Techiegeeks.com

I’ve been using Ubuntu 8.10 since it’s release and so far so good.  It’s a great OS and everything is running smoothly.  And since I’m a true geek, that does not make me happy.  OpenOffice 3.0 did not make the Ibex cut, but I wanted it anyway.  And what better way to screw up your Ubuntu install than to remove OOo 2.4 and upgrade to OOo 3.0.

The actual install is very easy.  It just invovles downloading the .deb file from OpenOffice, extract it and run the .deb file with dpkg.  I found an excellent tutorial  over at Tombuntu.com that walks you through the install.  It even walks you through removing the old Office programs.  This was very simple to do and everything worked fine.  The only thing I have to do is to handle all the file associations.

I’m currently working on building a media server running Ubuntu Ibex 8.10.  So far I have LAMP and Webmin installed.

My current goals are:

• Host and stream Divx movies and shows
• Host all of out digital pics.  I’d like to store all of our pics on the server and have people access them through a web browser.  I’d like to have access both inside and outside of our network.  I’ll probably use Gallery or some sort of web app.
• Anything else that seems interesting.

Anyone have any good ideas?  Let me know.  I’ll post as I go along.

As I mentioned earlier, I needed uTorrent installed on my Ubuntu PC at home.  Now that we have WINE installed and working, we can now get uTorrent running.

Once again, we are going to head over to UbuntuGuide.org and drill down to the uTorrent section.

I finished downloading a file that was in rar format.  I browsed to the directory that the file was located in.  I then right-clicked on Open with “Archive Manager” as I always did with previous versions of Ubuntu.  I was then greeted with a lovely error message stating that it was an unknown file format.  Well whatever should I do?

I immediately went to Ubuntu forums to search for an answer.  It turns out that I needed to install RAR to make it work.  So go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.  Do a search for RAR, and mark for install by clicking on the box.  Click Apply then input your sudo password and away you go.  You will now be able to unrar RAR files.

Today I decided that I needed to run uTorrent on Ubuntu.  I know that there are other Bit Torrent program that run natively on Linux (or Ubuntu), but I am really comfortable with uTorrent.   So in order to do that I needed WINE.  From the WINE website:  Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.  So how do you do that you ask?  Well I haven’t a clue, but I know how to find the answer. Read more…

Since I’ve upgraded to Ubuntu 7.04,Ive had problems with fonts in Firefox on certain pages.  I’ve had this problem with previous versions of Ubuntu and would always forget the solution. Each upgrade (I usually do a clean install, I usually screw around with my pc too much to safely upgrade. Or so I think.)  I would tinker with Firefox’s font settings, to no avail.

Well, the solution is very easy. It turns out I needed Microsoft True Type Core Fonts (msttcorefonts package) installed. Installing the fonts is very easy with Ubuntu. You can do it from Synaptec Package Manager. This is how I did it: (I’ll put it step by step)

• Click on System > Administration > Synaptec Package Manager
• Type in your password
• Search for msttcorefonts
• Select the package and click on Apply
• The package will now install

After it’s done, restart Firefox and the fonts should look fine.

Or as a user on Ubuntu Forums put it:  “He he he, or you could just type “sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts” and hit enter. ”.

As a good Geek, I try to keep up with current events. I get most of my news from Fox News or CNN. I did have one problem with Fox News, I couldn’t view the videos with Ubuntu (I am using Edgy Eft). Well that is until now. I stumbled across a fix on Ubuntu Forums, and now I am happily viewing the videos on Fox News.

Anyway, on to the fix. First you need to install the Greasemonkey addon for Firefox. You will need to restart Firefox for the add on to take start working. Then you need to add the FoxNews Friendly Video script. Just click the link on the top right hand side stating install this script.

And that’s it. Cruise on over to Fox News and enjoy the videos!

Tired of blowing out your old cartridges and don’t want to shell out your hard earned cash for a wii? Here is a step by step guide to build a Nintendo NES with PC components inside. Enjoy all those old favorites and have all the functionality of a PC in the coolest case on your block.  Click here for the full tutorial.

Check out this guide for getting the original gamepads to work.

I found this on Digg.  I would be interested to see if this works.  I have a Phillips DVD player that plays XVID file perfectly, and CDs are cheaper that DVDs.  It is a simplified script to create a Backup of your DVDs to avi files using xvid codec. Tested on Ubuntu Dapper and Edgy.  Check it out here.

I found a cool How-To while browsing Ubuntuforums.org the other day. It’s a how-to for setting up Continuum, a great game from back in the day. Any pc running Ubuntu will have not problems running this game. It’s a mutliplayer Asteriod / Space war style game, and it’s a blast to play. If your looking to kill some time definitly check out this game.

Continuum How-To.

“Spacepaintings” shows us how to make a simple tattoo gun using a toothbrush and other household supplies. According to this video, it will take you 10-minutes or less to build this gadget.

read more | digg story