headwedge

Yet More Mac Envy! 7 ways to make your PC look like a Mac…

headwedge — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:38:31 +0000

From techradar.com (this one is for ectpete)…

Why wait for Windows 7 though? There are loads of ways you can fiddle with Vista’s interface and cheer up the depressing and omnipresent black bars. To show you some of the options out there here are seven tricks for dealing with that most common of Windows’ viruses: Mac-envy.

Ubuntu Eee How To: Mount 8GB Transcend SDHC card as your /Home Step by step Guide

headwedge — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:04:39 +0000

This seems a logical step for many Eee PC owners and the Asus Eee PC Forum has a thread devoted to unraveling this issue [link] but for your convenience here are the steps laid out:

Format the SDHC card
- Use the graphical Gnome Partition Manager to partition all the available space and format the SDHC card file type as ext2 (the journaling of ext3 slows and uses too many writes).
- The Gnome graphical partitioner can be run as supervisor from the terminal:

sudo gparted

-Then follow the menu trail: 1. to select your SDHC card... -GParted –Devices —/dev/sdb


2. to select all the space…

-Partition

–Resize/Move
3. to select file system…

-Partition

–Format to

—ext2
…and then apply the actions.
4. Finally make a note of the default mount point when the tasks are done, you will use this below (usually /media/card)
Move /home to the SDHC card

1. Assuming the SDHC mounted at /media/card  make an exact copy of all the data under /home onto your SD
sudo rsync -av --progress /home/ /media/card/
2. Make a backup copy of /home  
mv /home /home.old
**delete /home.old only when you are content all is working reliably**
3. Unmount the card from its default location
umount /media/card
4. Remount your home folder to the SD card
mount /dev/sdb1 /home
5. Make this change permanent by amending your file system table fstab file
sudo gedit /etc/fstab
add the following line
/dev/sdb1               /home                   ext2     defaults,noatime        1 2
Fix the shutdown unmount corruption error

When shutting down, Ubuntu fails to properly synchronize the buffered data with the SDHC card and fails to gracefully unmount it. This results in the file system consistency check tool fsck automatically running at each boot up to repair the SHDC filesystem. The ultimate forum derived solution [link] seems to be to edit Ubuntu’s shutdown script to take care of the SDHC card appropriately.
1. Edit the unmount file system script umountfs
sudo gedit /etc/init.d/umountfs
2. Add the following lines after the do_stop () { ... } function
sync; sync

eject /dev/sdb1

sleep 3
3. Reboot and all should be working as desired :)
Thanks to all at the forum for this solution.



Asus Eee PC 900 Leather Case Goodness
headwedge — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:58:10 +0000

Yet again the magic that is ‘er in-doors has come up trumps with the best geeky accessory gift a proud new Eee PC owner could wish for.. a leather case!
Amazon have this hand made soft leather case for the 900 series at a great price [link]
I particularly like the pouches for your SD Cards and business cards. 

If you want to contribute to my flickr eee-pc page please feel free to login and upload some pics… [link]



Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1
headwedge — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:20:19 +0000

The first thing that you should do with your new Eee PC is replace the Asus/Xandros Linux with Ubuntu Eee!
The folks over at Ubuntu Eee [link] have taken the Ubuntu Netbook Remix Interface and served up something special for the Eee…
Ubuntu Eee is not only Ubuntu optimized for the Asus Eee PC. It’s an operating system, using the Netbook Remix interface, which favors the best software available instead of open source alternatives (ie. Skype instead of Ekiga).
For me the window management system squeezes the most out of the 9″ screen and liberates the user wanting a more grown up OS/GUI than the Eee comes out of the box with.
I like the Ubuntu Eee site and wiki [link] but I don’t agree with their idea to change the name of Ubunte Eee to something obscure and, therefore, lose 2 of the biggest search terms that get bums on seats at their website.
I was also sorry to see their donation metre for 2008 was a bit a low & did my own small bit.
Perhaps if you follow the steps [link] to install Ubuntu Eee on your machine you might feeling like helping too…?



Eee PC 900 Unboxing - Hurrah!
headwedge — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:02:30 +0000

My wonderful wife bought a present for me, an early Christmas present as it happens, the wonderful little Asus  Eee PC 900 [link] Now, normally being a couple of geeks we would have unboxed the little machine together but due to fact I had to go to work and couldn’t wait until I got home here are the unboxing pictures… 

Check out my flickr group for the Eee-PC at www.flickr.com/eee-pc [link]

Go on, go on, go on, you know you want to…



Mac Parallels vs Fusion 2, VMware raises the bar (?)
headwedge — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:23:49 +0000

Don’t get me wrong but Parallels is my favourite Windoze surrogate but the Ars Technica Review of VMware Fusion 2 for Mac might be changing that…
VMware 2.0’s grown-up form combines an improved interface with some major low-level features, like support for DirectX 9.0c 3D, four-way SMP, driverless printing, and tighter Mac desktop integration. That’s a pretty significant list that should make this release very appealing.

read more | digg story



Rumors of Mac Mini’s death premature (again)?
headwedge — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:19:55 +0000

With the rumor mill trying to chew up the Mac Mini again AppleInsider has reassuring article with a crazy server farm example of mini’s potency…
“With Apple’s recent ‘State of the Mac’ omitting any mention of the Mac mini and reports surfacing over the current line’s discontinuation, there’s been some speculation that the diminutive desktop’s days may (again) be numbered. That’s unlikely the case, say insiders, who are sharing new details.”



read more | digg story



Free Alternatives to 10 Popular Commercial Mac Applications
headwedge — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:54:55 +0000


The team over at www.makeuseof.com have a blog that mostly covers web apps, but they’re trying to cover many bases: from web apps, Windows apps and now Mac apps…
“List of the most frequently used Mac applications and provided a free counterpart for each of them. Hopefully, they’ll serve you as well as the paid versions.“

read more | digg story



Garlic In The Rain
headwedge — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:19:45 +0000
Went for a walk with the dogs in our local wood which, delightfully, is called ‘Nutwood’ [link]. It had just finished raining and the pungent aroma from the wild garlic (Allium ursinum) was amazing.[link]
The wild garlic grows in woodland, in near or among the bluebells, and is a wonderful sign of spring. 
Pictures of wild garlic and bluebells in Nutwood:




























Linux C++ Programming - Setting Up Ubuntu: autoconf, automake, libtools, acmkdir
headwedge — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:15:27 +0000

Producing code to the GNU coding standards requires setting up your system appropriately.
step 0
Download and read the free book ‘Developing software with GNU’    [link]
step 1
Ensure Free Software Foundation tools are present and up to date:
apt-get install make    [link]

apt-get install m4    [link]

apt-get install texinfolink]

apt-get install tar    [link]
step 2
Install the GNU build system:
apt-get install autoconf    [link]

apt-get install automake    [link]

apt-get install libtool    [link]
step 3
There is a hiccup with autotoolset    [link]

as it does not exist in any of the repositories and can only be downloaded as an rpm package.
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/autotoolset/...

...autotoolset-0.11.4-1.i386.rpm?modtime=1055116800&big_mirror=0
It must, therefore, be converted to a debian package with alien.
Install alien:

    sudo apt-get install alien    [link]
Convert rpm:

    sudo alien autotoolset-0.11.4-1.i386.rpm
Depackage and install resulting deb package

    sudo dpkg -i autotoolset_0.11.4-2_i386.deb    [link]
N.B.
I had a problem running the wonderfully useful acmkdir script getting the error
/usr/bin/acmkdir: 24: function: not found
Go figure?
 and had to call the shell directly:
$SHELL acmkdir helloworld