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After installing the latest version of Skype (2.1.0.47) on Karmic I tried to configure it to work with my USB handset but the options didn’t give me a device selection any more. The only option available was PulseAudio with the sound going through my speakers, and my handset mic was not recognised at all.

To rectify this so you can use Skype without the other sounds on your system getting mixed in we need to do the following:

Install PulseAudio Device Chooser – this will install a number of extra packages, including PulseAudio Volume Control

sudo apt-get install padevchooser

Restart your system.

Launch Applications > Sound & Video > PulseAudio Device Chooser – you’ll see its new icon in the notification area. Click it, open Preferences… and select Start applet on session login.

Close the window.

Plug in your handset and start Skype if you haven’t done so already.

Right-click the volume control in the notification area and open Sound Preferences (or open it through System > Preferences).

Click on Input and your handset will be listed there – select it. You probably will have to crank up the Input volume, mine was very low to start with. Close the window.

Click on the PulseAudio Device Chooser icon (the jack) in the notification area and select Volume Control.

You can see that I only have Amarok showing up in the control at the moment as Skype is not in a call.

Start a test call and set your USB handset as the output device.

One problem I have with this is that whenever I unplug my handset the settings are lost and I need to reconfigure each time I reconnect it.

If you, like myself, get frequent phone calls from not so computer literate friends and family to sort out their PC problems then you’ll love WizHelp. It’s a remote screen sharing tool, and best of all, it’s cross-platform as it runs on Java. Well, at least for some platforms The supported/tested OS list is as follows: Windows 2000/NT/XP/Vista, MacOS X, and Ubuntu/Mythbuntu (i386). And more Linux distros are to be supported soon.

Using the site is easy. First sign up for a free account. Then send the link of your personal Help Center to your friends, or just give them your username so they can search for you from the WizHelp front page. Once they access your page you’ll see them pop up in a list:

As you can see in the screenshot you have several options now – initiate a chat session, take control of the remote computer, give control to the remote computer, view the remote screen or share your own. Either yourself, or the person you are helping can initiate a session:

Once the session has been accepted by the other party a Java applet is loaded, the remote desktop is displayed in its own window and you can get to work:

The above screen shot was taken whilst on remote assistance on another Ubuntu box. I also tried it with Windows XP as a client, and it worked just as well.

Considering that most computer problems are often easily solved with just a few clicks (for my friends and family anyway), this will save you a lot of time. No more traveling to people’s homes or waiting for them to drop off their machine for you to fix it. Go on, take WizHelp for a spin.

I found a great program to stitch digital photos together into panoramas – Hugin. It’s really easy to use, pretty much self explanatory. Just load some pictures into Hugin, create control points where the pictures are overlapping to match them up, optimise and stitch them together. Well, that’s the basics. Hugin has got a lot of settings to play around with to adjust the final result. Check out the Hugin home page for tutorials. If you’re a Ubuntu user then you can just install from the repos.

Here’s some I made earlier after walking around Derry’s walls. I pretty much only used the defaults settings and then loaded the panoramas into the GIMP to crop. Click the pictures to view the full sizes on Flickr.

Overlooking the Bogside

St Columb’s Cathedral

Overlooking Fahan Street

Up/Down Magazine Street

Guildhall

Verbal Arts Centre

Overlooking the Bogside. Again.

Oh yeah, Hugin is also available for Mac and Windows.

One of the first applications I get right after a fresh Ubuntu install is Ubuntu Tweak. It’s got a great selection of tweaks for your desktop environment, you can install official and 3rd party software, add document templates and scripts to Nautilus, etc…

Today version 0.4.0 has been released. One of the first things you’ll notice is that TualatriX has removed the large banner at the top. This was done so it actually fits on the screen of Netbooks which have a lower resolution. It also looks much cleaner and fits in better with Gnome.

A new feature that stands out right away is the Package Cleaner in the application section.

Package Cleaner lets you remove any redundant packages that are left over after installing/uninstalling software. You also can remove packages from the cache to free up additional space. Sure, you could quickly remove them with sudo apt-get autoremove and sudo apt-get clean from the command line, but it will be a welcome addition for people not so comfortable with the terminal.

Other not so obvious additions are that the Third Party Software dialogue also now gives you information about the package source and with one click lets you access the developer’s website. You can organise templates and Nautilus scripts now in folders, change the Gnome menu icon, and the User Folders settings can now be reset to defaults.

