ window will disappear or give you a message saying that everything has been installed. At this point, you can close the Synaptic window by clicking on the ‘x’ at the top of the window.

Now, you can open gpodder, a nice piece of Ubunutu-friendly podcast software. You can find this in Applications -> Sound & Video -> gPodder Podcast Client.

When you open the client for the first time, you get a little window called the ‘gPodder startup assistant’. There is a button entitled ‘Choose from a list of example podcasts’. Click this button!

This opens a new window called ‘Find new podcasts’. If you click on the ‘Top podcasts’ tab, you’ll find a list with some gems on it. Most importantly, if you scroll down a bit, you’ll find ‘NPR: Car Talk Podcast’!

For each podcast to which you’d like to subscribe, tick the check-box to the left of the podcast. When you’re done, click the ‘Add’ button.

You might then get a window that says ‘New episodes available’. Select which ones you want by ticking the checkboxes next to the episodes (if they’re not already ticked) and then clicking the ‘Download’ button.

Once an episode has downloaded, it will have a little icon next to it under the ‘Status’ column. You can click on the episode to choose it and then click the ‘Play’ button at the top of the window.

You might notice older episodes that are available but that aren’t being automatically downloaded. (This is when you’re in the Podcast tan and you’ve clicked on the title of a certain show to see what episodes are available.) If you want these as well, you can right-click on the show title and choose ‘Download’. Once an episode is downloaded, you can delete it by right-clicking and choosing ‘Delete’.

Also, if you want gPodder to automatically download new episodes, you’ll need to go to Podcasts -> Preferences -> General and tick the boxes under ‘Automatic download of episode list’ which will allow gPodder to know when new episodes are available. You can then go to Podcasts -> Preferences -> Tray Icon. Here you can choose how gPodder is displayed on your computer and you can choose ‘Always automatically download new episodes’ under the ‘Advanced window options’ heading.

Of course, there’s a lot more to gPodder and you may want to use; Help -> User manual is a good place to start if you’re having trouble.

** Archduke did manage to download and play an episode of Car Talk using iTunes with wine, but it was all a bit touch and go, and not something I would recommend in general. When wine/iTunes were running, the display went a bit weird and one got the feeling that Bad Things Might Happen At Any Moment. So…I don’t think that’s a good long-term solution for people who aren’t looking for trouble. It’s very possible that with some tweaking, iTunes works perfectly under wine but life is short and I like gPodder’s simple, straight-forward design.

To add the ‘Universe’ repository, open Synaptic Package Manager by typing System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager and entering your password in the pop-up window.

In the main Synaptic window, go to Settings -> Repositories and then click the ‘Ubuntu Software’ tab. In the ‘Sources’ pop-up, click the tickbox next to the line that reads ‘Community maintained Open Source software (universe)’.

Click ‘Close’ on the pop-up.

This allows one to download programmes from the ‘Universe’ repository using either Synaptic Package Manager or apt-get install.

Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal in Ubuntu 10.04) and type:

less /proc/cpuinfo

This gives a lot of information. Look for the ‘model name’ entry the top of the list.

For example, here are the first several lines of my /proc/cpuinfo:

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 28
model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 800.000
cache size : 512 KB
…

Press the spacebar to go down a ‘page’ and ‘q’ to quit.

Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal in Ubuntu 10.04, for example). Typing:

find . -mtime -1 -print

will find files in the current directory that have been modified in the past 24 hours. The ‘.’ can be replaced with another directory.

Thanks to My Digital Life for the information – this site gives more information and other options.

I often remember only part of something I did before and want to remember how I’ve done something. To easily search through the history, the glorious grep can be invoked like this:

history | grep phrase_to_search_for

If the phrase to search for involves spaces or special characters, then quotes can be used around the phrase:

history | grep ‘phrase to search for’

To search for something with quotes, you can surround your phrase-to-search-for with the ‘other’ kind of quote.

For example,

history | grep ‘phrase to “search” for’

will match

phrase to “search” for

and

history | grep “phrase to ‘search’ for”

will match

phrase to ‘search’ for

If you open a terminal window (in Ubuntu 10.04, go to Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and type

history

this will print out a list of things that have been recently typed at the command line.

If you’re curious, the history is stored in a file called .bash_history which you can view as a file. In Ubuntu, for example, you can open it with gedit by opening a terminal window and typing

gedit .bash_history

at the command line.

Note: if you have two (or more) terminal windows open and are typing commands in all of them, the history of one terminal window won’t know about what you’ve typed in the other window. If you close, say terminal window A, leave terminal window B open. and then open terminal window C, typing history in terminal window C will display what you’ve typed in A but not in B.

Examples of using grep to search through the history are here.