Check out TualatriX’s release post for more screenshots and details. At the end of the post there are also repos to add to your Hardy or Intrepid sources list. Or just download the deb or source from the download page.

Until not too long ago I still had a Windows XP partition on my laptop. The only reason I still had it was to use Nokia’s PC Suite so i could back up/update my phone, I never booted into Windows for anything else. Then a bad Windows update in combination with the ext2 driver trashed my home partition and I could not log back into my Ubuntu user account. I was pissed. I just happened to have a GParted disk lying on my desk, popped it into the drive and removed Windows and made more room for my main Ubuntu install.

Since then I managed to find ways of syncing my N95 with Ubuntu – multisync works great to sync contacts with Evolution via Bluetooth, ScheduleWorld lets you sync your phone’s calendar with gCal through their Firefox extension via Bluetooth (only seems to work half the time), I can transfer files using Bluetooth and USB, and I can manage my music through Amarok.

Unfortunately all the above are far from ideal as you need different applications for each task. Not to mention that it is impossible for me to upgrade my phone’s firmware without Windows!

Yesterday I sent an email to Nokia to see what their plans were to support other operating systems, considering the amount of people who switch to Linux and Mac OS. Here’s the reply:

Dear Laurent,

Thank you for contacting Nokia Care.

I hope all is well with you. We do understand your current predicament on using the Linux operating system. However at this present time we are unable to confirm if there will be future changes to include Linux as Nokia’s supported operating system. However, I will definitely forward this as a feedback to the relevant department for further review.

We do thank you for highlighting this to us because we appreciate such as constructive feedback from our customers, Laurent.

Out of luck for the time being then.

I tried to get the PC Suite working by running Windows XP in Virtualbox (yeah, I know, but at least it’s not taking up a full partition now or mess with my Ubuntu install ), but USB refuses flat out to connect my phone and Bluetooth connected only once and now keeps giving me an error message each time I try to activate it.

What do you use to sync your phone with Ubuntu/Linux? Do you know of any Symbian applications that help with syncing gCal reliably?

Back in April I wrote a post about scrobbling from S60 phones in which I mentioned mobbler. I have been using it ever since. Until recently you could only scrobble tracks which you played through the Nokia Music Player, but the application has now been updated and you can listen to any of your last.fm streams.

You can skip tracks, adjust volume, it even takes you to the Amazon store to search and purchase the current track. The only option I miss is to love/hate tracks. You can download the latest version here. And there’s a Mobbler Users group on last.fm that you can join.

First the Internets gave us LOLcats. Then LOLgays. And LOLprez. Even Startrek got the LOL treatment. And there’s more, google for them or roll your own.

Now we have LOLcode. Yes, somebody actually went and turned the LOLcat language into a programming language!

HAI! This site provides community documentation of the emergent LOLCODE language. It is our hope that the examples can grow in a way that is both internally consistent and suggest a real, feasible computing language.

Here’s the obligatory ‘Hello Hai World’ example:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

When I first came across the site yesterday afternoon there wasn’t too much content. Now there are already quite a lot of user contributions to develop the code. There’s even a first compiler.

Don’t you just love the Internet?

The only time I boot into Windows nowadays is when I want to play video files and watch them using the TV out on my Radeon 9250. Looks like that could be a thing of the past soon:

AMD will soon deliver open graphics drivers, said Henri Richard just a few minutes ago, and the audience at the opening keynote of the Red Hat Summit broke into applause and cheers. Richard, AMD’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, promised: “I’m here to commit to you that it’s going to get done.” He also promised that AMD is “going to be very proactive in changing way we interface with the Linux community.”

The open sourcing of graphics drivers will indeed be good news, but it’s not a big surprise. After AMD acquired graphics driver maker ATI last year, an announcement that AMD would be opening up graphics drivers has been anticipated. The other shoe has dropped, and the folks at the Summit in San Diego are very happy. Now, the new question is “when?” Richard didn’t say.

Once your digital music collection starts to grow in size it’s a good idea to keep it organised. By that I mean that you tag your music files properly and organise them in a meaningful folder structure. A lot of people I know just rip their CDs, or download tracks, and then simply dump all the files into one big ‘music’ folder. This will make it a nightmare to find anything, especially if tags are missing. Luckily there’s great software available that will make your life easier.

My favourite music player is Amarok. Amarok has got a good tag editor built-in to help you get your collection up to scratch. But I prefer to use EasyTAG, especially for batch editing (it’s available for Windows as well). It doesn’t look very impressive but it’s very configurable. You can fill tags based on folder/file names, look up tags online, create any kind of folder structure you want based on file tags, and it supports all common music file formats.

Before you start decide on a folder/file structure. You can organise your music by genre, artist, artist – album, etc… My preferred method is to organise them as follows: artist/album/track# – title.mp3. Or more visually:

artist name
|
+ album name 1
| |
| + 01 - title 1.mp3
|   02 - title 2.mp3
|   03 - title 3.mp3
+ album name 2
| |
| + 01 - title 1.mp3
|   02 - title 2.mp3
.
.
.

For a chronological order you can also include the release year at the beginnig of the album folder name. I don’t bother with this as I let Amarok take charge of any other organising.

Using EasyTAG is rather straight-forward. The window is divided into 3 panes:

• the folder browser on the left
• the file list in the middle
• the tag editor on the right

To get started select the folder containing the files you want to tag in the left pane. EasyTAG scans it, lists any music files inside it, and selects the first track ready for editing.

Manually fill tags

To edit a single track just type the information into the tag fields. To move on to the next/previous track you can click on it in the file list, but I find it faster to use the PageUp/PageDown keys. You don’t need to save the changes until you finish editing all the files.

To batch edit select all the tracks using CTRL+A. Or use CTRL+click/SHIFT+click to select just some of the tracks. Update the tags and click the little square button at the end of each tag field. If you don’t do this it will only update the last file in your selection!

You can also add album art to your files. You can find most album art on Amazon, or use Google Images. The album art has to be PNG or JPG, so convert it if you can only find a GIF. You might also want to reduce the image size. Save the changes.

Fill tags based on folder/file names

I often convert flac to mp3, and the tags don’t carry over during the conversion. This is where EasyTAG can save you a lot of tedious work and time – as long as your files are properly named. Let’s say you have the following folder/file structure after converting Les Sexareenos’ 14 Frenzied Shakers from flac to mp3:

Les Sexareenos/14 Frenzied Shakers/01 - Ruby D..mp3
Les Sexareenos/14 Frenzied Shakers/02 - We Gonna Ball.mp3
Les Sexareenos/14 Frenzied Shakers/03 - Don't You Know Kokomo.mp3
...

Open the folder in EasyTAG, select all the files (CTRL+A) and open Scanner > Fill Tag(s). Enter the mask based on your folder/file names. For this example you would use

%a/%b/%n - %t

(%a = artist, %b = album, %n = track#, %t = track)

Make sure the scanner window displays the correct tag information below the mask. If you have problems identifying the correct placeholders for the mask then click the Legend button. Click the (green) Scan button and the tags are filled for the selected files. Close the Scanner window and save the changes.

Rename files and folders

Once your files are tagged the way you want them it’s time to rename them. This is very similar to what we did in the previous step. Select all your files and open Scanner > Rename File(s) and Directory. Create your folder/file mask the way you want to rename the tracks and click the Scan button. Close the Scanner window and save to rename.

You can use this as well to automatically move your files into your music folder. For example, I store my music collection in /media/sda1/audio. To get EasyTAG to move the files there whilst renaming them I use the following mask:

/media/sda1/audio/%a/%b/%n - %t

Other useful renaming masks

Album with more than one disk (uses the disk# tag): %a/%b/%d%n - %t

Various artists compilation: Various/%b/%n - %a - %t

And have a look around EasyTAG’s Preferences window as well. There are many useful options like automatically changing the case of filenames and extensions, or converting spaces to underscores.

OpenOffice.org released the latest version of their free open source software alternative to Microsoft Office today. It includes updates for the word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database packages. They also patched some security holes which were recently discovered. Here’s a rundown of the improvements:

• improvement in the quality of text display in all parts of OpenOffice.org due to kerning enabled by default
• enhanced pdf export function with the addition of the optional creation of bookmarks feature
• support for user-definable export of form fields.
• new cosmetic changes available in Vista
• smaller download and install size for Apple Mac users
• Apple Mac Intel version has many stability improvements and bug fixes. Version 2.2 now requires Mac OS X 10.4.x running X11.
• additional enhancements to support MS file formats in Calc
• improved support for Pivot Tables and some specialised trigonometric functions
• improved SQL editing functionality as well as a new Queries within Queries feature for Base
• improved compatibility options for some database drivers
• improvements in the handling of hidden Impress slides.